Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Suicide? I don”t think so | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Ghazi Kanan could have died in a convincing arranged manner that is, like a heart attack, in a car accident, during the pursuit of terrorists, or from an incurable disease. The Syrian interior minister died from a single bullet they said he fired himself. This is something that is hard to believe.

We know very well that not a single Arab politician commits suicide and there is no culture of suicide except in Bin Laden”s clique where paradise is promised. God knows that Kanan”s chance of entering paradise is weak. As the saying goes, the method suits the man. The perpetrator wants to send us a clear message from the method of killing &#34we killed Kanan&#34 and the others have to understand this.

Many will not really be bothered whether he was killed or committed suicide because of his illaudable record. However, the two questions why and what next remain? His suicide an execution whose aim is probably to get rid of a bad legacy in its entirety and could lead to the disappearance of others involved in the bad situation that has brought Damascus to where it is now? It could be just a case of getting rid of a finger that has left its prints on the crime scene.

It could be a new policy in which Damascus says it is moving from one age to another, from one system of administration to another, and from one group to another. If it a signal of a new approach by the Syrian Government that it is moving from leaving the security policy to a modern state, then Kanan”s disappearance is not regrettable. His absence even facilitates the positive change that serves the interest of Syria, its regime, and its people.

But if it just an act to cover up the traces of the crime left by those involved in the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri as the international investigation gathers pace, then it will not be of much use in any way but will be like the small white truck that disappeared after the bombing, that is, another circumstantial evidence in a murder that does not merit reading more in it.

Regardless of whether his death was a crime with a small or big message, the most important issue is Syria and not Kanan or the other pawns in the Syrian chess game. Damascus has not hinted to the world in which direction it is moving because the recent major events inside and outside Syria do not indicate anything. The report of the international judge Mehlis will leave Syria hung to be lashed regionally and internationally whether it calls Syria by name or just hints at it. The absence of its old symbols will not be of much use for it, like the death of Kanan, the disappearance of Abdel Halim Khaddam, or the sacking of half of the security officials.

The only evidence we have that there is hope that Syria might move toward a decisive resolving of its security problems and its military quagmires in Iraq and Lebanon is how Kanan”s death from a bullet signaling his exit from the stage and that he did not die accidentally in a car accident as many people do.