, key Syrian spokesperson, speaks to Al-Ahram Weekly about the future of Syrian-Lebanese relations and Syria's stand on investigations into Al-Hariri's killing, one year on This week, Syrian Expatriates Affairs Minister said the UN Commission looking into the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri was not conducting "a proper investigation". Shaaban spoke to Omayma Abdel Latif as the Lebanese commemorated the anniversary of Al-Hariri's death. Syria has repeatedly criticised the work of the commission and has been accused by the commission's former head, German judge Detlev Mehlis, of not cooperating enough with the investigation team. Shaaban, who was speaking at her ministry office in Dumar district of Damascus, fiercely defended her country's position, saying that Syria "cooperated beyond what is required of it". "We don't feel the need to come up and say, 'Syria did not do it,' because any rational person that knows Syria would realise that it is too suicidal for Syria to commit. Syria was in Lebanon for 15 years and no political assassinations were committed at all. There is one party in the region which is carrying out extra-judicial killings, using missiles to kill and destroy in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine." "Why is not Israel suspected by the commission investigating Al-Hariri's assassination? It is not even on the list of the usual suspects. You cannot conduct an international investigation and reach a final conclusion that Syria did it," Shaaban said, adding that a meeting between Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and the commission members was "not on the agenda". Shaaban has been Syria's spokesperson par excellence. By vocation a professor since 1985 at Damascus University, she was also the personal interpreter of the late Syrian president Hafez Al-Assad. She also occupied the position of director of the Press Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Shaaban is a prolific writer whose articles appear in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper and the daily Lebanese Al-Mustaqbal. Shaaban made no secret of the fact that hard days were ahead for Syria and the Arab world. "This," she said, "has been a difficult year not just for Syria but for all the Arab world. What is frightening is that more difficult times are yet to come because of what is being planned for Arabs and the larger Muslim world," she said. Shaaban said that the people of the region should be aware of what she described as "the dangerous scenarios being prepared for us". Hours after Al-Hariri had been killed, Shaaban was on Al-Jazeera condemning the assassination and describing it as "the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] of Syria and Lebanon". "I believe that the assassination was staged to unleash a process of events targeting the stability of Syria and Lebanon and against Lebanese-Syrian relations. Almost one year to the day, I was proven right," Shaaban remarks. Asked whether or not the dominant perception is that the Syrian regime was targeted by the US, Shaaban insists it was the people rather than the regimes that were under fire. "They spoke about getting rid of the Iraqi regime but what came out was a real blow to the Iraqi identity, state, history and people." In Syria, "what is being targeted is the history of Syria, the Syrian people and the Arabs," she said. Shaaban complains about the ways in which Western media uses terminology that reduces the whole region into personalities and regimes. "We are not only Arafats or Bashars or Saddams. We are a people who live in this region and the Western media always presents it as a few personalities without a people; and they are coming to teach us freedom and democracy," Shaaban said. "I see what is happening to Syria as one part of a jigsaw puzzle that is happening to our region. The stand of Syria quite rightly has been to cling to international legitimacy and international peace, and principles of dialogue, and to try to preserve national dignity," she added. Shaaban insists that the issue is not so much about Syria or Iraq but rather about a plan for the region "to exploit its resources and make the world forget about the occupation of Arab land." She continued: "I think the whole idea about the war on terror and the labelling of Arabs and Muslims as terrorists is in order to justify the occupation of Arab land and not to speak about our rights." Shaaban downplayed concerns about strained relations with Lebanon. She is hopeful that both countries will transcend these difficult times. "Relations with Lebanon are not beyond repair," she said definitively. "Some Lebanese might be buying into anti-Syria propaganda but this will not last long." Asked whether or not establishing a Syrian embassy in Beirut was imminent in light of demands expressed in a document that Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement signed earlier this month, Shaaban declined to give details. "I think it is a detail in the larger picture of relations," she said. The most important thing, she concluded, is to improve the environment in the region. "Our aim in Syria is to try to transcend this difficult stage being planned by those who target Syria and Lebanon," she said. By Omayma Abdel-Latif
