Macron, in Beirut at the end of August, engaged in some symbolic acts before getting down to the business of lecturing his hosts on the need for meaningful reform.
Earlier, Macron planted a cedar sapling at a forest reserve in the mountains northeast of Beirut. The Elysée palace said this was to show Macron’s “confidence in the future of the country.”
The French air force display team flew overhead, leaving smoke trails of red, white and green, the national colors of Lebanon whose borders were proclaimed by France 100 years ago in an imperial carve-up with Britain. It gained independence in 1943.
It was not an “imperial carve-up” of the Ottoman Empire in 1920; France took possession of Lebanon as the holder of a League of Nations mandate, not to seize the territory for itself; its solemn task was to bring Lebanon to the point where it was ready for independence. And this is what the French accomplished by 1943.
Macron, who has been at the center of international efforts to press Lebanese leaders to tackle corruption and take other steps to fix their country, began his trip late on Monday by meeting Fairouz, 85, one of the Arab world’s most famous singers whose music transcends Lebanon’s deep divisions.
Fairouz is an Eastern Orthodox Christian. Visiting her in her icon-filled apartment was not only a tribute by Macron to a celebrated singer, but reminded Lebanese of the Christian contribution to the culture of the country.
He was greeted by dozens of protesters outside her home with placards reading, “No cabinet by, or with, the murderers,” and, “Don’t be on the wrong side of history!”
The “murderers” in this case refer to those responsible for the Beirut blast on August 4 – that is, the members of Hezbollah. Everyone now knows that the explosion took place in Hanger 12, where 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrates had been haphazardly stored by Hezbollah and kept there for six years. Hangar 12 was controlled exclusively by Hezbollah; no others were allowed near it. And it was in Hangar 9, also controlled by Hezbollah, where the initial fire and explosion took place among the weapons stored there by the terror group.
Macron toured the devastated Beirut port [as he had earlier in August] and met President Michel Aoun for a centenary reception. He will also meet Lebanon’s main factions.
Lebanon’s economic crisis is rooted in decades of state corruption and waste that landed the state with one of the world’s heaviest public debt burdens.
Lebanon’s debt to GDP ratio is 160%, the second highest in the world. As for “corruption and waste,” his host President Michel Aoun is a perfect embodiment. As noted earlier, he’s now worth $90 million, despite never having earned more than $150,000 a year as president; his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, formerly the Foreign Minister, has also done well, on an even smaller salary; he’s now worth $50 million. While they and other politicians have prospered, Lebanon’s economy has collapsed. They are merely the latest stewards, and enablers, of that ruin.
Since October, the currency has collapsed and depositors have been frozen out of their savings while the real value of those deposits has collapsed in a paralyzed banking system. Poverty and unemployment has soared in a nation that already hosts the world’s largest number of refugees per capita.
The Lebanese lira has lost 85% of its value since last October. Banks have put strict limits on withdrawals. 55% of Lebanese now live below the poverty line. Unemployment is over 40%.
“Today everything is blocked and Lebanon can no longer finance itself,” Macron said, adding that the central bank and banking system were in crisis and an audit was needed.
“There is likely money that has been diverted. So we need to know the truth of the numbers, so that judicial actions can then be taken.”
Macron wants to subject the Lebanese banks to outside auditors, to find out just how much money has been “diverted” to politicians and others who have been helping themselves — using all kinds of chicanery, including unsecured loans made by the banks to powerful friends — to the bank deposits of ordinary Lebanese, who with the collapse of the currency find themselves, so recently members of the middle class, now pushed into poverty. Some Lebanese, the value of whose life savings have shrunk by 85%, are now eating only every other day.
There are two interrelated tasks for a new Lebanese government.
The first is to maximize the financial transparency of politicians. Banks should be routinely audited by non-Lebanese, preferably European, auditors. Politicians, including those in the cabinet and in Parliament, as well as party officials, should be required to file annual financial reports, including their tax returns, their bank accounts foreign and domestic, the value of all their property in and outside Lebanon. Any attempt to hide or undervalue assets should be promptly investigated and if confirmed, the offender should be barred from political office. These are draconian measures, but the political corruption in Lebanon demands them.
Politicians should also be required to report any members of their extended family who are now working for the government. The kind of work these relatives perform – are they sinecures or legitimate employment? — and the salaries they receive, should also be reported and made public. This won’t end the now rampant nepotism, but it will cut it down to size, reduce it to manageable proportions. Few politicians will want it known that they’ve provided jobs for a dozen or two of their relatives, while the ordinary Lebanese must endure an unemployment rate of over 40%.
The second is to curb the power of Hezbollah. It would be good if Macron and the other heads of potential donor governments collectively demanded that Hezbollah be disarmed. They can point out that no other country in the world is forced to tolerate a non-governmental armed force that is stronger than the nation’s own armed forces; Lebanon should not continue to be the lone exception. And Macron should use the carrot of aid promised at that 2018 conference ($10.2 billion in loans, $860 million in grants) as the stick of aid withheld: Lebanon should not expect any money, loans or grants, from donors until Hezbollah has turned in its major weaponry to the government, especially that armory of 150,000 missiles and rockets with which Hezbollah threatens to drag Lebanon into a war with Israel that the Lebanese do not want. Without those missiles and rockets, that threat is eliminated.
Though Hezbollah will be exceedingly reluctant to comply, it may find it necessary to do so. For if on top of everything else it has done to damage Lebanon (for example, by starting that 2006 war with Israel), including its responsibility for the August 4 Beirut blast, it is now the reason that desperately needed aid is not delivered, it will have made the whole Lebanese population, except for its own members, into a permanent enemy. Hezbollah can still exist, as a political party, like Amal, representing Shi’a interests in the government, but not as an army with more conventional weaponry than 95% of the world’s armies.
For President Macron, that advice is no doubt enough. The French president has a hard slog ahead of him. And so, alas, does Lebanon.
Ray Jarman says
When I was young, I always wished to visit Beirut. It was considered to be like Venice of the Orient and for the most part the people lived peacefully. That was until the Shiites started to complain that they felt as outsiders and then they started attacking and killing everyone else. Initially the rightful heirs to the guardianship of state (the Druze) with the Christians and Sunnis chipping in to do their part maintain harmony. Even today when one travels to the mountain region where the Druze live, one finds peace and true hospitality as my wife and I were shown back in 2007.
As long as Hezbollah is permitted a military outside of the Lebanese military, the country is doomed to failure. Permitting Hezbollah’s constant harassment of Israel and placing missiles and other weapons of war within civilian living space, the nation has no chance. The three other players must stand up and abolish the cancer that is causing the mass majority of its sickness.
gravenimage says
Macron, Back in Beirut, Gives Lebanese Leaders a Warning on the Need to Reform (Part 2)
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Good to finally hear something from Macron.