Lebanon: Government falls after explosion

The explosion left a crater 43 metres deep and a bitter memory with more than a hundred dead and more than 5,000 injured; the pandemic in Lebanon could not have tasted worse than this misfortune. The tragedy of 5 August, when a large part of the capital's concentric buildings were blown up by an explosion of ammonium nitrate, supposedly stored for years and in huge quantities in the port (there is talk of 3,000 tonnes), has triggered a series of events that are fatal for that country, which has been gripped by tragedy and decadence in recent decades. 

The image of Emmanuel Macron, a motley crew of grieving survivors looking for immediate comfort, went around the world; the French leader travelled, on the spot, to see first hand the magnitude of the tragedy and to know how to help. He also offered the services of the French intelligence in order to determine who was responsible, to look for satellite images to verify if the explosion was an accidental event or the product of a drone or missile attack. 

In the first instance, the Lebanese Prime Minister, Hassan Diab, requested international help - from the secret services - to find out what satellite images were available at the time. France was the first nation to show its solidarity by calling for a series of monetary and economic rescue aids that Macron warned "would not be a blank cheque" without a relevant external investigation.

Meanwhile, inside the grieving nation, the anger of the local relief orphan citizenry, already touched by the pandemic and now shaken by losing everything (half of Beirut is destroyed with 300,000 homeless) led to the fall of the entire cabinet, as well as the prime minister. "I announce the resignation of this government. The systems of corruption are bigger than the state... the responsibility for this catastrophe belongs to the political class that fights with all the dirty means; they should be ashamed of themselves... there is a great barrier to change," said the ruler. 

Diab only lasted eight months as prime minister, replacing Saad Hariri, who was forced to resign due to the strong protests against him; he previously served as education minister, from 2011 to 2014, under the presidency of Michel Suleiman. He presented himself with a reformist cabinet, in fact, supported by the Shiite factions of Hezbollah and Amal, being a professor at the American University and an independent politician; he came to power in the face of the constant clamour of the population (5,469,000 inhabitants) pressing for change, fed up with an impoverished and unstable economy that grew by 1.5% in 2017.

There is a bulk of the young population demanding greater employment opportunities (unemployment is 25%), a better per capita income - currently $19,600 - better public services and stability with a less corrupt democratic political system. The nation of Lebanon is geographically trapped in a region that is a powder keg of conflicts between Sunni and Shiite factions that have long been violently confronted over control of the eastern Mediterranean and, on top of that, with the increasingly consolidated presence of Israel.

It is a part of the world that is closely linked to the cradle of civilization when the Phoenicians, Assyrians and Chaldeans were the merchants who, with their trade on the sea, allowed villages and routes to be discovered beyond the cloth and spices. The sea brought progress that is now dramatically denied to the Lebanese who have seen and experienced how over the years the surrounding countries have become embroiled in demonic problems.

It has never been a place of easy, lasting peace, from the presence of Alexander the Great when he died and was divided into Anatolia and Mesopotamia until the last century when a civil war, from 1975 to 1990, caused a new exodus of Lebanese to various parts of the world. Its market economy, open to trade and foreign investment, is not helped by its neighbourhood, either with Israel or with Syria, although it also has Egypt and Turkey as well as Cyprus as its overseas neighbour; the long Syrian war which has caused a huge exodus has at least a million Syrians in Lebanon as refugees.

The political regime of Lebanon, a parliamentary republic, will force President Michel Aoun (a Catholic politician) to call on the forces of Congress to elect a new prime minister. Although everything is shaky... even Aoun himself is reluctant to foreign interference to carry out a serious investigation into the causes that led to the big explosion and thus blur the shadow of terrorism.

The French leader offered a serious and impartial investigation, however, his Lebanese counterpart, as well as Hezbollah and other forces, have rejected it while the resigning prime minister looked at it with good eyes. Chance? Chance? Or was it planned by some ill-intentioned group? A few days ago, President Aoun admitted that he knew about the localized accumulation of such fertilizer. "President Aoun was informed on 20 July, through the State Security report, of the presence of a large quantity of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse in the port of Beirut, his Excellency's military adviser informed the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Defence; it is our full intention that the judicial investigation should take its course, using all the experiences to show the full truth about the explosion, its circumstances and those responsible for it at all levels," according to a tweet circulated by the official Presidential account.

There are other disastrous antecedents to the use of ammonium nitrate not for fertilizer but for murder: "It has explosive characteristics. It was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of a truck loaded with 2,180 kilograms that crashed into a federal building killing 168 people and injuring hundreds.

Marwan Abboud, the governor of Beirut, broke down in pain and could not hold back his tears in front of the media cameras after verifying the magnitude of the disaster. He compared it to Hiroshima, coincidence of fate and kept the proportions, in the same week that Japan was preparing to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, between August 6 and 9.

The images from Beirut showed two explosions, the second with such a loud bang that it was heard overseas by Cyprus and that it formed a fungus that frightened the entire population, fearing the worst. Abboud, who knew of a first fire brigade extinguishing the flames, was shocked to learn that they had evaporated with the second explosion; in general, the images of the city are apocalyptic.

The Government estimates in preliminary numbers the loss of infrastructure and damage to public property and housing at between $3 billion and $5 billion, and a worrying destruction of its imported wheat stocks: the storage silos collapsed. In general, the scenario is pitiful with damaged hospitals in their infrastructure saturated with patients with coronavirus that imperiously make room to attend to the thousands of wounded.

The United Nations has called for global solidarity so that the Lebanese are not left alone, António Guterres said the humanitarian situation in Lebanon is precarious and that the international organization will send medical supplies, provisions and aid. "The explosion came at an already difficult time for Lebanon, which was already facing economic adversities and the impact of the coronavirus. Still, the Lebanese people have maintained their generosity by welcoming Palestinian and Syrian refugees; now, the international community must show solidarity with Lebanon... I urge donors to act quickly and generously," said Guterres.

From Beirut, Najat Rochdi, UN coordinator, called for rapid action to help the people, thousands of people who have been left out in the cold and have lost their homes, their things and all their possessions. Also, Henrietta Fore, executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), asked that outside assistance not forget all the children who are suffering the consequences of the explosion and who are doubly victimized, first by the pandemic and now by the circumstances of the detonation.

For its part, the European Union (EU) also wanted to support Lebanon. Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, sent a letter to all European leaders urging them to mobilize and offered $39 million, 250 firefighter experts in rescue from Greece, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Meanwhile, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, contacted the Lebanese dignitary by telephone to offer him support for medium- and long-term reconstruction.

"We invite you to intensify your efforts towards Lebanon both in relation to its immediate needs and in view of the long-term reconstruction of the country. European and international solidarity is essential in the face of the dramatic humanitarian situation and reconstruction needs; we are committed to the stability of the country through economic assistance, support to Syrian refugees and recently with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic", according to the letter. French President Emmanuel Macron travelled to Lebanon, a former French protectorate that gained independence in 1943 and was formerly part of the powerful Ottoman Empire (1516-1918).

The photos of him, at ground zero, trying to calm down and listen to the people while several women ask him for help and even some end up comforted in the arms of the Elysian dolphin, reveal the desperation of the population. On Sunday, August 9, Macron himself convened an unusual teleconference with 26 presidents of the world and leaders of international organizations, from the UN to the World Bank; a meeting to donate. Among the participants, a contribution of 280 million dollars was agreed upon. The UN estimates the immediate needs of this nation at 81 million dollars for health aid alone.

US President Donald Trump said his country would make a donation of around $17 million and the EU decided to contribute an additional $35 million to the money already offered. German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked her country to send $15 million to meet the immediate needs. The leaders of Iran and Israel were absent from the meeting. The former has an important Shiite link with Hezbollah and the latter, without an established relationship, maintains a risky one, especially after the month-long war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 between the Israeli army and Hezbollah.
 
Constant mutual threats remain the order of the day as Israel gains more regional presence and strength internally by expelling more Palestinians from their lands; nor did Saudi Arabia, the other leader who is vying for a significant strategic role in the Middle East and with a Sunni majority. I don't know yet how big the economic gap will be that will cause this explosion, on top of which world GDP will fall 4.9% this year, according to IMF estimates, and there are 80 countries queuing up for a loan with the agency.

Macron has insisted that everything possible must be done to prevent "chaos and violence" from tearing Lebanon apart at a sensitive time in history, with a pandemic in the making and countries continuing to move their chips on the geopolitical chessboard. While no one has yet claimed responsibility for the explosion, several videos posted on social networks showed the moment of the first explosion and then the second, some suggesting that a drone or a missile could be seen. 

Only a serious investigation using satellite images could determine what happened on that fateful day, while the atmosphere becomes more rarefied and the Lebanese president changes his version of the possibility of an attack to that of an accident. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has Hezbollah among the enemies of the American Union, a global threat, and he accuses it of being a terrorist group with networks in Iran, Iraq, Syria and presumably Yemen; he accuses it of being an ally of Iran, another country that Trump points to as a haven for terrorists. 

One of the White House tenant's tasks is to bring order to the region by dividing power between his two favorite allies: Israel and Saudi Arabia, and to do so he seeks to weaken Iran by taking power and presence away from Shiite forces. The president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is in charge of carrying out the high level meetings for the pacification of that part of the world. 

The course of the pandemic and its growing friction with China, for the moment, has distracted the animosity from Washington against the Iranian regime which it has economically suffocated with sanctions and accuses of continuing with its nuclear career. Each one is moving its own pieces: Israel is extending to the territories occupied by the Palestinians in the West Bank to which it is going to be annexed; Iran is trying to have a preponderant role in Syria and extending its military power in other conflicts; and in the zone of the Eastern Mediterranean that Lebanon shares, Turkey recently entered into frictions with Greece because of the exploitation of hydrocarbons in the sea fighting to delimit an exclusive economic zone. 

There has been shooting between Turkish and Greek barges in the area and Athens has asked for help from NATO, with President Macron sending French soldiers to patrol the sea area where the friction is taking place. With no evidence to suggest that the explosion is a mere coincidence, it is hardly credible, but so far it is an accident.