 |
| Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's wife, Suha, accused
Palestinian leaders November 8, 2004 of plotting to "bury him alive", but
they decided to go ahead with a visit to the critically ill Palestinian
president at a French military hospital.
[Reuters] |
Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, Foreign Minister
Nabil Shaath and Palestine Liberation Organization
Secretary General Mahmoud Abbas planned to leave the West Bank for Jordan on
Monday and then go to Paris, a senior Palestinian official told Reuters.
Another Palestinian official said they would arrive in
France on Monday evening and discuss Arafat's medical condition with senior
French officials on Tuesday.
Israeli media had reported the 75-year-old president would
be taken off life-support equipment after the three leaders had visited him in
the hospital's intensive care unit.
The leaders' departure from the West Bank appeared to have
been delayed following a scathing verbal attack by Arafat's wife Suha.
"I appeal to you to be aware of the scope of the
conspiracy," shouted Suha Arafat, speaking on Arabic Al Jazeera satellite
television and sparking a war of words with loyalists of the three officials.
"They are trying to bury Abu Ammar (Arafat) alive," she said
in comments that flew in the face of efforts by Arafat's lieutenants to project
an image of unity and business as usual at a time when many Palestinians fear
chaos if he dies.
"Abu Ammar is well and he is coming back to his homeland,"
she said, accusing the three leaders of being desperate to succeed him and
giving no details about Arafat's illness.
After her remarks, Palestinian and French officials said the
trip from the West Bank had been called off.
But Mohammed Dahlan, a former security chief close to Abbas
and an influential leader in Arafat's Fatah faction,
said later: "There is no change of plan. The delegation is going to Paris."
Palestinian officials have privately accused Suha Arafat,
who had not seen her husband for three years before the ailing leader was flown
to Paris on Oct. 29, of limiting access to and information about the veteran
leader.
"We express our utmost regret at the comments made by sister
Suha," Qurie told reporters at the start of a cabinet meeting in the West Bank
city of Ramallah. "(Arafat) belongs to the Palestinian people."
Other officials were less diplomatic. "Yasser Arafat is not
the private property of Suha Arafat," said deputy Palestinian cabinet minister
Sufian Abu Zaida.
DECADES-OLD PALESTINIAN SYMBOL
Arafat, symbol for decades of the Palestinian struggle for a
state and against Israeli occupation, was suffering from liver failure, one
official said on Sunday.
An Israeli newspaper's Web site said the "working
assumption" among Israeli security officials preparing for Arafat's death was
that any life-support equipment would be shut down on Tuesday.
Arafat's close circle has been concerned fears about his
health may increase chaos at home. Others fear a power struggle among
Palestinians locked in a four-year-old uprising against Israel. Suha Arafat has
lived abroad for much of the uprising.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier described Arafat's
condition on Sunday as "very complex, very serious and stable at the time we are
speaking."
Abbas and Qurie, overseeing the Palestinian
Authority in Arafat's absence, wanted to go to
Paris to learn the facts about his condition, on which a series of conflicting
reports have emerged over the past week, a Palestinian official said.
Addressing the delicate issue of where Arafat should be
buried if he dies, Israel said on Sunday it had completed preparations for his
eventual burial in the Gaza Strip.
Arafat wants to be buried in Jerusalem's Old City, which is
holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians. But Israel refuses to let him be laid to
rest on land it has annexed -- a move not recognized
internationally.
