Lebanon rises up

"THE rising of the people across Lebanon’s towns and cities over the past three days represents a very significant change in the character of Lebanese politics.” This was the assessment of Omar El Deeb, international secretary of the Lebanese Communist Party, interviewed at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties in Izmir at the weekend.

On Thursday tens of thousands of working people gathered in the towns and cities of Lebanon to protest against government proposals to increase the tax on fuel, to raise VAT on all goods from 11 to 13 per cent and, for the first time, to impose a tax on the use of WhatsApp, the main means of communication for the poor.

The taxes are being imposed to meet the conditions imposed by the IMF and consortiums of banks from the European Union and the Gulf states for a new $13 billion loan to the heavily indebted Lebanese government.

The bankers are demanding that the government deficit is drastically cut. The government is doing so at the expense of the poor in a country where well over 35 per cent of the population lives in poverty, where there is massive unemployment — the government does not provide figures — and where a third of the population has already had to emigrate to find work.

The significance of the protests, says El Deeb, is that they are not just protests against taxes. After the first day, when they were in places met by a violent response, they changed in character.

“They turned first against the government and then against the regime as a whole. There is now a mass demand for an end to the sectarian power-sharing regime that has existed since the end of the civil war in the early 1990s.”

Under the terms of this agreement elections have, since then, taken place on the basis of lists representing the different religious communities, each maintaining their own internal political structures and often armed paramilitary forces or militias.

For almost three decades these groupings have ruled together, and their leaders grown rich together, and have done so in association with those who control Lebanon’s banks and industries.

When the protests broke out on Thursday and Friday it was the Christian militias in the north that sought to break up the protests and clear the highways while in the south it was the militias of the Shia Amal alliance linked to Hezbollah who sought to do so.

The Lebanese Communist Party has always stood outside these groupings. Although historically a very significant force in Lebanese politics and having played a major role in repelling the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon in 2006, the non-sectarian and class-based Lebanese Communists have consequently been excluded from the Lebanese parliament.

“This is why the continuing mobilisation is so significant,” says El Deeb. “Despite the violence used against them, with militias opening fire in Tripoli and significant violence being used to clear the highways in the south, the demonstrators have regrouped. It is very similar to the mobilisation which has recently taken place in Iraq against a similar ‘power-sharing’ sectarian based regime.

“Over the past decades these sectarian power structures have grown increasingly corrupt and become closely integrated with the wealthy banking and merchant elites. It is the international loans taken out to finance infrastructure projects run by their private consortia that have pushed Lebanon into bankruptcy and deficit.

“There is now in Lebanon unparalleled levels of inequality. The top 1 per cent of bank accounts contain over 52 per cent of deposited wealth. This is what people are now protesting against. They see themselves as being forced to bail out a corrupt kleptocracy in order for them to seize more assets from international bankers. The crisis has exposed both the sectarian and class nature of Lebanese politics.

“The demonstrators have shown great courage in standing against armed militias and the local power structures they represent. On the second day the numbers demonstrating in Beirut swelled to 30,000 and demonstrators returned in greater numbers to block roads in the north and the south.

“This resistance is a measure of the gravity of the economic situation. The call of the Lebanese party is for taxes to be imposed on wealth. There should be a 15 per cent tax on income from investment and on the incomes of those with over $100,000 — not through VAT and other taxes on basic necessities.

“The Lebanese authorities now appear to be backtracking on some of their original demands at the same time as seeking to step up their repression of protests and to reassert the power of local militias.

“Our members are, however, part of the continuing resistance on the streets and in the workplaces and demanding that the economic crisis be met by measures that will deal with unemployment and poverty.

“The corrupt and class nature of the ‘power-sharing’ regime has been exposed. As in Iraq and other countries in the region a basis is being laid for a new class unity among working people — a unity that can only grow deeper as the economic crisis intensifies.”