Positions

American Lebanese Foundation

For Lebanon and the Lebanese American Community

Realistic Solutions Possible for Lebanon

07/17/2020

Lebanon continues to struggle with the most difficult and dangerous situation since independence and probably since the beginning of recorded history. The Lebanese people are somewhat divided into multiple diverse groups on the basis of hope versus despair, staying or leaving the county, saving the special democratic system versus its complete destruction and starting a new system from scratch, looking to the west and old Arab allies versus looking to the east and Iran for help, tolerating the questionable state within a state a little longer versus implementation of UNR 1559 immediately. These are some of the bad news. On the other hand, some relatively good news should be acknowledged: until now, violence and divisions on confessional basis, have essentially been avoided or successfully contained. There has been unity that the emergency management of the financial and economic situation are of the highest priority. There is also unity that a peaceful revolution may be the only pathway to real salvation, and the question is that possible? ALF believes, yes, it is possible.

We have been generally reassured, that the majority of expatriates, still care about their country of origin. Even those who may have lost millions, of their life earnings, still believe in Lebanon and think that someday in the foreseeable future they will have access to at least a significant part of their monies. Most also believe that sooner or later the politicians and/or bankers who cold bloodedly stole the people’s money will someday be brought to justice. There are already lawsuits in progress to help retrieve and recuperate some monies and there are international efforts aiming at helping the Lebanese people and planning to punish some politicians by implementation of the Magnitsky act or similar policies against corruption and abuse of human rights.

We are aware of a July 11 appeal resulting from an expatriate meeting in Brussels. Although we have not been informed of the names of the participants, we are happy to hear that they were focused on retrieving the illegitimate moneys secretly transferred out of Lebanon by unscrupulous bankers and politicians. We are also aware of speeches by sincere diverse religious leaders appealing for solutions to the current disastrous deterioration of the economic and financial situation.

We also heard of the new broad and representative protest, planned for July 17? We were told that it is expected to represent all groups, and regions, like the peaceful October 17, 2019 event, but this time it will have leadership and/or spokespersons? Last October, the protests were leaderless and when the President invited representatives to meet him and present their demands, nobody was available. We hope this time there will be leaders or spokespersons ready to go to Baabda and demand a prompt ministerial upgrade, replacing most or all the current ministers who are ineffective for reforms, because they are mouthpieces for politicians who lost the people’s confidence. We also suggest that a significant number of ministers be chosen from the expatriate community who have remained in close touch with Lebanon and who clearly are independent of any politicians in Lebanon and had nothing to do, with the known. corruption process. There are many., who worked in Lebanon for weeks, months or years and demonstrated their abilities in reforms and fighting corruption.

We wish to remind all those who care about solutions and the future of Lebanon, that ALF published a Position Paper on its website, in November of 2018 whereby a prominent recommendation was to unite Lebanon around fighting terrorism and corruption. The fight against terrorism was generally successful. The fight against corruption has not seriously started yet, and is now very urgently needed without delay. We believe such fight is possible and unifying, because even the most corrupt leaders or politicians, as we stated in November 2018 and before, can not acknowledge or defend corruption. If smart, and courageous choices in the ministerial upgrades are based on independence, integrity, and proven reformist anti-corruption record, multiple plans could be agreed upon and implementation of reforms will become promptly feasible.

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