Rafik Hariri, a billionaire contractor who plunged into the maelstrom of Lebanese politics to rebuild his war-ravaged country and twice served as prime minister, died on Monday in a huge car bomb explosion in Beirut. He was 60. Mr. Hariri, who had always surrounded himself with bodyguards and lived in a heavily fortified compound, was killed when the bomb hit his motorcade in the city center that he helped restore. He had served as prime minister a total of 10 years, stepping down last fall over Syrian interference in Lebanon.
Born poor in southern Lebanon, Mr. Hariri was a self-made man who amassed a fortune building hotels, palaces and conference centers for the royal family in Saudi Arabia, and remained very close to the Saud family. He was as extravagant in his charitable works as he was in his big-game hunting, yachts, private jets and multimillion-dollar real estate projects. Always impeccably dressed, he was stout with bushy eyebrows and a commanding manner. As a politician, though, he was obliged to keep his domineering nature in check to placate Lebanon's powerful neighbor, Syria.
While Mr. Hariri was accused by some Lebanese of driving the country into debt with his ambitious rebuilding plans, he was also praised as the architect of its rebirth and renewed confidence after the devastation of 15 years of civil war, from 1975 to 1990. He was a well-known figure in Washington and European capitals, where he was largely successful in obtaining Western help to overcome Lebanon's intermittent financial crisis. Yet his political fortunes were always hostage to his up-and-down relations with Syria's presidents, now Bashar al-Assad and before him his father, Hafez al-Assad. For the most part, he appeared to steer an even course. Unlike some of the more impetuous Lebanese clan and religious leaders, Mr. Hariri carefully avoided direct criticism of Syria's role as Lebanon's overlord.
Yet his frustration with the limits that Damascus set sometimes showed. In an interview with The Boston Globe in 1993, he was asked whether the ubiquitous portrait of the elder Mr. Assad on every wall of the old Beirut airport was a problem for him. "It's not a problem to put it up," Mr. Hariri said. "It's a problem to take it down." His long-running rivalry with Émile Lahoud, the pro-Syrian Lebanese president, defined much of his political career. It prompted him to resign in 1998, after his first six years in office. He was re-elected in 2000. His irritation with Mr. Lahoud drove him to another break last year. When Damascus insisted on keeping Mr. Lahoud in office beyond the constitutional limit, Mr. Hariri resigned, a move that was widely interpreted as a definitive rupture with Syria. He had a big enough bloc in Parliament that he could have stopped Syria's order last summer to amend the Constitution to extend Mr. Lahoud's term. He agreed not to after traveling to Damascus and then to the office of Syrian intelligence, which serves as a kind of proconsul in Lebanon. He appeared for the hastily called Parliament vote on the constitutional change with his left arm in a sling from a fall, leading to jokes that the Syrians had twisted it too hard.
The downtown area was already plastered with freshly printed Lahoud posters and pre-positioned fireworks went off as soon as the vote was taken. "He could bypass criticizing Syria because he was able to criticize people who were supporting Syria, like Lahoud," said Edward S. Walker, a former American diplomat who knew Mr. Hariri from his service in the Middle East. "But he never went so far as to make himself a direct target."
Mr. Hariri was born in 1944 in Sidon, an ancient port city on the Mediterranean. The son of a vegetable vendor, he earned a degree in business administration at Arab University in Beirut and then chose the path taken by many enterprising young Arabs of his day: In 1965, he left home to seek his fortune in Saudi Arabia. After a short stint as a teacher, he turned to construction, amassing a fortune in the building frenzy that swept the kingdom in the early years of its oil boom. He became a favorite of the Saudi royal family, even gaining Saudi citizenship, a connection that would prove invaluable after he returned to Lebanon and sought to re-establish its reputation as a tourism and financial center after the civil war.
Mr. Hariri's charitable works - among them a hospital, a teaching university and scholarships for Lebanese students - first reintroduced him to his homeland and grew in tandem with his expanding financial interests. He invested heavily in the reconstruction of central Beirut along the former Green Line, which separated warring militias during the war, and later formed television and radio stations in Lebanon. Although there was some initial criticism, the downtown is now an architectural gem and very popular, particularly with tourists during the summer, when the outdoor cafes are buzzing until 3 a.m. Mr. Hariri's political career began in 1983, one year after an Israeli invasion of Lebanon and at a time when the country was paralyzed by sectarian fighting. He arrived as an envoy of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, with a mandate to mediate between sectarian militias, dodging bullets in typically swashbuckling fashion as his small plane flew into the besieged capital. His mission failed that time, but he was later involved in the successful Saudi effort to end the war and establish the Syrian military as a peacekeeping force.
Under Lebanon's Constitution, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim like Mr. Hariri. He was first appointed prime minister in 1992, in the hope that his reputation as a savvy businessman would attract investment and restore confidence in the shattered Lebanese economy, and held onto the post after the country's first postwar elections in 1996. When he first took office, he pledged to lead the country in a "quantum leap" to the future. "I want to go down in the history books," he said at the time, "as the man who resurrected Beirut." Regularly cited as one of the richest men in the world, Mr. Hariri did some of that resurrection with his own money. He was a major shareholder in Solidere, the private company set up to rebuild downtown Beirut, and reportedly paid $10 million for the project's engineering plans. While he was able to pursue an independent economic policy, one that provided wealthy Syrians a safe haven for their money, Mr. Hariri had little control over Lebanon's foreign policy. The militant Shiite party, Hezbollah, supported by Syria and Iran, was left in control over southern Lebanon for years, operating without consultation or coordination with Mr. Hariri's government.
When Hezbollah attacked an Israeli patrol at the border in 2001, prompting a retaliatory airstrike by Israel, for example, Mr. Hariri said he was not surprised that he had not been given advance notice. "Maybe they wanted to make a point that they don't take advice from the government," he said. Last September, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Syria to respect the sovereignty of Lebanon. The vote followed the moves by pro-Syria politicians in Lebanon to change the Constitution to allow President Lahoud to remain in office. Mr. Hariri, while making his opposition known, acquiesced to the change. Then he resigned. Before his death, he had been promoting a new movement he called Al Mustaqbal (The Future), and seemed intent on remaining in Lebanese politics.
He is survived by his wife, Nazik Hariri, and six children.
Source: New York Times
