Lebanon just days away from social explosion, warns Diab
Caretaker PM urges foreign donors to release financial assistance, adding that ‘linking aid to Lebanon with government formation has started to threaten the lives of Lebanese’
Lebanon’s caretaker premier Hassan Diab on Tuesday urged donors to “save” the country, despite the fact it has no formal government, as it struggles through a dire economic crisis.
Warning that Lebanon is “just days away from a social explosion,” Diab urged the international community to “help save Lebanese from death and prevent Lebanon’s demise.”
He urged foreign donors to release financial aid even though the multi-confessional country has failed to form a new government in almost 11 months.
“Linking aid to Lebanon with government formation has started to threaten the lives of Lebanese,” Diab told a Beirut meeting with foreign envoys.
Withholding funds, he argued, does “not affect the corrupt. Instead it is the Lebanese people who pay a heavy price,” he said. “Save Lebanon before it’s too late.”
Lebanese are grappling with spiralling devaluation and painful shortages as the country plunges deeper into what the World Bank has called one of the world’s worst economic crises since the 1850s. The international community has pledged humanitarian aid but conditioned any financial assistance to the cash-strapped interim government on the formation of a new cabinet to launch reforms.
But despite international pressure, led by former colonial power France, the deeply divided political elite has been unable to agree on a cabinet line-up for almost 11 months.
Diab stepped down and has served as caretaker premier since the Beirut port explosion of last Aug.4, when hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser blew up, killing more than 200 people and ravaging swathes of the capital.
The disaster overwhelmed Beirut hospitals amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
In the months since, the economic crisis that started in the autumn of 2019, sparking mass street protests, has only deepened.
The Lebanese pound has lost more than 90 per cent of its value to the dollar on the black market. Plunging foreign currency reserves have translated into long queues outside petrol stations and imported medicines running out.
“Lebanon is passing through a very dark tunnel, and the suffering has reached the point of tragedy,” Diab said.
Foreign donors have pledged millions of dollars in aid to the Lebanese people at two international conferences, but stopped short of offering any assistance to the Lebanese state.
Meanwhile, it was reported that while healthier lifestyles and greater awareness of climate issues have encouraged a rise in veganism around the world, some Lebanese are taking it up out of necessity.
As the country faces a financial crisis that has driven more than half the population into poverty, many Lebanese find they can’t afford meat or chicken.
Prices are spiralling and salaries are collapsing as the local currency continues to fall after losing 90% of its value over the past two years.
“There are many problems in the country, even the army can’t afford the right amount of meat and chicken in meals,” said Camille Madi, the director of Basecamp, an association that distributes meals to the needy.
Budget cuts forced the military to cut meat from its meals last year.
Basecamp, which started work after the Beirut port blast last summer, had been delivering daily food parcels that included protein, but with donations shrinking and prices rising, a workaround was necessary.
It now delivers one to three times a month to those in need, providing food boxes instead of hot meals, with no meat and chicken.
Basecamp and the Lebanese Vegans Social Hub, which promotes veganism, joined forces to provide 100 vegan meals, Madi, explained as he oversaw volunteers delivering food parcels in Beirut’s Karantina area, badly affected by the port explosion.
While delivering the aid boxes, Social Hub members were also raising awareness about vegan food and why it can be a solution now.