Abd al-Majid al-Rafei
Abd al-Majid al-Rafei (in
Biography
He was born Abdel Majid Mohamed Tayeb Rafei on 11 April 1927 in a family in
After Lebanese Independence, he studied medicine in University of Lausanne, Switzerland and practiced medicine in the 1950s in Tripoli.[citation needed] In 1957 he attended a general Baath gathering and became an official member and one of the highest figures in the unified Baath Arab Socialist Party in Lebanon.[citation needed] With the split of the party between the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath branch and the pro-Syrian Ba'ath branch, both factions initially became part of the National Front against the rule of President of the Republic Camille Chamoun in the 1958 Civil War.[citation needed]
With tensions increasing between the two factions, the two Baathist parties of Lebanon were on a war footing.
In 1968, he was a candidate for
During the Syrian hegemony of Lebanon, the Iraqi branch of the Baath party headed by Abd al-Majid al-Rafei came under increasing pressure by the Syrian rulers and its activities greatly curtailed.[citation needed] In 1983, after the ouster of Yasser Arafat and his supporters from Tripoli, in a campaign organized by the Syrian government and pro-Syrian political groupings in Lebanon and pro-Syrian Palestinian factions, al-Rafei, one of the biggest anti-Syrian figureheads in Tripoli and the General Secretary of the pro-Iraqi Baathist Party - Lebanon went into voluntary exile to Iraq.[citation needed]
After the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 by the Western Coalition forces, al-Rafei returned to Lebanon with tacit agreement of the Syrian government and pro-Syrian political parties on certain political restrictions of no plans for relaunching of the Iraqi faction in Lebanon.[citation needed]
After the assassination of former prime minister
Al-Rafei died on 12 July 2017.[citation needed]
References
- ISBN 978-0-8014-9313-3.
- ISBN 978-0-674-08105-5.
- ISBN 978-0-674-08105-5.
- ^ Zumiyya, Jamal (1972). The parliamentary election of Lebanon 1968. Vol. 2. BRILL Archive. p. 106.
- ISBN 978-0-674-08105-5.
- ISBN 978-0-313-26649-2.