InvestigationA year after the explosion that devastated Beirut, the investigation is sluggish, hampered by the obstruction of the authorities who oppose the lifting of the immunity of several high-ranking suspects.
Two blood-curdling thunderclaps. A tsunami of ash that devours everything in its path. And howls of panic followed by end-of-the-world silence. It was in Beirut on August 4, 2020, a little after 6 p.m. A stockpile of several hundred tons of ammonium nitrate, unloaded six years earlier from a garbage ship and abandoned in a port hangar, exploded.
The blast, one of the biggest explosions in recent years, wreaked havoc in the Lebanese capital. Rescuers counted more than 200 dead, 6,500 injured and 300,000 homeless. According to the UN, 73,000 apartments, 163 schools and 6 hospitals were destroyed or damaged. In a few seconds, a blanket of mourning and despair fell on Beirut, already plagued by an economic crisis of unprecedented violence.
A people at their wit’s end
A year later, the trauma remains intact. Responsibility for the cataclysm has not been established and its exact circumstances continue to be debated. The Lebanese press has shown that the highest authorities of the State had been alerted to the presence in the port of ammonium nitrate, a nitrogenous fertilizer that can be used as an explosive. But the investigation led by Judge Tarek Bitar is stalling.
The magistrate’s efforts to indict several former ministers and heads of the security services come up against the obstruction of Parliament and their supervisory institutions, which refuse for the moment to lift their immunity. Only a handful of second knives have been charged, including port officials. This situation revolts the families of the victims, who fear that the martyrs of August 4 will be “Murdered a second time”.
Behind them is a whole people, at their wit’s end, demanding truth and justice. The collapse of the national currency and the bankruptcy of the banking sector have left the population devastated by gasoline shortages and power cuts. A large part of the inhabitants of the country of the Cedar dedicate to the gemonies the community leaders who share the power and its prebends for thirty years and are past masters in the art of escaping from their responsibilities.
“The people have reached the end of what they can endure in terms of impunity”, Marie-Claude Najm, Lebanese Minister of Justice
Hence the crucial importance of Judge Bitar’s investigation. This moment of truth can seal the final burial of the Lebanese exception, a mixture of pluralism and modernity, unique in the region, but dying for a long time. As it can sow the seeds of renewal, a process which will in any case take many years. “On the August 4 case, either it passes and the Lebanese regain confidence in their justice, or it breaks, warns Marie-Claude Najm, the Minister of Justice. The people have reached the end of what they can bear in terms of impunity. “
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