1. George Hawi was a Lebanese politician and former secretary general of the Lebanese Communist Party.
13 Facts About George Hawi
1. 2.
George Hawi was the stepfather of the Lebanese Armenian politician Rafi Madayan, who has a stepson, Charbel Khalifeh Hachem.
3.
George Hawi was born in the village of Bteghrine, Lebanon on 5 November 1938 to a Lebanese family.
4.
George Hawi became active in student politics in his early years at university, participating in numerous strikes and demonstrations and in several popular movements.
5.
George Hawi joined the LCP in 1955 and became one of the main leaders of its Student League by the end of the decade.
6.
George Hawi was briefly expelled from the LCP in 1967 for calling for more independence from the policies of the Soviet Union.
7.
George Hawi rejoined the Party and was elected a member of its political bureau in the second and third congresses in 1968 and 1972.
8.
George Hawi was the fourth general secretary of the party following Fuad Shemali, Farajallah el-Helou and Nicolas Shawi.
9.
At later stages of the war, the LCP under George Hawi allied with Syria, which had entered Lebanon in 1976, but was to stay in the country for nearly 30 years.
10.
George Hawi became a critic of the influence of Damascus on Lebanon late in his life, after having left the LCP in 2000.
11.
In June 2005, George Hawi claimed in an interview with Al Jazeera, that Rifaat al-Assad, brother of Hafez al-Assad and uncle of Syria's former President Bashar al-Assad, had been behind the killing of Jumblatt.
12.
George Hawi was assassinated on 21 June 2005 when a bomb planted in his Mercedes car was detonated by remote control, as he travelled through Beirut's Wata Musaitbi neighbourhood.
13.
George Hawi's driver survived, but Hawi was mortally wounded in the blast.