The Times
December 16, 2005
Gebran TueniSeptember 15, 1957 - December 12, 2005Lebanese editor and politician who campaigned courageously to end the Syrian occupation of his country
THE assassination in Beirut of Gebran Tueni can, without risk of exaggeration, be described as a national disaster for Lebanon and, in particular, for its dwindling Christian community.
The sole heir of a line of journalists and politicians who had, since the end of the Ottoman Empire, struggled to preserve the unique character of Lebanon in the region, Tueni had recently established himself as a fearless, intelligent and persistent champion of his country’s independence as a tiny but democratic state conscious of its roots in the Crusader kingdoms of the Levant in the 12th century, and an even older history in ancient Phoenicia.
He and his family also championed communal tolerance in a tragically fractious society. His father, Ghassan, a Greek Orthodox Christian, married a Druze, the late poet Nadia Hamadeh, when such unions were rare, and his grandfather, also Gebran, had founded the liberal newspaper An-Nahar in 1933 under the French mandate to inspire the emerging nation with the ideals of the European Enlightenment.
Under their care, the paper has become what many observers regard as perhaps the only credible daily journal published on Arab soil. Tueni himself managed and edited it for the past decade, but he had previously been shaped by it as much as it had been shaped by his family.
Gebran Ghassan Tueni was born in 1957 when his father was both An-Nahar’s publisher and a member of parliament, at times in government and at other times in prison.
But amid the risks and the excitement, young Gebran’s life as the elder son of the family was both comfortable and inspiring. He spent time in France and, from 1977 to 1980, obtained two degrees at the Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Internationales. But previously, at the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1976, he had come close to dying. He was shot in the legs by Palestinian gunmen and, a year later, abducted for 36 hours by right-wing Christian militiamen.
In 1987 the death of his sole surviving sibling, his younger brother Makram, in a car accident in France made him the only heir to the publishing house, as well as the only custodian of the family’s political future.
In 1990, when Syrian forces occupied Beirut and ended Prime Minister Michel Aoun’s attempt to expel them from the country, Tueni fled to France and established a political weekly, An-Nahar Arab and International. He also took another degree, this time in management, from CEDEP-INSEAD in Fontainebleau. In 1993 he returned and joined An-Nahar as a journalist.
This coexistence with the Syrian occupation continued until March 2000, in the dying weeks of the former President, Hafez al-Assad, when Tueni published an editorial calling on Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon after 24 years, in the name of keeping its peace. The daring outburst brought him to international prominence, for at the time any such act of defiance usually ended in abduction, torture or even assassination. But Tueni had judged the mood of most of his countrymen well. The movement gathered pace steadily after Bashar Assad succeeded his father as president in Damascus and came under sustained pressure from the United States for the policy of helping the government of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad to bypass UN sanctions. This continued after the overthrow of the regime in Baghdad when Damascus allowed Islamist extremists to use its territory to reach the new Iraq to fight the US-led coalition there.
In the wake of the assassination in February in Beirut of the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Tueni played a central part in mobilising the public’s demonstration of grief and anger, which was crucial subsequently in forcing Syria to withdraw its uniformed forces from the country. In May he was elected to parliament for the Greek Orthodox constituency in Beirut in alliance with Saad Hariri, the late Prime Minister’s son, and Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader.
However, while the new coalition succeeded in forming a government, opposition to its central strategy of making Lebanon completely free of Syrian influence continued in the form of the incumbent President Emille Lahoud and the two Shia militias, Hezbollah and Amal.
In August Tueni fled to France once more. His name had been found heading a list of more Lebanese figures to be eliminated, and in his evidence to the UN commission investigating the Hariri murder, he testified that the late Prime Minister had told him he had been directly threatened in Damascus by the new President Assad.
Tueni returned to Beirut once more on December 11 determined to take strenuous security measures to protect his life. But the next day, as his armoured limousine took him to his office in the city, a large explosion proved more than a match for it. The car was thrown into a ravine, killing him, his driver and a passer-by. Just before his death, he had urged the UN to set up another commission of inquiry to look into the mass graves found near a former Syrian base in eastern Lebanon. The remains are thought to be of former Lebanese army soldiers abducted by the Syrians.
Though deeply attached to Arab culture, Tueni was not popular outside Lebanon. In particular, he was not forgiven for his high-profile celebration of the fall of the genocidal regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003, saying in a television report from Basra that the regime could not have been overthrown except by a Western force.
Tueni took risks with his life even outside politics. His hobbies included flying.
He is survived by his wife, Siham Ossaili, and their four young daughters.
Gebran Tueni, journalist and politician, was born on September 15, 1957. He was assassinated on December 12, 2005, aged 48.