George Hawi جورج حاوي | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 5 November 1938 |
| Died | 21 June 2005 (aged 66) |
| Occupation | General Secretary (1979–1993) |
| Predecessor | Nicolas Shawi |
| Successor | Farouk Dahrouj |
| Political party | Lebanese Communist Party Democratic Left Movement[citation needed] |
George Hawi (Arabic:جورج حاوي; born 5 November 1938 – 21 June 2005) was aLebanesepolitician and former secretary general of theLebanese Communist Party (LCP). An outspoken critic of Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs, he was killed in 2005 by a bomb placed under the passenger seat of his car. Lebanese people accused the Syrian government of assassinating him. He was the stepfather of the Lebanese Armenian politician Rafi Madayan, who also has a stepson, Charbel Khalifeh Hachem.[1]
George Hawi was born in the village ofBteghrine, Lebanon on 5 November 1938 to a Lebanese family.[2] Although born into anAntiochianGreek Orthodox Christian family, Hawi professed to be anatheist.[3][4]
He became active in student politics in his early years at university, participating in numerousstrikes and demonstrations and in severalpopular movements. He joined the LCP in 1955[2] and became one of the main leaders of its Student League by the end of the decade. In 1955 he became a member of the LCP which had been illegal in Lebanon.[4]
In 1964, he was imprisoned for his involvement in a strike against Lebanon's state-controlledtobacco manufacturer. In 1969 he was again in prison for participation in a demonstration on 23 April in support of thePalestinian cause, and again in 1970 for his part in attacking anarmy detachment.
Hawi was briefly expelled from the LCP in 1967 for calling for more independence from the policies of theSoviet Union. He rejoined the Party and was elected a member of its political bureau in the second and third congresses in 1968 and 1972. Hawi was elected as the general secretary of theLebanese Communist Party after its fourth congress in 1979 – a position he kept until 1993 when he resigned.[2] He was the fourth general secretary of the party followingFuad Shemali,Farajallah el-Helou and Nicolas Shawi. He was succeeded by Farouk Dahrouj.
During theLebanese Civil War Hawi, who used thekunya-stylenom de guerre "Abu Anis", established the Popular Guard, the LCP militia, which was aligned with theLebanese National Movement (LNM) ofDruze leaderKamal Jumblatt in its opposition to theMaronite-dominated government andChristian-backedmilitias.
The LCP was also active in theguerrilla warfare againstIsrael and its proxy militia, theSouth Lebanon Army (SLA), in southern Lebanon, after theIsraeli invasion in 1982. During the invasion he created theLebanese National Resistance Front together withMuhsin Ibrahim. LNRF was commanded byElias Atallah. At later stages of the war, the LCP under Hawi allied withSyria, which had entered Lebanon in 1976, but was to stay in the country for nearly 30 years.
He became a critic of the influence ofDamascus onLebanon late in his life, after having left the LCP in 2000. In 2004, he supported the foundation of theleftistDemocratic Left Movement (DLM)[citation needed], that was against the Syrian presence in Lebanon and participated in theIndependence Uprising of 2005. MurderedjournalistSamir Kassir was a prominent member and co-founder of this group.
In June 2005, Hawi claimed in an interview withAl Jazeera, thatRifaat al-Assad, brother ofHafez al-Assad and uncle of Syria's formerPresidentBashar al-Assad, had been behind the killing of Jumblatt.[5]
George Hawi was assassinated on 21 June 2005 when a bomb planted in his Mercedes car was detonated by remote control, as he travelled throughBeirut's Wata Musaitbi neighbourhood.[6][7][8] A nearly one-pound charge was placed under his seat,[9] and was detonated by remote control.[8] His driver survived, but Hawi was mortally wounded in the blast.[8] Several sources including theMarch 14 Alliance and members of the Western media immediately blamed Syria for his killing and for the other explosions in the capital though a definitive culprit has yet to be found.
In August 2011, theSpecial Tribunal for Lebanon informed members of Hawi's family that they had found a link between his murder and that of former Lebanese Prime MinisterRafic Hariri.[10] The link according to sources isUnit 121, the assassination squad of Hezbollah.[11][12][13] The STL had previously issued indictments against members ofHezbollah for the Hariri killing.
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