daniel splittgerber (.com)

The Tribunal Investigations of the Hariri Murder: a UN cover-up? And what it says about journalism

26 May 2009 with 3 comments

The bomb that killed Rafiq al-Hariri weighed more than 2,000 pounds and left a crater 30 feet wide. On Valentine’s Day 2005, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and 21 others were killed and more than 200 wounded by the massive car bomb in Beirut.

Eight months later, a report to the UN about Hariri’s assassination outlined a plot of astonishing complexity: a mysteriously reduced security detail, remarkably detailed intelligence on his movements and the moving of the truck into position just one minute and 49 seconds prior to the convoy passing by – all of this bore the hallmarks of a government-sponsored assassination. It implicated if not Syrian President Bashar Assad directly, then at least his inner circle.

The violent death of a charismatic figure created a huge hole in Lebanese politics – just at the time when there was a rising backlash in the country against Syrian influence in the region and its own territory.

There has been an endless meddling with investigations by the UN – its International Independent Investigation Commission is a farce and most probably a disguise for a politically-agreed “blame scenario” to settle the issue and to further Syria’s standing in the peace process.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise though, that there seems to be a “breakthrough” in tribunal investigations as new evidence – obtained by Der Spiegel, a German magazine – seems to point to Hezbollah as being behind the Hariri murder.

This quite obviously reeks of a political cover-up by the UN commission.

An intact Syrian leadership may be needed to further the Middle East peace process – so it may be deemed inappropriate to implicate it in a murder of such prominence.

Whatever the reasons behind “new” evidence being discovered and dispersed among the press, it sure is surprising that Hezbollah is coming up as the villain for the first time ever.

Then why are obvious questions not being asked? Why are journalists contend to write about a “breakthrough“, when it just reeks of a cover-up and the explanation for Hezbollah’s involvement is far-fetched?

The UN has failed time and time again – just think of the Oil-for-Food Programme, Kofi Annan’s questionable role in it etc – to provide truthful statements about areas of conflict and dispute and has confined itself to obscuring the truth and giving in to political meddling in too many instances.

If someone gets payed, as journalists do, to ask at least the obvious questions and to go beyond face-value and to report about the conclusions they draw, and by all means fails in that respect, then I am not willing to pay money – and more importantly respect – for that kind of journalism anymore.

Consider me utterly unconvinced, dear Spiegel, of your reporting standards.

If a murdered Prime Minister doesn’t seem to call for your highest standards of diligence in reporting, then what does?

Robert Harneis

Your judgement of this pathetic piece of journalistic manipulation is fair. It comes so conveniently just before Hezbollah is in danger of winning an election despite an electoral system loaded against them. However your assumption that the cover up is supposed to protect Syria seems a little hasty. A governmental source yes but why Syria against whom not the tiniest piece of evidence has been found despite the most enthusiastic efforts of the first UN investigator?

Which governments benefited from the assassination or at least thought they would? Hardly Syria who lost their foothold in Lebanon and risked an invasion by the then rather more gung-ho US government. There are two other fairly obvious candidates. First Israel whose expansionist plans for the region backed by the US Bush administration seemed to know no bounds. They above all had the technology and the organisation on the ground. Then there is the unmentionable candidate the United States itself who clearly had plans to manoeuvre NATO into some sort of occupying role in the Lebanon. Apart from a stack of other enemies, Hariri was opposed to the plans that both of these ruthless and expansionist operators had for the Lebanon. He did not want his country to become a battlefield as became possible and a reality after the assassination and the departure of the Syrians.
http://nullrisiko.biz Daniel

Thank you for commenting. You agreed with my main point, the questionable journalistic piece. That is great to hear.

You may indeed be right – I may have been a bit hasty in my assessment concerning Syria. But I still believe it to be plausible.

First of all, there is and was sufficient evidence at least not to dismiss Syrian involvement or responsibility. The Mehlis report, named after the first UN investigator, stated that “Maher al-Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleyman and Jamil al-Sayyed” were behind the killing; the first one being the brother of the Syrian President, all else being senior Syrian and Lebanese officials. Some witnesses may have been unreliable at the time. But I suppose it still fits into a general theme. Syrian President Al-Assad supposedly threatened Hariri in 2004; former Syrian vice-president Khaddam even went on television to implicate Assad by stating that Assad had personally threatened Hariri shortly beforehand. Also, in the aftermath of the Hariri assassination, many other anti-Syrian figures and vocal critics of the Syrian presence in Lebanon were killed in bombings, which hints at a broader plan to weaken anti-Syrian elements in Lebanon.
So I think that the Syrian government benefited a fair bit from all those deaths. It may be implicated and have less political clout for the time being, but Lebanon was still weakened enough from their standpoint.

An involvement by both Israel or the US doesn’t strike me quite as obvious. It would have made some strategic sense for them at the time being – especially as Syria had a bad standing in the US at the time – but ultimately I don’t consider it as realistic as a Syrian involvement. The US were already quite stretched with their occupational roles elsewhere and I didn’t get any grasp of imminent NATO plans to occupy Lebanon?
Also, it reeks a bit of a conspiracy theory – given a prominent book by Jürgen Cain Külbel blaming Israeli and US involvement, which I have not read but seems to be perceived more as a political POV-style book than an accurate account of factual research.

Would love to see some additional elaboration on your points!
http://nullrisiko.biz Daniel

There is a great post by David Kenner at Foreign Policy, which also raises good questions about the quality of the Spiegel piece and has interesting considerations concerning Hezbollah’s (non-)involvement.

The Tribunal Investigations of the Hariri Murder: a UN cover-up? And what it says about journalism