Beirut explosion latest in litany of disasters for Lebanon

War, corrupt leaders have taken a toll, Joe Hak says.

The Beirut explosion, Aug.4, added another catastrophe to Lebanon’s series of disasters.

In a very quick synopsis, in its last 50 years, Lebanon has endured several upheavals, including 15 years (1975-1990) of a vicious civil war that took the lives of thousands and the livelihoods of two generations.

In 1990, international and regional powers suddenly felt a gush of compassion for the Lebanese. Saudi Arabia hosted a meeting of all warring factions at a desert resort called Taif. The warlords signed the Taif Agreement, which detailed the sharing of power and stipulated that Lebanon must create a National Unity Council to erase the country’s calamitous history of confessionalism and lay the grounds for a secular state. That was October 1989.

Guns were silenced and stashed away for the next round, and all warlords hugged and kissed and returned to Lebanon. Before entering the doors of Lebanon’s Sarai — the historic government building — the streets they walked on were unmarked graves of thousands of young men and women who sacrificed their blood thinking they were dying for Lebanon. Alas, they died so all religious warlords stayed alive and healthy enough to share the ravages of war.

Fast forward. The same warlords, essentially a dozen families who divided and owned Lebanon as 18 religious franchises since Lebanon’s creation in 1921, resumed their self-engraved parliamentary seats and took over all government ministries. At the helm as prime minister was a fresh face to politics, not a member of the warlord congregation — the late Rafic Hariri, a philanthropist Lebanese billionaire.

Lebanon’s new prime minister, Hariri, was out of the league of warlord families. He was well respected by world leaders and when he requested money to launch the development of Lebanon’s infrastructure, the IMF, World Bank, the EU and Gulf Arab States were happy to oblige.

Hariri’s personal determination was to create reconciliation among all Lebanese and start reconstruction of a New Lebanon, as declared by the Taif Agreement. However, he failed to break through the fortified walls of the 18 franchise owners.

Before Hariri’s assassination in 2005 and to this moment, those same families, with very few new ones, are the only ones who had the highly secretive PIN numbers to Lebanon’s bank accounts. The Washington Post and many reliable publications estimated Lebanese politicians stole US$800 billion, most of it stored away in European and other banks. Thus, the people of Lebanon were deprived of even the minimum of safety measures or basic essentials of life.

This recent explosion was a disaster years in the making. Since 2014, internal security officers wrote reports to successive ministers of the imminent danger of storing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. No one cared. Because historically, the franchise owners place no value on human life; people’s safety is of no concern.

Lebanon’s port is totally obliterated and so are the silos of grain storage. The Hiroshimalike explosion is an additional calamity to many festering wounds in the body of Lebanon and all Lebanese. To list a few, garbage has been piled in Lebanon’s streets for five years. Despite Lebanon’s $100-billion national debt, most people live in darkness — no power generation plants. People die at the doors of hospitals if they don’t have money to pay or a politician to intervene. Unemployment is at 35 per cent. Even for those who are working, their buying power has been reduced by 80 per cent because the Lebanese pound has hit the dust.

Lebanon, not just Beirut, is a disaster zone.

All people are in danger of ravaging famine.

I pray to God I’m wrong. Remember the warring guns stashed away in 1990 after Taif Agreement were signed? Some of these guns have come out. Is Lebanon at the verge of another round of civil war? Only God and international powers know.

We can help avert some pain by making a contribution to the Lebanese Red Cross, Lebanon’s food bank, civil defence and humanitarian organizations working on the ground and to any person or family you can reach.

God save what’s left of a country that has been the victim of its own so called “leaders.”