House Speaker, Zahrani MP,
and Amal Movement Leader Nabih Berri

Place and Date of birth: Born in Freetown, Sierra Leone on January 28, 1938. Son of Mustapha Berri. In 1940, his family moved back to Lebanon, and settled in their hometown Tibnin in south Lebanon.
Sect: Shiite
Marital Status: Married to Randa Hussein Assi (born on Januray 1, 1953) with three daughters and one son: Reem, Amal, Mayssa and Basel. Berri also have five other children form his first wife, a cousin of his, who lives now in the United States with their children.
Educational Background: Bachelor of Laws from the Lebanese University, 1963. Graduate Studies in Law, Sorbonne University, Paris. Earlier elementary and secondary studies: Elementary School at Tebnine School, South Lebanon; Secondary School at Bint Jbeil, South Lebanon, and Jaafari High School in Tyre; High School at Makased and La Sagesse in Beirut
Professional background: Lawyer at the Court of Appeals as of 1963.
Political Background: House speaker (1992-to date): Elected October 20, 1992, re-elected October 22, 1996, October 17, 2000 and June 18, 2005. Elected MP in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2005. Minister of Hydraulic and Electric Resources, Justice and Reconstruction and Affairs of South Lebanon in Rashid Karame's cabinet (April 30, 1984 to November 1989). Minister of Hydraulic and Electric Resources, Housing and Cooperatives in Salim Hoss cabinet ( November 25,1989 to December 19, 1990). Minister of State in Omar Karame's cabinet (December 24,1990 to May 10, 1992). President of Amal Movement (1980-to date). Member of Imam Musa Sadr's Movement of the Oppressed (1975-1980). Leader of the the Resistance and Development parliamentary bloc formed following the Parliamentary election held in South Lebanon on September 3, 2000, and June 5, 2005 . Headed the Liberation Bloc List during the 1996 parliamentary elections in South Lebanon, where his entire list of 22 membrs won the elections. He also headed the Liberation and Development during the 1992 parliamentary elections in South Lebanon, where his entire List of 22 members won the elections. Speaker Berri started his political career alongside Imam Musa Sadr under the Movement of the Opressed (Karakat Al Mahroumin). Most characteristic of his career was resisting the Israeli occupation side by side with Hezbolllah and other resistance movements. His background also includes moving to Detroit, USA, along with his first wife (a cousin of his) in 1976, and returning to Lebanon in 1978 to assume the post of Amal Movement's Secretary General following the disappearance of Imam Mussa Sadr.
Current Political Status: House Speaker, Parliament Member and Leader of Amal Movement.
Contact Information: Official Address: Parliament House, Nijmeh Square, Beirut, Lebanon, Tel: 01-982160/170, 01-982060, 01-982070, 01-982020, Cental: 01-982044/58, 01-981460/1-2/3/4/5/6/7, Fax: 01-982059. Official Residence: Ain Al Tini, Beirut, Lebanon, Tel: 01-868200/1, 01-300902/3, 01-793080/1/2/3/4/5/6/7, Fax: 01/793088. Private Residence: Mseileh, South Lebanon, Tel: 07-607007.

Biography

A consummate political operator renowned for his often sarcastic tone, Shiite former militia leader Nabih Berri was re-elected to the post of speaker on Tuesday, June 28, 2005, in the first Lebanese parliament not dominated by his Syrian allies.Berri, who had held the post for 13 years under pro-Syrian regimes, was re-elected by 90 votes to one in the 128-member legislature, now dominated by the main anti-Damascus alliance that won an eight-seat majority earlier this month.

An articulate and charismatic lawyer, Berri skilfully switched from a warlord into a politician who transformed Amal into the mainstream Shiite political party and led it into a position of political strength in close cooperation with Syria.

Berri has been able to survive the departure of his longtime benefactors in April by retaining a solid hold over his own community -- Lebanon's largest and poorest. He has done so through his rock-solid alliance with Hezbollah, the rival Shiite faction which faces UN demands to disarm its military wing.

Their alliance with other pro-Syrian factions swept 35 seats in parliament and retained their monopoly of the Shiite commmunity, which under Lebanon's sectarian political system, provides the speaker.

It was the fourth consecutive term for the now 67-year-old survivor, who first rose to prominence in 1980 by taking over the leadership of his Amal faction two years after the mysterious disappearance in Libya of its founder Mussa Sadr.

As a student, he joined the Baath Party, which rules Syria, but switched in the early 1970s to the newly founded Lebanese Movement of the Deprived.

The movement, led by Iranian-born Shiite cleric Musa Sadr, effectively voiced the grievances of the Shiites, Lebanon's poorest and fastest-growing community, for the first time. Amal, its military arm, was a rising power by 1978, when Sadr mysteriously disappeared on a visit to Libya.

Berri then set about making himself an indispensable ally to Syria through the twists and turns of its long intervention in Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

In 1984, he led his militiamen in an uprising against the US- and Israeli-backed regime of president Amin Gemayel. Berri's prestige reached its height when Amal combined with Druze and Sunni militiamen in a battle that drove Christian-led Lebanese army troops from the Muslim part of Beirut in 1984.

But his efforts to stamp his authority on Muslim areas of the capital led to fierce clashes between Amal and Sunni and Druze militiamen that killed hundreds of civilians.

Then between 1985 and 1988, he helped crush supporters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the so-called "war of the camps".

Fearing the rise of Hizbollah, Berri's Amal Movement also fought a three-year war with the fellow Shiite group that weakened his forces.

Finally he helped oust the anti-Damascus interim government of Michel Aoun, forcing the Christian leader into 15 years of exile in the closing actions of the civil war.

In the post-wear years, Berri played the role of counterweight to five-times prime minister Rafiq Hariri, a Sunni billionaire whose murder in a February bomb blast eventually forced the withdrawal of Syrian troops two months later.

A lawyer by training, detractors deride Berri as a "wily fox" who runs his political party the same way as he ran his wartime militia.

The scion of an important family from Lebanon's impoverished south, critics say he has also used money to maintain his traditional rural clientele, some of it public.

Like many Lebanese Shiites, Berri's parents moved to Africa to make their money and he was born in Sierra Leone and studied in the United States before moving to Lebanon to continue his studies.

He is married with nine children, five of them by his first wife.

Related Links

• Lebanon's first post-Syrian parliament re-elects pro-Damascus speaker
• Lebanese parliament set to re-elect pro-Syrian speaker
• Dossier: Nabih Berri (December 2000)