Several thousand Palestinians including their president Yasser Arafat attended the funeral Monday of Bashir Barghouthi, a former minister and veteran communist leader who died after a long illness, reported AFP.
Barghouthi, 69, who founded the Palestinian Communist Party two decades ago, was given an official funeral, with Palestinian police forming a guard of honor as his body was carried through Ramallah draped with a Palestinian flag, said AFP.
He had suffered a stroke in 1998, which put paid to his career as industry minister in Arafat's first self-rule cabinet formed two years earlier. He was since appointed to the honorary position of minister of state, AFP added.
Although his party never had wide representation, he was an influential ideologue who advocated establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel at a time when other Palestinians were calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, reported The Associated Press.
Born in 1931 near Ramallah, Barghouti was active, together with Yasser Arafat, in the Palestinian students union at the American University in Cairo. Arafat was later to become leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the AP said.
After graduating in 1956 with a degree in political science and economics, Barghouti returned to the West Bank, which was then ruled by Jordan. Barghouti became leader of the Palestinian communist party, and spent a total of eight years in Jordanian prisons, between 1954 and 1965, for his outspoken advocacy of Palestinian statehood, according to the AP.
Barghouthi leaves a wife and three children, AFP said - (Several Sources)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
