DEATH IN PARIS: Yasser Arafat's exit from Paris appeared stage managed in every detail. Lara Marlowe reports
Mr Yasser Arafat died not in Palestine, but in a soulless French army training hospital in a suburb of Paris, at 3.30 a.m. yesterday. Later in the day his casket, accompanied by his widow Suha and his foreign minister, Mr Nabil Shaath, began a last journey, reversing the steps made two weeks ago in a desperate bid to save his life.
France gave the Palestinian leader a send-off worthy of a head of state. The French prime minister, foreign minister, speaker of parliament and at least four former prime ministers and foreign ministers were among the 400 guests who assembled at Villacoublay military airport.
They watched as Mr Arafat's flag-draped casket was carried by white-gloved Republican Guards from a helicopter to an Airbus emblazoned with the words République Francaise.
Mrs Suha Arafat stood beside French Prime Minister Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin, her long blond hair pulled back from her face.
At the end of the runway, beyond the security fence, some 300 French people, many of them families with children, chanted, "Farewell Arafat".
The Israeli journalist and Arafat biographer Amnon Kapeliouk told LCI television the French ceremony made up for some of the indignities the Palestinian leader suffered. "If only Arafat could see the honours bestowed upon him after three years locked up in the Muqata," he said.
President Jacques Chirac issued a statement at 6 a.m., offering condolences to Mr Arafat's family.
"With him disappears the man of courage and conviction who embodied, for 40 years, the struggle of the Palestinians for their national rights," Mr Chirac said, promising that France and the European Union would continue to work for two states "living side by side, in peace and security".
At midday, Mr Chirac went to the military hospital "to pay a last homage" to Mr Arafat. He reportedly embraced Mrs Arafat before leaving. The former president Mr Valéry Giscard d'Estaing boasted on France Info radio that he was the first Western leader to reach out to Mr Arafat, sending his foreign minister to Beirut in 1974, then allowing the PLO to open an office in Paris.
Mr Hubert Védrine, a former foreign minister, noted that Francois Mitterrand was the first to use the words "Palestinian state", before the Israeli Knesset in 1982.
It seemed appropriate that a man who spent so much of his life in airplanes should go through three airports in two days on the way to his burial. Even the military funeral today is to be held in Cairo airport. The Palestinians had hoped for the grander Arab League headquarters, but President Hosni Mubarak apparently feared that a large gathering in downtown Cairo could turn into a protest against his rule.
The French allowed the Palestinians to announce Mr Arafat's death first in Ramallah. "He closed his eyes and his big heart stopped," Tayeb Abdel Rahim, the secretary of the presidency of the Palestinian Authority said, weeping. "He left for God but he is still among this great people."
Dr Christian Estripeau's laconic statement to the cameramen waiting outside the hospital was far less poetic: "Monsieur Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority, died at Percy Army Training Hospital on November 11th, 2004 at 3.30."
There was not a word of explanation about the cause of death, perhaps because Mrs Arafat wants to keep it secret.
According to a report in Canard Enchaîné, Ms Arafat, accompanied by three lawyers, haggled over every word of every communiqué issued by the hospital. No autopsy was performed.
Though he was one of the most instantly recognisable figures of the late 20th century, Mr Arafat's birth and death were shrouded in secrecy. The Israelis claim he was born in Cairo; he said he was born in Jerusalem. We may never know what he died of.
Despite denials by French doctors and Palestinian leaders, many Palestinians believe the Israelis poisoned Arafat - a suspicion deepened by TV images of the Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon grinning through the final stages of Mr Arafat's coma. The fact that Mr Arafat died on the Night of Destiny, between the 26th and 27th days of the holy month of Ramadan, strengthened rumours that his entourage "programmed" his death for maximum effect.
During the Night of Destiny, God is said to have dictated the Koran to the Prophet Mohamed. The timing of Mr Arafat's death made it possible for him to be buried on the most propitious day, the last Friday in Ramadan.