Franklin Lamb (26 Feb 1942 – 13 Jul 2018), Requiescat in Pace
OBITUARIES, 8 Oct 2018
Jeffrey St. Clair and Raouf Halaby – CounterPunch
From TMS Editor: Franklin Lamb was an active member of the TRANSCEND Network whom I first met at a peace mission to Beirut and Damascus in 2013 along with delegates from around the world including Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire. Franklin was an indefatigable, fearless, selfless fighter for Palestinian rights, peace and social justice in Syria and the Middle East. I had no knowledge of his passing till now. RIP dear friend and role model. His TMS pieces may be accessed here.
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16 Jul 2018 – I have some distressing news to share this. We learned from his daughter Louisa that longtime CounterPunch correspondent Franklin Lamb died this weekend of congestive heart failure.
Lamb had written for CounterPunch for 15 years. For most of that time, Franklin lived in Beirut, but he traveled widely across the Middle East. He reported from inside Palestinian refugee camps and in Tripoli during the NATO bombing of Libya. Lamb was a human rights lawyer, who had taught law across the Willamette River from me at Lewis and Clark College before moving to Lebanon.
Patrick Cockburn, who knew Franklin well, said the last time he saw him was in a hotel room in Damascus, where he was trying to arrange medical care for a young Syrian girl who had been shot by a sniper.
— Jeffrey St. Clair
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Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Bernie and the Sandernistas: Field Notes From a Failed Revolution. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net
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19 Jul 2018 – Dear Franklin Lamb. You’ve been plucked too soon from our midst. In an apathetic world, a world where thousands of destitute civilians swim in brine and blood, you were there to report on their every condition. Your detailed reporting on refugees and refugee camps; your taking us into the tents and hovels; your eyewitness accounts on the wasted human blood, sinews and shattered lives; your walking us through sites of devastated urban structures churned into steel and rubble; your taking us to archeological sites for which you had deep respect and a passionately loving affinity; your taking us into cafes, homes, hospitals, markets, university classrooms and check points; your genuine love for all the children of the Near East, especially the orphans and those innocents forced into prostitution and drug trafficking; your being our eyes, our ears, our hearts, our minds, and our hopes, Dear Franklin, have earned you a sacred place in the annals of journalism, a kind of Mt. Parnassus where only the best of the very best are deified and accorded their just place.
You gave up a comfortable and safe life in America to traverse the troubled waters of the Near East in search of truth; you went into the cities; the deserts; the towns and hamlets, the mosques and churches, the museums and the science labs, the refugee camps and government offices; with few exceptions, you respected and loved all the people you encountered; you took great risks to report on the sordid conditions and the deep pathos that has afflicted your fellow human beings; your pencil was at its sharpest when you advocated for children, the women, the elderly, the maimed, and the helpless. You took Christ’s admonishment to love one’s neighbor to heart, and you gave not only of yourself, but of your resources to help mend broken bones and hearts. Your efforts on behalf of all the individual and collective weak, oppressed, discarded, dispossessed and shattered humanity was such a gallant affirmation – an affirmation that in a world gone mad with hatred, apathy, and violence, a few dare to stand firm on principles.
For the living, Franklin’s life exemplifies everything that is decent, that is genuinely good and wholesome, that is dignified, that is just, that is worthy of emulation, that is worthy of praising, and that is worthy of remembering, and, most significantly, worthy of celebrating.
Franklin, the world is an infinitely better place because of you.
You spent a professional lifetime advocating for peace.
May you rest in Peace.
— Raouf Halaby
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Meals for Syrian Refugee Children in Lebanon
Franklin P. Lamb, LLB, LLM, Ph.D. was a Fellow at Oxford University-UK, Law Professor, Legal Adviser to the Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program, Shatila Camp (SSSP-lb.com), and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. As a former Assistant Counsel of the US House Judiciary Committee at the US Congress and Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, Lamb earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil, and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics. Following three summers at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Lamb was a visiting fellow at the Harvard Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies Center where he specialized in Chinese Law. He was the first westerner allowed by the government of China to visit the notorious “Ward Street” Prison in Shanghai. As a volunteer with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut and Washington, DC he was committed to help achieving the Right to Work and the Right to Home Ownership for every Palestinian Refugee in Lebanon. Lamb’s recent book, Syria’s Endangered Heritage: An international Responsibility to Protect and Preserve, is available on Amazon and other ebook outlets as well as at www.syrian-heritage.com . For Syria Heritage updates, please visit: www.syrian-heritage.com. To provide a meal to a Syrian refugee child in Lebanon please visit: http://mealsforsyrianrefugeechildrenlebanon.com.
Go to Originals:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/16/franklin-lamb-requiescat-in-pace/
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Oh my God, I cant believe that. I met Frank during my MS at AUB while he was writing a documentary book as titled “The Price We Pay”. He was such a nice, kind and amazing man. God bless you Frank. We miss you indeed.