Last Update: 08/11/2004 17:33
 
PA leaders head for Paris despite Suha Arafat broadside
 
By Arnon Regular, Roni Singer and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents and agencies
 
 
 
Palestinian leaders abruptly canceled and then rescheduled a trip to Paris on Monday to check on the condition of Yasser Arafat, after Arafat's wife publicly accused them of seeking to "bury alive" the ailing PA chairman, a Palestinian official said Monday.
 
 
 
 
A new Mideast after Arafat? Click here to make your point.

The former head of the Palestinian National Security, Mohammed Dahlan, said Monday that Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, Palestinian Liberation Organisation Secretary General Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath would leave the West Bank for Jordan on Monday and head to Paris on Tuesday to visit Arafat.

"There is no change of plan. The delegation is going to Paris," said Dahlan.

A senior official said: "They are expected in Paris [Monday] night and they will meet senior French officials on Tuesday to discuss Arafat's medical condition."

In what she called "an appeal to the Palestinian people," broadcast live by the pan-Arab network, Suha Arafat accused Palestinian officials on their way to Paris of conspiring to usurp the role her husband has held for four decades as Palestinian leader.

"Let it be known to the honest Palestinian people that a bunch of those who want to inherit are coming to Paris," she screamed in Arabic over the telephone.

"You have to realize the size of the conspiracy. I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she continued, using Arafat's nom de guerre. "He is all right and he is going home. God is great."

She said she was calling from Arafat's bedside at the French military hospital, where the 75-year-old leader has been in intensive care since last Wednesday.

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior Arafat aide, said the trip by the West Bank leaders had been called off to protest her comments. "They are angry with Suha and don't want to go," he said at a news conference in Ramallah.

"What came from Suha doesn't represent our people," he said, accusing Mrs. Arafat of "wanting to destroy the Palestinian leadership's decision and to be the lone decision maker."

Senior Palestinian officials met in Ramallah on Monday in an attempt to send a delegation to Paris despite the opposition of Suha Arafat. Among those meeting are the three leaders whose planned trip was called off at the last moment, following Arafat's wife's outburst.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the Cabinet and PLO leadership would meet later Monday. "We hope to put this ordeal behind us," he said.

With Arafat clinging to life, Mrs. Arafat has been one of a handful of people to see her husband and has tightly controlled information on his condition. Palestinian officials have grumbled that Mrs. Arafat, who has spent the past three years living in France, has gained too much power.

"It's an absurd situation that Suha is sitting there and deciding when, how and who," deputy Palestinian cabinet minister Sufian Abu Zaida, told Army Radio. "This is a woman who hasn't seen her husband for three years. It is bizarre that at the end of his days, his wife decides who enters and who does not."

"Yasser Arafat is not the private property of Suha Arafat," Abu Zaida continued. Abdel Rahim said Arafat "does not belong to a small family but to the entire Palestinian nation."

MoD: Life-support to be cut Tuesday
Sources in the defense establishment believe Tuesday will be the day on which the Palestinians will ask to disconnect Arafat from life support and announce his death.

Tuesday night marks Lailat al-Kader, the night Muslims believe God revealed the Koran to the prophet Mohammed. The death of the Palestinian leader on that day will, therefore, be symbolic.

The three Palestinian leaders have made intensive efforts to meet French President Jacques Chirac and Foreign Minister Michel Barnier to discuss the situation and make funeral arrangements.

The trio were to first visit the Percy Military Hospital in Paris for first-hand information on Arafat's medical condition. Palestinian sources have admitted in recent days that Arafat's mental state is irreversible. However there are doubts about his physical condition.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=498661&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y