Lebanon: A deadly blast and an explosion of anger
Lebanon has erupted in fury at its inept and corrupt government, said Émilie Sueur in L’Orient–Le Jour (Lebanon). The people blame the entire establishment for the massive explosion at Beirut’s port last week, which left more than 200 people dead and injured thousands more. Authorities had long known that 3,000 tons of the highly explosive fertilizer ammonium nitrate— unloaded from an unseaworthy Russian ship in 2014—were being stored at the port in defiance of safety and logic. Yet they did nothing, and when a fire ignited the warehouse, the fertilizer detonated with the force of a nuclear blast, flattening buildings and throwing debris across the city. Now the Lebanese “have let their rage explode.” Thousands of protesters chanting “The people demand the fall of the regime!” pelted the parliament building with rocks, battling riot police who bombarded them with tear gas and rubber bullets. “When some demonstrators left, their eyes and lungs burnt, others arrived, determined to take over, to keep the streets black with people.” Six days after the tragedy, Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his entire cabinet announced their resignation.
Getting rid of the government is just the start, said An-Nahar (Lebanon) in an editorial. The technocratic Diab took office in January after weeks of mass anti-corruption protests brought down the previous government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. During Diab’s seven months at the helm, the Lebanese currency cratered, leaving many people penniless, and Covid-19 ravaged the land as the government failed to provide reliable water or electricity. Diab says his cabinet “fought valiantly” but was defeated by “an apparatus of corruption bigger than the state.” That is what must be torn down: the “failed political system” that apportions power among various Muslim and Christian sects, encouraging each to loot the state and bestow favors on their own constituents. The leader of Lebanon’s former colonial ruler agrees, said Walid Safi in An-Nahar. As our politicians hid from the angry crowds, it was French President Emmanuel Macron who strode among the rubble of Beirut, comforting the people and promising international aid. “Lebanon needs a new political system, fundamental reforms, and a solution to its economic problems,” Macron said, “as well as an international investigation into the disaster.”
The Lebanese are murderously angry at all the ruling factions, said Sélim Nassib in Libération (France), but particularly at Hezbollah. The Shiite militia and political party took control of the port years ago so that it could smuggle in Iranian weapons. Lebanon imports almost all of its food and goods, and so the supposed “Party of God” has made “very substantial profits” from the port. Reform is almost impossible from within, because Lebanon’s Christian president, Michel Aoun, has made an alliance with Hezbollah to safeguard his own political interests. If foreign powers really want to help this crippled country, they must ensure that no aid flows to Hezbollah or the corrupt government. We can rely only on civic groups—and the generosity of the world.