LETTER TO MY FRIEND ATEF GEBRANE Dear Atef, You who is amoung the happy and the immortals, you didn't die 12/7/96 because of the force of age, but you were already on this dark day of our history, this day that stabbed in your heart an extra dagger. I relive some memories that we lived together; after your passage in the Lebanese prisons, you got out, you were suffering, your heart broken and amnesic, after you've suffered with courage and dignity the martyr that they made you endure. All that because you were one of the faithful counsellers of H. E. GENERAL AOUN. After many operations to the heart and brain, you have recovered due to your iron will and your endless love for your country, Lebanon. One day, in Beirut, pasisng by your office early in the morning, I saw you crying telling me that your were afraid to die before saying goodbye, to your friend General Aoun, and the doctors prevent me from traveling. I told you Allah Kbir you will make this voyage and in good health and you will find the eternal friend. On that day, we got seperated and I dread of never seeing my friend Atef. And on that day, from my refuge in the USA, you talk to me on the phone from the "Haute Maison"; the house of H. E. GENERAL AOUN and you talked to me short of breath and with a faint voice, that day I knew that you, Atef, you did the voyage to Paris on a wheelchair to the "Haute Maison" and when seeing the general on the porch, a force made you get up from your chair and you threw yourself in the arms of the general, the eternal friend, from fear of loosing him again. It was your last meeting. And a return to Beirut for a long periode at the hospital, in the arms of the pardoned, you rest like you've always wanted in you natal village, Moukhtara. On this nationnal day of greif, we, your friends and colleagues of the current aounist and the BCCN, we persue the fight until your spirit is in peace. The project on which you worked so hard during many years has seen the day, the young ones have taken over and through the current aounist university, all the young Lebanese collaborate together to build and independant Lebanon, laic and proud of its children. My friend Atef, Lebanon will conquer as always, to your wife and your children who have taken over, I tell you that your big family, dissipated across the world by the forces of the occupation that still exists, but no one can place the pillar of the family. Peace to you, my friend Atef, an october 13th will never come back to haunt the history of Lebanon that you love so much. May your spirit rest finally in eternal peace. From a friend who has you forever in his heart SAMI