Muscat: Omar Karami, who served as Prime Minister at a particularly difficult time in contemporary Lebanese history, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 80 after a long battle with illness. “We have lost a precious person and the best husband, father and grandfather,” read a formal family statement.
Beyond his distinguished personal life, Karami was Prime Minister of Lebanon from December 24, 1990, to May 13, 1992 when he replaced the hugely controversial Salim Al Hoss who was forced to give up power because of skewed economic policies that seriously damaged the country.
Reeling in the aftermath of the civil war, Karami was a natural alternative to Hariri, whose laissez-faire policies irked many in the entrenched establishment that perceived the speed with which Hariri moved as unsettling.
It must be emphasized that Omar Abdul Hamid Karami, who was born into a prominent Sunni family in the northern Lebanese town of Al Nouri, near Tripoli in 1934, followed in his slain brother’s footsteps as he pursued a pro-Syrian policy.
Like his brother and eight-time Prime Minister Rashid Karami, who was assassinated under mysterious circumstances in 1987, Omar Believed in the Arab nationalist cause, probably the result of his education at Cairo University, from where he earned a law degree in 1956.
Yet, unlike his brother, and perhaps even unlike their father--one of Lebanon’s founding fathers and genuine hero of the 1943 independence movement, Abdul Hamid Karami--Omar placed all of his political eggs in the Syrian basket.
He was a close ally of Presidents Hafez and Bashar Al Assad and concluded that his interests would best be served by such associations
After several years out of office, he returned to the premiership in October 2004 under Syrian protection, but resigned on April 19, 2005, amid massive protests that followed the February 14, 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. To his credit, Omar Karami understood that the Syrian tutelage over Lebanon was over.
As the Lebanese mustered the courage to demand that Syria withdraw its troops and intelligence personnel from the country, which the Karami government opposed at first, the tide turned against Beirut.
Remarkably, protesters ignored government warnings and maintained their vigil, buoyed by opposition deputies who planned to call for a no confidence vote.
Amid the growing pressure, Karami announced his government’s resignation.
Less than two weeks later, and in the aftermath of a Damascus ploy to reinstate Karami into the premiership, the designee failed to form a government of national unity.
On April 13, and amply aware that he lost, Karami resigned for the second time. He was replaced by Najib Mikati in the post until the May 2005 general elections that saw the Future Movement, led by Sa’ad Hariri, gain the upper hand. Dejected, Karami did not run for office in 2005, aware that Lebanon opened a new page after that date.
