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For the second consecutive day, violent clashes broke out on Sunday, January 19 in Beirut, anti-government demonstrators and police, causing a total of more than 500 injured. Despite the severity of the crisis, the Lebanese leaders cannot agree on the formation of a new government supposed to carry out fundamental reforms to slow down the economic and social collapse of the country.
With our correspondent in Beirut, Paul Khalifeh
For the second consecutive evening , violent clashes between anti-government protesters and law enforcement officials in Beirut on Sunday. Army and riot police reinforcements were deployed in the city center where hundreds of demonstrators gathered again at the entrance to an avenue leading to the Parliament. Protesters threw stones and firecrackers at riot police checkpoints. The police responded with rubber bullets, activating a water cannon and firing tear gas. The Lebanese Red Cross has announced a provisional assessment of 70 wounded, including 30 transported to hospitals.
A worsening crisis
Two months after the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and four weeks after the appointment of his successor, Hassan Diab, there is still no government. The leaders do not provide public opinion with any convincing explanation for this delay. The media reports of disputes over the distribution of the portfolios between the parties which supported the new Prime Minister, and who are supposed to be all allies.
However, Lebanon does not have the luxury of time. Each passing day brings its share of bad news: mass layoffs, soaring prices, fall in the value of the Lebanese pound, shortage of liquidity in banks ...
Social inaction and security response
The inertia of the leaders amplified the anger of the demonstrators, certain fringes of whom are clearly radicalizing in terms of speech, but also actions. The level of violence reached in recent days attests to this. The authorities are content to provide a security response by toughening the repression and offer no political or social perspective.
As Hani Fayad explains, who has been pounding the pavement every night since the start of the revolt. For him, it is the growing economic distress which attracts more Lebanese living far from the capital. " All of this shows a popular revolt for the first time, " he said. The economic need of the Lebanese is something new compared to the previous demonstrations of 2011, 2015 and early 2019. What is happening is that now it is Lebanese from the periphery who are coming. This economic need is much more fierce in the distant areas of Beirut. And these Lebanese who come from the Lebanese periphery are more ferocious than the Lebanese living in large cities. "
" You can't have to wear hollow stomachs "
“ Lebanese governments have always used procrastination, avoidance. However, this time, the avoidance, the postponement of the problems of the hour cannot work because one cannot have the wear of the hollow bellies, confirms Youssef Mouawad, specialist of Lebanon. People are hungry. We can't tell them : we'll see that in two, three, four months. It is a problem that has become essential. In everyday life, people no longer have the means to get around or to eat, or worse, to pay for their children's education. The middle class has been impoverished, the economically weak classes are truly in utter misery. You can't have a "velvet revolution" in Beirut. There will be confrontation and, in my opinion, the Lebanese state wants confrontation. The Lebanese state is looking for a pretext to beat up young people. We are not in Syria. We don't shoot in the pile. But the Lebanese state doesn't mind having people in front of it who proclaim that they are for a soft revolution, which has no influence on them. "
Even in the area of security, there is no shortage of differences between the leaders. The resigning Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, who manages current affairs, refused the convening of the Higher Defense Council to discuss the latest events, as the President of the Republic wanted. Michel Aoun will therefore be content, this Monday, January 20, to bring together the heads of the army and the security services for an ordinary meeting.
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