| The Daily Star |
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BEIRUT: When Ihsan Nasser’s husband died, her life “turned around 180 degrees.” Left a single parent to her daughters Sarah and Lynne, she says she “had to become a father and a mother at the same time.”What’s more, she couldn’t mourn in private. She and her kids became known as “the people who it happened to. People would ask us all the time” about her husband’s death, she says.
That’s because her husband Talal died in an oft-discussed event that has become part of the country’s political landscape. One of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s bodyguards, he died in the February 2005 bomb that killed Hariri and 22 others.
Six years later, the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon has accused four Hezbollah members of the attack. There may be more indictments on the way. And so, Ihsan Nasser and the relatives of the other victims find their private losses back in everyday conversation, and their thoughts once again solicited by the press.
Ihsan’s husband worked with Hariri for 23 years, nearly the entire life of another of Hariri’s guards, Mohammad Darwish. Darwish was 24 when he was killed in the attack, and had worked for the former prime minister for five years.
His mother, Umm Mohammad, says the pain of losing her son has only “increased as days go by … at first maybe I didn’t feel the pain like I do now. Now the pain is unbearable.”
As she sits in front of a photograph of her son at home in Al-Tariq al-Jadideh, Umm Mohammad is unashamed to speak about him and cry. She is unfazed by the camera flashing in her face.
She says that Darwish, who had two older sisters and a younger brother, “had his idiosyncrasies.” She notes his “special laugh.” When he died, she says her “life no longer had any meaning or taste.”
Umm Mohammad says now that “the indictment has been released … we pray to God and hope that the truth will reveal itself … Of course we’ve been waiting for [the indictment], so we were very happy [when it was released]. We hope that the STL continues its work.”
But questions about the tribunal’s integrity have not escaped her notice. “To be honest,” she says, “you hear so many rumors and stories that sometimes you have a moment of doubt [about the STL]. But we hope the STL is just, and that justice will prevail.”
Ihsan Nasser says frankly she and the other relatives of those who died simply “can’t look at [the tribunal] objectively … No one can really ask the families of the martyrs what we think of the indictment. Any person who puts himself in our shoes should know that if we find any thread we are going to hold on to it.”
She says her attempts to maintain a sense of normalcy for her daughters have taken their toll on “myself, my life, and my health.” Every February, the anniversary of Talal Nasser’s death “causes a depression in the house for the entire month.”
So after six years of waiting, Nasser says “we were happy when we found out [about the indictment] because we felt that we are starting to get somewhere. There are a lot of people who weren’t happy [with the indictment]. They thought of it politically, they thought that it could destroy the country or tear it apart.
“But we … can’t think like that. The only thing we can think about is that we are starting to get to a place that we have been waiting for years. And we don’t know how much longer we will have to wait.”
Ihsan Nasser and Umm Mohammad are only two of the many relatives of the 23 victims. As Talal Nasser and Mohammed Darwish were both part of Hariri’s entourage, they can’t be said to make up a representative sample of the survivors, if such a thing were to exist.
And it seems Nasser is not the only person who struggles with the constant discussion of the bombing. The relatives of several civilian victims declined to speak to The Daily Star, with one widow saying, simply, “please spare me.”
Regardless of whether the tribunal is “just or if it is not, there is nothing that it can bring back” for any of the survivors, says Nasser.
She says that the indictments have brought her a personal sense of relief, “because you feel that you can access your rights, that justice works. I hope that [the tribunal] will be just, so that at least you know these people didn’t die for nothing, that they didn’t die cheaply. But no matter what the verdicts are, they are not going to bring anything back.” – With additional reporting by Reem Harb
That’s because her husband Talal died in an oft-discussed event that has become part of the country’s political landscape. One of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s bodyguards, he died in the February 2005 bomb that killed Hariri and 22 others.
Six years later, the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon has accused four Hezbollah members of the attack. There may be more indictments on the way. And so, Ihsan Nasser and the relatives of the other victims find their private losses back in everyday conversation, and their thoughts once again solicited by the press.
Ihsan’s husband worked with Hariri for 23 years, nearly the entire life of another of Hariri’s guards, Mohammad Darwish. Darwish was 24 when he was killed in the attack, and had worked for the former prime minister for five years.
His mother, Umm Mohammad, says the pain of losing her son has only “increased as days go by … at first maybe I didn’t feel the pain like I do now. Now the pain is unbearable.”
As she sits in front of a photograph of her son at home in Al-Tariq al-Jadideh, Umm Mohammad is unashamed to speak about him and cry. She is unfazed by the camera flashing in her face.
She says that Darwish, who had two older sisters and a younger brother, “had his idiosyncrasies.” She notes his “special laugh.” When he died, she says her “life no longer had any meaning or taste.”
Umm Mohammad says now that “the indictment has been released … we pray to God and hope that the truth will reveal itself … Of course we’ve been waiting for [the indictment], so we were very happy [when it was released]. We hope that the STL continues its work.”
But questions about the tribunal’s integrity have not escaped her notice. “To be honest,” she says, “you hear so many rumors and stories that sometimes you have a moment of doubt [about the STL]. But we hope the STL is just, and that justice will prevail.”
Ihsan Nasser says frankly she and the other relatives of those who died simply “can’t look at [the tribunal] objectively … No one can really ask the families of the martyrs what we think of the indictment. Any person who puts himself in our shoes should know that if we find any thread we are going to hold on to it.”
She says her attempts to maintain a sense of normalcy for her daughters have taken their toll on “myself, my life, and my health.” Every February, the anniversary of Talal Nasser’s death “causes a depression in the house for the entire month.”
So after six years of waiting, Nasser says “we were happy when we found out [about the indictment] because we felt that we are starting to get somewhere. There are a lot of people who weren’t happy [with the indictment]. They thought of it politically, they thought that it could destroy the country or tear it apart.
“But we … can’t think like that. The only thing we can think about is that we are starting to get to a place that we have been waiting for years. And we don’t know how much longer we will have to wait.”
Ihsan Nasser and Umm Mohammad are only two of the many relatives of the 23 victims. As Talal Nasser and Mohammed Darwish were both part of Hariri’s entourage, they can’t be said to make up a representative sample of the survivors, if such a thing were to exist.
And it seems Nasser is not the only person who struggles with the constant discussion of the bombing. The relatives of several civilian victims declined to speak to The Daily Star, with one widow saying, simply, “please spare me.”
Regardless of whether the tribunal is “just or if it is not, there is nothing that it can bring back” for any of the survivors, says Nasser.
She says that the indictments have brought her a personal sense of relief, “because you feel that you can access your rights, that justice works. I hope that [the tribunal] will be just, so that at least you know these people didn’t die for nothing, that they didn’t die cheaply. But no matter what the verdicts are, they are not going to bring anything back.” – With additional reporting by Reem Harb
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