No end in sight to Lebanon crisis as protests continue

Protesters blocked several main roads across Lebanon on Friday as unprecedented demonstrations against a political elite accused of corruption and incompetence entered their fourth month.

The protest movement rocking Lebanon since Oct.17 has resurged this week, over delays in forming a new cabinet to address the country’s growing economic crisis.

No progress seemed to have been made on a final lineup, which protesters demand be made up solely of independent experts and empty of traditional political parties.

In central Beirut, dozens of protesters on Friday stood between parked cars blocking a key thoroughfare linking the city’s east and west.

“We blocked the road with cars because it’s something they can’t move,” Marwan Karam said.

The protester condemned what he regarded as efforts to form yet another government representing the usual carve-up of power between the traditional parties.

“We don’t want a government of masked political figures,” the 30-year-old told reporters. “Any such government will fall. We won’t give it any chance in the street.” Forming a new cabinet is often a drawn-out process in Lebanon, where a complex system seeks to maintain balance between the various political parties and a multitude of religious confessions.

Nearby, Carlos Yammine, 32, said he did not want yet another “cake-sharing government.”

“What we have asked for from the start of the movement is a reduced, transitional, emergency government of independents,” he said, leaning against his car.

Elsewhere, demonstrators closed roads including in Lebanon’s second city of Tripoli, though some were later reopened, the National News Agency said.

The protest movement is in part fuelled by the worst economic crisis that Lebanon has witnessed since its 1975-1990 civil war.

The protests this week saw angry demonstrators attack banks following the imposition of sharp curbs on cash withdrawals to stem a liquidity crisis.

On Thursday night, protesters vandalised three more banks in the capital’s Hamra district, smashing their glass fronts and graffitiing ATMs, a photographer said.

Earlier, Lebanon’s security services released most of the 100-plus protesters detained over the previous 48 hours, lawyers said.

Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned the arrests and the response of security forces to protests outside a police station on Wednesday night demanding detainees be released.

“The unacceptable level of violence against overwhelmingly peaceful protesters on Jan.15 calls for a swift independent and transparent investigation,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at the rights watchdog.

Over the past few months, the Lebanese pound — long pegged to the US dollar at 1,507 — has fallen in value on the unofficial market to around 2,500.

The World Bank has warned that the poverty rate in Lebanon could rise from a third to a half if the political crisis is not remedied fast.

As cash runs short at Lebanon’s banks, so has the patience of depositors. Hit by restrictions on withdrawals, some are taking extreme steps, occupying branches and in one case taking an employee hostage, to squeeze what they can from their accounts.

Lebanon’s financial crisis and dollar shortage have prompted commercial banks to impose strict caps on withdrawing dollars and a block on most transfers abroad, leaving Lebanese, many of whom are paid in dollars, strapped for cash.

With withdrawal caps set at a few hundred dollars per week, some depositors have tried to strong-arm their way to their cash.

Lebanon has seen 101 incidents at banks from Nov.1 to Jan.13, ranging from scuffles and sit-ins to more violent assaults on bank branches, according to security sources.

“It’s like a snowball, growing each day,” said a security source. “It’s starting to reach a choking point and people are suffocating.”

When one depositor who identified herself only as Lama and five colleagues from the southern city of Sidon were denied $400 their bank had promised, they returned with 10 protesters in a show of force.

Agencies