World mourns Yasser Arafat, 'Man of Courage'
HE died as President of a yet-to- be-recognised state. But in Paris, France, where he breathed his last, Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, yesterday received the honour of a state funeral.
The body of the freedom fighter, who died early yesterday in a French military hospital, immediately began its final return to the Middle East.
His coffin, draped in the Palestinian flag, was taken by helicopter to a French military airport, where a ceremony was held.
His body was then put on board a plane bound for Cairo Egypt, where his funeral will take place today.
The Palestinian Authority has declared 40 days of mourning. The world community is also in mourning.
Members of the French government attended the ceremony at Villacoublay Airport.
As a military band played a funeral march, Arafat's coffin was carried by a guard of honour to an Airbus plane bearing the livery of the French Republic.
No members of the public were present at the airport. Earlier, crowds of Arafat supporters at Percy Hospital, chanting: "We are all Palestinians", had waved candles and flags as Arafat's body began its journey home.
French President Jacques Chirac stood alone beside Arafat's body for about 10 minutes in a last show of respect for a leader he hailed as a man of courage.
Arafat's remains arrived last night aboard a French Boeing aircraft.
His widow, Suha, accompanied by the wife of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, tried to fight back tears as the pall-bearers carried his casket to a military base.
Military funeral is planned for Arafat in Cairo this morning after which his remains will leave for Ramallah, the Palestinian hero's final resting place.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has made Middle East peace a cornerstone of his foreign policy, praised Arafat - who shared the 1994 Nobel peace prize with Israeli leaders - for having accepted a need for Israeli and Palestinian states exist side by side.
"He led his people to an historic acceptance of the need for a two-state solution," Blair said in a statement.
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan described Arafat as one of the few world leaders who was instantly recognisable everywhere - a man who embodied the aspirations of the Palestinian people.
Having accepted the principle of peaceful coexistence with Israel in 1988 and signed the interim Oslo peace accords with Israel in 1993, Arafat died without seeing his dream of independence fulfilled, Annan said.
"Both Israelis and Palestinians, and the friends of both peoples throughout the world, must make even greater efforts to bring about the peaceful realisation of the Palestinian right of self-determination," the UN scribe added. The UN also ordered all its flags to be hoisted at half-mast yesterday.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said history would record that Arafat had given hope to millions of the downtrodden and despised, "by instilling in them the knowledge and consciousness that despite current difficulties, they hold the gift of freedom in their hands".
But some others were critical.
"I think history will judge him very harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, that involved the Israelis agreeing to about 90 per cent of what the Palestinians wanted," said Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
Israel, which saw him as a terrorist, has talked of a new chance for peace.
Arafat, who dominated his people's struggle for 40 years, died aged 75 of multiple organ failure at 0330 (0230 GMT) yesterday.
He had been admitted to the hospital after arriving from the West Bank on October 29 as doctors struggled to diagnose his illness.
On the day of his death, hospital officials would still not give the cause of his ailment, citing strict French medical privacy law.
Many world leaders have paid tribute to a man whom Russian President Vladimir Putin described as a "great political leader of international significance" while Washington merely noted that his death was "significant".
Palestinian policemen guarding the compound in Ramallah, where Israel kept Arafat a virtual prisoner for two-and-a-half years, could not hold back tears. Some men gripped each other's hands or hugged each other.
In Gaza City, thousands of distraught people crowded the streets to express their grief, as gunmen let off volley after volley of fire.
Tyres were set alight, sending up plumes of black smoke and loudspeakers relayed Koranic verses or broadcast famous quotations from Arafat.
A woman in Ramallah, who called Arafat the "teacher and father" of Palestinians, told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that the death had robbed her people of hope.
"I think that we will die or we will lose Palestine... There is no hope," she said.
Some militants accused Israel of causing his death and a leader of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Raid al-Aidi, swore to avenge it: "We hold Israel fully responsible for the assassination of our mentor and father... It was caused by the siege imposed on him."
Camps in Lebanon - home to some 400,000 Palestinian refugees - also declared 40 days of mourning and convoys of gunmen fired in the air as they drove around.
However, the outpouring of anger some had predicted would follow Arafat's death is for now largely absent and many talk of him more as a national symbol than a political player.
Israel sealed off the West Bank as a security precaution and strengthened security at Jewish settlements.
But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke of a "turning point" for peace if the new Palestinian leadership rejected terrorism.
Arafat's powers are being divided among his officials, with Mahmoud Abbas elected head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Rawhi Fattuh sworn in as acting president of the Palestinian Authority.
Mohammed Dahlan, the influential former Gaza security chief, said the hand-over showed that Palestinian leaders were "carrying on with their duties in a democratic and smooth manner".
Today's funeral will be held at a mosque near Cairo's international airport, from where a helicopter will then transfer the coffin to Ramallah.
Among the few non-Moslem heads of state or government expected to attend the funeral are President Mbeki and Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson.
Other countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) are sending their foreign ministers.
Bulldozers have been clearing a space at Arafat's compound in Ramallah for his grave.
Officials say Arafat may be interred in a stone coffin so that one day his body can be moved to Jerusalem where Palestinians hope to have the capital of a future independent state.
