One of the most enduring images in people’s minds about Abdul Halim Khaddam is the image of him shedding tears as he consoled the Hariri family after the assassination of the martyr Rafik Hariri. His generous tears for his lifelong friend, perhaps these tears, or regret in particular, are what led him to express a series of positions yesterday on Al-Arabiya, confirming his defection from the Syrian regime—a regime he lived with until the end but couldn’t continue with.
Undoubtedly, Syrian leader Abdul Halim Khaddam played a prominent role in Syrian and Lebanese political life. This lawyer, born in Banias in Tartus in 1932, entered political work through the wide door of power in the early years of Ba’ath Party rule.
He was in his thirties or a little older when he assumed his first positions as the governor of Hama. He spent his political life in three positions as a governor, minister, and deputy president. He was appointed governor of Hama and later Quneitra. In 1965, he became the governor of Damascus, then the Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade in Dr. Youssef Zayyen’s ministry in 1969. After the Corrective Movement, he became the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1970 and the Vice President of the Republic in 1984.
On February 23, 1966, he was part of the mentioned movement, and on November 16, 1970, he was among the leading figures of the Corrective Movement. Not a military man, but always in the military ranks, exchanging coverage and support with them.
This was evident during the power struggle crisis in 1984 when Khaddam became the political face of the military-security bloc in the face of Rifaat al-Assad. During the violence and counter-violence that occurred in the early 1980s, Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam was a general in civilian attire, among the hawkish generals. He rightfully earned the title “Party General.” Perhaps this was one of the reasons for the deep and long-lasting connection between him and the late President Hafez al-Assad, which began from the early days of their acquaintance and continued until the latter’s departure in June 2000.
Khaddam was not like others in the “Corrective Movement,” merely a shadow of its leader, a spokesperson on his behalf and an extension of his ideas and approach. Instead, he was the second man in the movement with a distinctive role and important tasks. He was not just a passenger on its bus; rather, he was one of the architects of its path, an engineer of its methods, and a maker of its policies. He was a special kind of partner, the second in command in an indispensable and unbreakable partnership. It was a partnership adopted by the Corrective Movement, with policies and relationships that were imposed on the authority, its men, the state, and its institutions, and everyone embraced it. Hence, the man does not speak as a witness to what happened and is happening in Syria but as an actor.
Khaddam and the late Rafik Hariri
Deputy to Two Presidents
On June 10, 2000, the passing of the late president was announced, and the People’s Council convened to approve the amendment of Article 83 of the constitution to allow the president’s son to be nominated for the presidency. The next day, Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam issued Law No. 9 dated June 11, 2000, amending the mentioned article, which specifies the age at which a candidate can assume the presidency to be completed at thirty-four. After promoting Colonel Bashar al-Assad to the rank of general and appointing him as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
Between June 17-21, 2000, a conference of the Ba’ath Party was held, announcing a new leadership and electing Bashar al-Assad as its Secretary-General and nominating him for the position of president. On July 10, 2000, a referendum was held for the presidency, and the sole candidate was declared the winner with a percentage of 97.3%. Abdul Halim Khaddam was at the heart of this movement, its actions, and its key architects and engineers. He handled important regional files such as the Lebanese and Iraqi files, in addition to his role in party and internal matters. He served as President Hafez al-Assad’s envoy to Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War and played a role in reaching the Taif Agreement in 1989.
Confrontation Heats Up
Following the political and cultural movement witnessed in the country in the second half of 2000, characterized by democratic inclinations declared by political leaders, civil society activists, and intellectuals, and resulting in the birth of forums, associations, and committees that began to denounce corruption and demand public freedoms. The vice president led a party meeting at Damascus University to explain the “reform” processes in the state and the challenges it faced. Harsh words were heard at that meeting about corruption, sabotage, and the “distance between the citizen and the authority.”
Khaddam… A Writer
“The Contemporary Arab System: Reading Reality and Anticipating the Future” is an eight-chapter book spanning three hundred and seventeen pages, in which Abdul Halim Khaddam explains his political vision of the region’s developments and its current struggles. He describes this stage as a “dark phase in our history” because it is characterized by the “current state of national disintegration” and “the dangers threatening national unity.” When delving into the details of the contemporary Arab crisis, he surpasses the opposition in his analyses, going beyond international development reports in describing the effects of destruction on public life. He talks about the “increasing suffering, growing poverty, looting of wealth, and the loss of rights,” then asks: “Where is this nation heading? What is its fate?” He discusses the “importance of the elected constitutional institution in achieving oversight and accountability” but conditions it by saying it should “not slide into becoming one of the tools or façades of power.”
The book presents a picture of a political writer who progressed through democratic constitutional institutions and discovered the importance of popular participation in accountability, oversight, and decision-making. Khaddam is keen on organizing thousands of his papers and notes, which he documented over more than 35 years of work in both party and public political affairs. It will be one of the most important memoirs shedding light on a crucial period in Syria’s history and its Arab and regional relations.
Khaddam between Berri and Bahaa Hariri
Relieved of Duties
On July 12, 2005, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree relieving former Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam, former leading member of the Ba’ath Party’s Qatari leadership Salam Al-Yassin, and Mahram Tayyara, a leader in the Unified Socialist Party, from their positions in the Central Command of the Progressive National Front. These changes came over a month after the conclusion of the tenth congress of the Ba’ath Party and about 20 days after changes occurred in security institutions. The most notable was the transfer of the Internal Branch chief in the General Intelligence Directorate, Brigadier Bahjat Suleiman, to the general headquarters, and the appointment of Brigadier Hisham Al-Ikhtiyar as the head of the National Security Bureau in the Qatari leadership of the Ba’ath Party. As a result of these changes, Khaddam found himself without any position in the Ba’ath Party and the state, except for his membership in the National Leadership of the Ba’ath Party. To exit this, he would need to attend a national conference.
Seizure of Assets
On December 6, 2005, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported that Syrian authorities had seized all the properties of Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former Vice President, and his children. By this decision, Khaddam no longer had any possessions in his country. This punishment was imposed on him for the regime’s belief that he had disclosed all information related to the assassination of Rafik Hariri to French President Jacques Chirac and Detlev Mehlis, the head of the international investigation committee into the crime. According to a senior figure in the ruling regime, Khaddam provided information about those who ordered, planned, and executed the assassination, specifying the suspects by name. This allegedly occurred on September 6 of the same year.
