Assassination of the Assassin: Elias Hobeika (1956-2002)
The following is
the story of Elias Hobeika, who lived and died turbulently as one of
the most controversial figures in Lebanon’s modern history.
Born in the
Maronite stronghold of Kiserwan in 1956, Elias Hobeika began his
political career at the height of the PLO’s supremacy in Lebanon,
where Yasser Arafat’s forces had come for sanctuary after their
expulsion from Jordan in 1970. In 1972, Hobeika joined the pan-Maronite
Phalange Party of Bashir Gemayel. The two spoke out against the
Palestinian presence, calling for Arafat’s expulsion from Lebanon
and accusing the PLO of having occupied Beirut and abandoned its
struggle for Palestine.
Hobeika championed
Gemayel’s charismatic leadership and advocated increased Maronite
hegemony in Lebanon. Gemayel appointed him director of the Phalange
intelligence unit and leader of the party’s military apparatus,
called the Lebanese Forces (LF). During the country’s civil war, he
was code-named “H.K.,” after an automatic machine gun called a
“Heckler and Koch,” used in the battle of Karantina in 1978.
When, in an effort
to secure a Palestinian exodus from Lebanon, the Phalange allied
itself with Israel in 1980, Hobeika became the party’s link to Tel
Aviv. He traveled frequently to Israel, meeting with then-Prime
Minister Menahem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, and helped
orchestrate the Israeli invasion of Beirut in June 1982. By then he
had become the party’s second-in-command.
In September of
that year, Bashir Gemayel, who recently had been elected president
of the republic, was assassinated in Beirut. Many speculated that
Hobeika might have been responsible, since Gemayel was the only
obstacle to his ascension to party leadership. Hobeika denied the
charges, however, wept for Gemayel, then collaborated with the
party’s traditional leaders to expel Gemayel family ally and LF
commander Fou’ad Abu Nadir from his post in 1983. Hobeika became
head of the party’s executive committee and his ally Samir Gagegea,
a trained medical doctor, was appointed chief of staff.
In revenge for the
killing of Gemayel, Hobeika led a crack force of LF warriors into
the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in September 1982, giving his
troops orders to “kill anyone in sight.” Old men, women and children
were mowed down in one of the ugliest bloodbaths of the Arab world.
In all, an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 Palestinian civilians were
killed. The slaughter had such negative repercussions that Sharon
was removed from his post for having known of the massacre in
advance and having abetted its execution. Hobeika, however, shrugged
it off, refusing to mention it in public. Soon afterward, however,
Hobeika clashed with Gagegea, and on Jan. 15, 1986, Hobeika was
ousted from his post and banished from the ranks of the Phalange
party, never to return.
Hobeika drifted
into the Syrian orbit when it became evident that Damascus would get
the upper hand in Lebanon. He traveled to the Syrian capital, met
with President Hafez Al-Assad, and promised to relinquish all ties
to Israel and work to end the civil war under Syrian auspices. On
Dec. 28, 1985, Hobeika signed the Tripartite Agreement in Damascus
with Shiite and Druze leaders Nabih Berri and Walid Jumblatt.
Brokered by Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam, it called for
an immediate cease-fire between the warring militias.
Back in Beirut,
Hobeika began plotting his comeback, and the elimination of Samir
Gagegea. On Sept. 28, 1986, from his headquarters in Beirut’s posh
Verdun neighborhood, Hobeika sent a group of militiamen into East
Beirut under cover of the Syrian army. This time his orders were to
“capture and kill the doctor.” An earlier agreement with Lebanese
army commander Michel Aoun guaranteed that government troops would
turn a blind eye and let Hobeika’s forces attack Gagegea.
In the midst of
the fighting, however, war planes arrived and began shelling
Hobeika’s troops. It was revealed that President Amin Gemayel (Bashir’s
elder brother, who was elected president following Bashir’s
assassination) had learned of the offensive and, eager to strike at
Syria, had journeyed to army headquarters himself and ordered the
raid on Hobeika’s men.
As a result,
Hobeika’s operation failed, and he was briefly exiled to Damascus.
Before leaving Beirut, he demonstrated further goodwill toward Asad
by shutting down the LF office in Jerusalem and severing all ties
with his former ally, Ariel Sharon.
Hobeika returned
to Lebanon at the end of the Gemayel presidency, in 1988. When
General Aoun became Lebanon’s next head of state—although one
subject to a strong Syrian veto—Hobeika served as an intermediary
between Asad and Aoun, visiting the general frequently at the Baabda
Palace to try to secure his allegiance to Syria. Hobeika’s efforts
were in vain, however, and on Oct. 30, 1990 Damascus ordered a
massive operation ousting General Aoun from Baabda and replacing him
as president with the civilian politician Elias Hrawi.
As a reward for
his services, in January 1990 Hobeika was appointed minister of
state in Prime Minister Omar Karami’s government. His bloody past
was written off and he was portrayed as a serious, hard-working and
“patriotic” cabinet member. By all accounts, he took his ministerial
post seriously and put forth great effort to present himself as a
politician and not as a wartime militia leader.
Further breaking
with his past, Hobeika founded his own party, the Wataniyya
Almaniyya Dimuqratiyya Party (the National Secular Democratic
Party), or Waad (“Promise”) for short, and served as its
secretary-general. In May 1990, he was elected as a member of
parliament from Beirut. In October 1991 he became minister of the
displaced and in October 1992 was appointed minister of social
affairs. In June 1993, under Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, Hobeika
was appointed minister of electricity, a post he held until 1995. In
the summer of 1996, having again won the Maronite parliamentary seat
for Baabda, he was reappointed minister of water and electricity.
In 1980, Hobeika
became the Lebanese Forces’ link to Tel Aviv.
Hobeika toyed with
the idea of nominating himself for the presidency in 1998, but
backed down when the Syrians refused to endorse his program. With
Hariri’s backing, he met with Gaegea before the latter was sentenced
to life imprisonment in 1994. The meeting took place at Hariri’s
residence, and Hobeika called for reconciliation with his
archenemy—but under Syrian conditions. “The logic that unites us is
that my death means your life and vice-versa,” he told his former
ally. “I do not want to bequeath this struggle to my child and don’t
want you to bequeath it to yours. I want to see if we can live on
the same soil without one of us sending the other to the grave.”
To Hobeika’s
surprise, Geagea’s response was negative.
Matters became
shaky again for the former warlord in 1999, when his ex-bodyguard,
Robert Maroun Hatem (nicknamed “Cobra”), published a book entitled
From
Israel to
Damascus.
In it he confirmed
Hobeika’s implication in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Hatem
accused Hobeika of having killed his own daughter, Sabine, in 1982
and of bedding the wives and daughters of Lebanon’s political elite.
Hobeika also was accused of having plotted to murder then-Education
Minister Salim Hoss in 1984.
When Hoss became
prime minister in September 2000 the matter was brought to court. In
his memoirs, published in 2001, Hoss confirmed that Hobeika was
behind the failed assassination. Hobeika was killed, however, before
a verdict in the case was reached.
Immediately upon
the publication of Hatem’s book, other accusations unfolded against
Hobeika—including the 1978 assassination of Zhgorta MP Tony
Franjiyyieh, the 1982 abduction of four Iranian diplomats, the
kidnapping of businessman Roger Tamraz, and a 1985 car bomb that
severely injured Sidon MP Moustapha Saad and killed his daughter,
Natasha. Hatem also charged that Hobeika had tried to kill Druze
leader Walid Jumblatt and “might have been responsible” for the 1982
assassination of Bashir Gemayel.
Hobeika boldly
appeared on national television and confessed to having killed
people during the war. “It was not just me who killed,” he added,
however. “If you’re going to open old files, there are a number of
people who should be brought to stand trial with me.”
Hobeika was
referring in particular to Druze leader Jumblatt, who by then was
one of the country’s most celebrated statesmen, and Shi’i leader
Nabih Berri, the current speaker of parliament.
Following the
storm of accusations Hobeika suffered a political slump, and
complained of being “left out” of the country’s political order. Out
of office, and apparently losing his popularity in Lebanon, Hobeika
decided to give his career a face lift. He re-established ties with
the Syrians, journeyed to Damascus to attend Asad’s funeral in 2000,
and proposed to resurrect the disbanded LF under his leadership, and
with a pro-Syrian agenda. Hard-line Maronites objected to his
return, however, claiming that he had become a puppet of Syria and
would destroy the party’s Christian spirit.
During the summer
of 2001, Hobeika met frequently with President Emile Lahoud,
pleading with him to endorse the project. The president, another
Syrian protégé, welcomed Hobeika’s proposal, yet put off an
endorsement until the second half of 2002.
On Jan. 23, 2002
Hobeika broke his long silence on the Sabra and Shatila affair,
declaring before a group of visiting Belgian senators that he would
be willing to testify in Brussels against Ariel Sharon and prove
that the Christians were innocent of the Sabra and Shatila horror.
Hobeika claimed to have enough proof against Sharon to convict the
Israeli of genocide and keep him in chains for life. Speaking to
reporters, he chuckled, “I expect to be killed. I am surprised to
have made it for so long.”
Two days later, on
Jan. 25, Elias Hobeika was killed in a massive blast as he drove
from his home in East Beirut.
The bomb-rigged
Mercedes was parked on the side of a narrow road next to Hobeika’s
residence. When Hobeika drove out of his garage, the Mercedes
exploded, the force of the blast hurling his body 50 meters away,
killing his three bodyguards, and reducing his Range Rover to a pile
of twisted metal.
Investigators said
they believed two people were involved in the assassination, one
giving a signal when Hobeika’s car rolled out of the garage, and the
other detonating the car bomb by remote control. Hobeika landed on
the nearby sidewalk, face down, with parts of his body laying on the
ground and his bones blackened by the blast. Hearing the 22-pound
TNT explosion, many residents of Beirut’s Dikwaneh and Sin al-Fil
neighborhoods, some two miles away, initially mistook the blast for
a sonic boom caused by frequent Israeli low-altitude overflights.
Hobeika’s
supporters immediately rushed to the scene, sobbing, “They killed
President Hobeika!” and repeatedly calling out his wartime nickname,
“H.K.” The next morning, however, Beirut’s Daily Star
newspaper said of him, “Few who knew of Hobeika’s career will miss
him.”
Hobeika’s death
has, of course, raised many questions: Who killed him and why? Does
his assassination signal the return of war to Lebanon? Was it a
declaration of war against Syria and its allies? Was it an attack on
traditional Maronite leadership? Or was it intended to keep Hobeika
from testifying against Ariel Sharon?
The answer may be
a combination of all of the above. During his turbulent life Elias
Hobeika managed to accumulate an array of enemies. Without doubt,
many have benefitted greatly from his murder. At the head of the
line is Ariel Sharon. The Israeli prime Minister has been burdened
with the Belgian trials, trying to shrug off his image as a war
criminal and portray himself as a serious statesman. Ironically, in
fact, Sharon’s position was in many ways identical to Hobeika’s. To
date, Sharon has denied his involvement in the 1982 massacres,
claiming instead that it was Hobeika and the Lebanese Christians who
opened fire on the Palestinian civilians. Hobeika, however, had
given a different story and promised to “reveal” more when the trial
opened in Brussels.
The widespread
accusation that Sharon was involved in Hobeika’s assassination has
been endorsed officially by Lebanon and Syria as well. The theory
has its loopholes, however. If Sharon in fact decided to kill
Hobeika following the latter’s meeting with the Belgians, could he
have done it so quickly? There was only a 48-hour time span between
Hobeika’s meeting and his death, and it would take weeks, even
months, to plan such a precise assassination. Hobeika was killed
instantly, after all, and the explosion took place in one of the
neighborhood’s least populated spots. That was no accident—the
perpetrators, had they wished, could have killed Hobeika anywhere,
inflicting maximum damage on many civilians as well. However, it was
specifically arranged that only Hobeika (and his bodyguards) would
be the victims. Such precision could not possibly have been arranged
in 48 hours.
It is also
certain, however, that the assassination was very professional—the
result, most probably, of lengthy planning, costly equipment and
trained manpower. Small-time organizations would be incapable of
carrying out such a high-tech assassination. This swings speculation
right back to Israel—because only Tel Aviv has the skill to murder
someone with such style. It was a great gamble, after all, to
assassinate “the assassinator”—someone who, one supposes, was always
on guard.
This raises
another question: how is it that “the assassinator” allowed himself
to be killed? Hobeika had studied dangerous routes for years—why did
he take a route he knew to be unsafe? The road on which he was
killed had been paved only a week earlier and had not yet been
examined by his bodyguards. Following the blast, it was apparent
that Hobeika had been wearing a bulletproof vest—expecting to be
shot at, perhaps, but not blown apart.
Other
accusations and theories already have begun to surface in Lebanon.
As many of those who knew Hobeika claim, however, the real truth,
probably has gone with him to his grave. No one really knew the life
and career of Elias Hobeika but Elias Hobeika himself. Likewise, no
one but he knows the reason for his death.