Authorities eject ministry protesters in Beirut
By Staff writer /Al Arabiya News, Beirut/Tuesday, 1 September 2015/Lebanese police forces began to forcefully evacuate several dozen protesters who stormed the Ministry of Environment in downtown Beirut earlier on Tuesday, Al Arabiya News Channel reported. The country’s interior minister gave the protesters 30 minutes to clear the building, the channel quoted him as saying on Tuesday. Protesters stormed the building earlier demanding the resignation of Environment Minister Mohammed Machnouk over the country’s trash crisis.The group from the movement known as “You Stink” posted a video of themselves sitting cross-legged on the floor, shouting slogans against Machnouk. “Out, out, out!” they shouted Tuesday. Machnouk is reportedly trapped in his office inside the ministry building besieged by protesters, Al Arabiya’s correspondent reported.
It was not clear what would happen if the protesters do not leave.
Infographic: Protesters storm environment ministry in Beirut.The move came hours ahead of a deadline set by the campaign for the government to respond to their demands after a massive weekend demonstration.
“They refused to listen to our demands that we gave them 72 hours to fulfill,” activist Lucien Bourjeily told Agence France-Presse. “They announced clearly that the minister will not resign. We are asking for the resignation of the minister and won’t leave until that happens.” The “You Stink” campaign began in response to a trash crisis that erupted with the closure of Lebanon’s largest landfill in mid-July. But it has evolved into an outlet for deep-seated frustrations over Lebanon’s crumbling infrastructure and stagnant political class. Last week, the campaign set out four key demands: the resignation of Machnouk, new parliamentary elections, the devolvement of trash collection duties to municipalities and accountability for violence against protesters.
Machnouk has refused, resigning only from a government committee assigned to resolve the trash crisis. The group said Saturday after a massive protest that the government had 72 hours to respond to its demands, with that deadline set to expire on Tuesday night. “(We began early) for the element of surprise,” Bourjeily told AFP of the sit-in. He said additional measures could yet be announced later Tuesday. “It will depend on the response of the government.”(with Reuters, AFP and the Associated Press)
You Stink’ Activists Storm Environment Ministry, Vow to Stay until Demands are Met
Naharnet/September 01/15/Scores of activists from the “You Stink” movement stormed on Tuesday the Environment Ministry building in downtown Beirut to push for the resignation of Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq over his failure to resolve the country’s waste crisis.
“We will stay here until our demands are met,” Imad Bazzi, one of the organizers of anti-government protests held by “You Stink,” said. Another protester said: “This is our ministry. We will protect it. We don’t need the presence of security forces,” which deployed heavily at the building’s entrance and blocked it. In their surprise action, the activists chanted “Mashnouq out” and urged the ministry employees and Lebanese citizens to join them. In a video footage, they were seen sitting cross-legged on the floor, clapping hands and shouting slogans against the minister. But al-Mashnouq refused to resign, telling TV stations: “I am carrying out my duties.”He said he was at his office on the building’s 8th floor and urged security forces to assume their responsibilities. But the activists urged the minister to come out of his office and address the protesters, saying they refused to send a representative to negotiate with al-Mashnouq. Informed sources later said that Prime Minister Tammam Salam would not accept Mashnouq’s resignation should he take such a step. They added that the minister is “being wrongfully held responsible for a crisis which dates back to years and which the political powers have shied away from resolving.”
As their sit-in continued, some protesters suffered from fainting spells due to the poor ventilation at the building after the windows were shut and air-conditioning was turned off. Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat who had previously voiced his support for the activists’ demands said via Twitter: “The occupation of the environment minister’s office is not a solution to the waste crisis or any other problem.” Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun also expressed his support for the youth’s demands, but advised them instead to focus their attention towards the adoption of a new electoral law, staging of parliamentary elections, and election of a new president. During its last protest in downtown Beirut on Saturday, “You Stink” issued a 72-hour ultimatum for the authorities to meet their demands, including the resignation of the environment minister, holding Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq accountable for police violence in previous demonstrations, and releasing funds for municipalities to begin their own garbage management programs. In longer term goals, the activist group called for new parliamentary elections and the election of a president to fill a post that has been vacant since May last year due to political squabbling. The waste crisis erupted after the closure of the Naameh landfill that lies south of Beirut on July 17.
Why the Lebanese protest, and what next
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Now Lebanon/Published: 31/08/2015
Many Lebanese want change, but not most. While heart-warming, images from downtown Beirut showed crowds short of filling the two squares. Their demands reshuffled priorities of the Independence Intifada, aka March 14. Other demands were either unjustified or irrelevant.
The protests are understandable. In less than a year, four Lebanese patriarchs — Walid Jumblatt, Michel Aoun, Amin Gemayel and Suleiman Franjieh — ‘passed on’ their leadership mantles to their sons or sons-in-law. And since the exit of Michel Suleiman in May 2014, Lebanon has been living without a president. Parliament, which constitutionally becomes an electoral body with the sole mission of electing a president, is on lockdown because Mr. Aoun wants to become president but does not have enough votes to secure the post.
In functioning states, citizens express their opinions on public matters and run for office. In Lebanon, elections of all kinds — presidential, parliamentary and mayoral — have been suspended since the end of the current parliament’s term in 2013. This means that the Lebanese can either express their opinions through the reigning oligarchs, or not at all. And the Lebanese have a lot of rage to express. The frozen political system has pushed an already-stressed infrastructure to the brink of collapse. In one of the hottest summers on record, the Lebanese have had to grapple with more frequent electricity and water cuts. Fighting among the oligarchs for lucrative contracts of garbage collection has allowed trash to pile up across the country, further aggravating the feeling of a rotten summer. And so thousands of Lebanese took to the streets.
Yet the number of protesters on Saturday — 25,000 by generous estimates — fell short of the mega rally of 14 March 2005. By its sheer size, March 14 forced historic changes. It forced Assad to withdraw his troops from Lebanon after 29 years. March 14 undermined Hezbollah’s arguments for maintaining a militia and pushed for trying perpetrators of political crimes.
If the March 14 coalition proved to be a hodgepodge of incompetent tribal politicians, it does not mean that the March 14 agenda should be abandoned or its priorities reshuffled. Beirut’s garbage problem started a few weeks ago and will be resolved after contract renewal, even if the contracting process is corrupt. Hezbollah’s arms is a much older and pressing problem that remains unresolved. The debate over why Hezbollah should disarm is not ‘dirty politics.’ Hezbollah’s militia issue is not part of the corrupt political establishment issue. Hezbollah’s problem is much bigger than Lebanese corruption. With or without March 14, Hezbollah should disarm. Adding Hezbollah to the rest in the slogan “all of them means all of them” trivializes Hezbollah’s arms issue and makes it equivalent to issues as mundane as the Gemayel succession of the Phalange Party leadership — a dumb comparison, to say the least.
Garbage and corruption should not overshadow the fundamental problems that undermine the sovereignty of the Lebanese state, weaken it and allow for corruption in the first place. Yet, the rally on 29 August did just that. It made garbage a priority ahead of much more serious infractions. When not refocusing Lebanese rage from Hezbollah’s arms to garbage, the 29 August folks presented unjustified demands. A week earlier, protesters had tried to break the security ring protecting the seat of government at the Grand Serail in downtown Beirut. Employing standard procedure, security forces held their ground by using tear gas and rubber bullets. For doing their job, the 29 August crowd wants to hold security forces accountable; an unjustifiable demand.
Next, 29 Augus activists asked for the resignation of Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouq, a political appointee whose ministry is irrelevant and commands meager resources. In 2000, Machnouq ran on Prime Minister Tammam Salam’s parliamentary ticket against the late Rafiq Hariri. Hariri easily defeated them. When Salam was called from the world of obscurity to form a cabinet, he brought his partner Machnouq with him.
Going after a figure as minor as Machnouq suggests that YouStink and its supporters have no muscle or will to go after the actual culprits responsible for the failure of the state. Otherwise, they would have marched on Dahiyeh, Rabiyeh, Ayn el-Tineh, Moukhtara or any of the sectarian capitals of the country. While the jury is still out, the Lebanese should bear in mind that in Arab countries and Iran, change has always been to the worse. None of Egypt’s 1952 coup and the many Arab coups that followed — popular revolts like in Iran in 1979, Lebanon in 2005, and Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt in 2011, and the toppling of Iraq’s regime in 2003 — resulted in improvement. In the US, a common question to those who are running for office and once supported the Iraq War is this: Had you known in 2003 what we know now, would you still have gone to war? The Arabs should think similarly to reassess the Arab Spring: if they had known that their inspiring popular revolts would have taken things to where they are now, would they still have revolted?
**Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai. He tweets @hahussain
