Lebanon Corruption rife a year after Beirut blast

At ground zero of Lebanon’s apocalypse a stench of dead rats seeps from hulking piles of rotting grain. Broken silos teeter above, their sides ripped apart by the catastrophic blast that also broke the soul of Beirut; the contents that should have fed a nation still lie spilt over the gaping ruins of its main port.

A year ago this week, one of the planet’s gravest industrial accidents caused one of its biggest ever explosions, shattering a city that was already at a tipping point. The mushroom cloud of chemicals that soared above the Lebanese capital on 4 August 2020 and the seismic force of the shock wave that ravaged its homes and businesses were carried around the world in high-definition horror. Even amid the chaos of a country that had allowed this to happen to its people, this was surely a moment of reckoning.

However, 12 months on, Lebanon remains paralysed and anguished. The investigation into the blast has flatlined, and its perpetrators are as far away from accountability as ever. Even worse, for most Lebanese, the global aid pledged in the wake of the destruction remains forsaken by the

country’s rulers, who prefer the narrow privileges that flowed to them from a crippled system to a global rescue plan that could save the country.

In return for up to $11bn in aid, France demanded structural reforms to governance, and transparency at all levels of spending. Billions more from the European Union is conditional on an audit of the opaque central bank, which has been critical to the movement of Lebanon’s wealth.

In the year since Beirut began picking up the pieces, hyperinflation has put staple foods out of reach of much of its population. Vital medicines can no longer be found – last Friday a four-year-old girl died from a scorpion sting because anti-venom was out of stock. And there is not enough fuel to supply the electricity sector, or the private generator mafia that plugs the gap.

Lebanon’s political class remains unable to form a government, still bickering over the allocation of ministries as prizes to bolster their fiefdoms. State institutions are subservient to dug-in factions. Central bank reserves have dipped below mandatory requirements, meaning an imminent end to subsidies in place to safeguard even the middle classes. And there is no solution except a vast international bailout. Some are starting to confront an unpalatable view that the state’s foundations were flawed. From the Ottoman empire to French mandate, Syrian tutelage, the civil war and the rentier system that followed the 1991 Taif accords that ended the conflict, Lebanon has never had an easy run.

“After Taif, [the warlords] got consolation prizes, instead of being punished for keeping the war going,” said Nora Boustany, a lecturer in journalism at the American University of Beirut. “They went to town. It was a bonanza for them. The Syrians knew it was happening and they wanted a piece of the action as well. To keep the peace, there was an accommodation with justice. This created a culture of impunity, and this became the norm.

“Rafic Hariri steamrolled ahead with reconstruction,” said Boustany of the former prime minister who presided over Lebanon’s postwar rebuild, accumulating a vast fortune along the way. Saudi Arabia and Syria were central to Lebanon’s reconstruction, setting up patronage networks and spheres of influence.

“There was a wealth, a largesse and an ostentatious living that was brought to Beirut,” she said. “They all kept their snout in the trough. They partitioned off aid and money from the big funds, and they just kept stealing.”

Last week, Lebanon named the country’s richest man, Najib Mikati, a two-time prime minister, as its designated leader and tasked him with forming a government. For the previous 12 months, Saad Hariri, another former leader and son of the slain Rafic Hariri, had been unable to do so – his various cabinet lineups rejected by the country’s president, Michel Aoun. Hariri, a product of the system – and a beneficiary of it until his fortunes turned – had been tasked by France with breaking it. His other former patron, Saudi Arabia, had abandoned him in 2017 for ceding political power to Hezbollah, which has cemented its influence with the cover of Aoun.

“What is happening now is the clash between two projects, two ideas,” said Khaldoun Charif, a veteran Tripolibased analyst on Lebanese affairs. “People need to understand that corruption is the system here. Every business – electricity, water, garbage collection, reconstruction – it all cost the Lebanese people more than it should have because giant cuts were being paid to the political players.”

Some days, before the heat bites, port workers collect dead rats from the silos, tossing them into the bay. “They smell so bad,” said Abu Haitham, the symbolism not lost on him.

Yarr Hadid, 24, a student who, like her siblings, wants to leave for Belgium, asked: “If now isn’t the moment to change, then when is? Are we to accept that this is how it is in Lebanon? If the regional actors and the Europeans agreed to the state being built like this, they either have to really help to dismantle it and build again or be honest about the fact that we’re doomed.”