The Lebanese masses uprising is still ongoing. Pushed by the incessant increase in the cost of living, the exploited have returned to the streetssince last April, in successive marches, road blocks, clashes with the police and the army. They are looking for bread and the bare minimum income to be able to eat and maintain hygiene in the face of growing cases of coronavirus. But even that is denied, with high dollarized prices and a very strong devaluation, added to the growing unemployment, aggravated by the layoffs in times of quarantine due to coronavirus. The refugees, both Syrians and Palestinians, are who suffer the most from these conditions, as their wages are already less than half the average, they have higher unemployment and live in precarious, overcrowded homes in subhuman conditions, and often without drinking water.
For this reason, during the last weeks there were not only mobilizations in the main cities, but also all the routes in the country were blocked. The great call was for today, to march from all the cities to the Martyrs’ Square in Beirut for the fall of the regime.
In the previous days, the government took advantage of a resurgence of COVID-19 cases to return to strict quarantine and ban mobilizations. It has militarized the streets, mobilizing the Army. Hezbollah paraded, guns in hand, threatening to shoot anyone who dates marching on Beirut. After all, Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government and one of the main pillars where the power of the exploiters is sustained.
But the exploited did not retreat and reached the capital, since the case is about the bread of their families. Hezbollah tried to disperse them and the fighting began. The exploited defended themselves with stones and erecting barricades. The army then took advantage of the situation to pose as neutral and “separate the sides”, which means using their force to evacuate the streets. But the fighting continues, as the workers and the people refuse to return home empty-handed and go on contemplating their hungry children.
The endless suffering of the masses in a Lebanon that has been broken and plundered by imperialism
Lebanon is a broken country due to imperialist looting. Its external debt represents 170% of GDP. Dollar reserves have been emptied as much as the Lebanese pound has been devalued, leaving today at 1400 pounds a dollar at the official price, and 4300 on the parallel market. It should be noted that it is almost impossible to get dollars at official price in exchange houses or banks and it includes great restrictions to withdraw savings from bank accounts. Thus, the true value of the Lebanese pound is that of the parallel market.
This leads to the average salary being 150 dollars a month, half that if we speak about refugees. And, as we said above, prices are dollarized, reaching $ 2 for a bar of butter, $ 1 for a liter (0.26 US gal.) of milk, almost $ 1 for a kilo of bread, $ 1 for a kilo of most fruits and vegetables, just to only mention some examples.
The infrastructure is destroyed. The government only guarantees 8-12 hours of electricity a day at $ 30 a month. Any extra hour has to be provided by a private generator that runs on fuel, so its cost can only be covered by those who earn above average. This means that most of Lebanon does not have electricity in more than half the day.
Lebanon is broke. Even the last penny was to pay the foreign debt, and however Lebanon is in default, which means that imperialism did not have enough and wants more. The IMF demands debt repayment at the cost of further entrenchments, but the masses do not allow it.
Last October the Government had launched a brutal attack on the masses, even putting a tax on WhatsApp calls. The masses rose up and ended throwing down Prime Minister Hariri. During the ebb of the upheavals in times of pandemic and quarantine, the government appointed another prime minister, Hassan Diab, who took office last February. He began to deepen the plan to attack the masses to pay the IMF, taking the suffering to unsustainable levels. Then the exploited responded.
Today, the government speaks of a “negotiation with the IMF” and promises that a new “aid package” will come to activate the economy and ease financial suffocation. But this no longer fools anyone. The exploited know that the IMF is only there to take the dollars, the banks are only there to steal their savings and wages, and the Central Bank, Hezbollah and the government are all corrupt, doing nothing but pocketing big fortunes while the people is left into misery. What the government and the IMF are discussing is how to defeat the masses and make them pay even more for the external debt.
To have bread, Hezbollah and its millionaires’ government must be defeated!
People cannot bear the situation any longer. The masses do not leave the streets. They have identified their enemy: thebanks -which in recent weeks have been the target of the hatred of the exploited- imperialism, the government and Hezbollah, those billionaire clerics who live like kings and support the government with their guards to repress the people, as they support al-Assad massacring in Syria.
The government wants to re-impose quarantine so that the masses get off the streets. But with hunger there is no quarantine! To conquer bread, the government and the entire regime must be overthrown, starting with its main support and armed guard of Hezbollah. The disarmament of the latter’s anti-worker brigades is the main slogan that resonates today in the streets of Beirut.
The people want the fall of the regime!
We must expropriate the banks to recover the wealth that has been stolen from the people! No to external debt repayment! Out with the IMF!
Decent work for all, with a salary equal to the family basket, starting with the refugees! Equal pay for equal work and full rights and papers for all refugees!
For Price Control and Supply Comitteesin each locality to fight against the high cost of living and ensure that every Lebanese working family has bread.
For Self-defense Committees to defend ourselves against the repression of Hezbollah and the Lebanese State!
From the barricades, mobilizations and road blocks are begining to organize and coordinate. That is the embryo of power of those below. These bodies where the masses organize to take the resolution of their problems in their hands need to be extended, developed and coordinated at the local, regional and national level. The bourgeois power must be destroyed! Let’s open the path to the power of those below!
Out with the government of Diab, Hezbollah and the Christian and Sunni bourgeoisie, all of them local operators of the IMF!
For a revolutionary provisional government of workers and peasants!
With a victory of revolution in Lebanon, we would do justice for the Syrian martyrs massacred by Hezbollah and its allies al-Assad, the Iranian Ayatollahs and Putin. The Lebanese uprising is a sibling of the Syrian resistance in Idlib, of the exploited in Iran, and of the enormous revolution in Iraq that does not leave the streets. It is the same fight as that of the Palestinian people, facing the guardians of the northern border of the Zionist state. Let the oppressive regimes of the Middle East fall! For the destruction of the Zionist-fascist state of Israel!
It is the same fist of the exploited hitting the exploiters, their governments and regimes of oppression, whose vanguard is today standing in revolt in the heart of the imperialist countries. Great rebellions shake the main cities of USA, as well as Paris in France. They are the greatest allies of the Lebanese exploited, as they hit the heart of the imperialist beast and the IMF, the heads of the Lebanese government!
From Lebanon to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Palestine, France and USA ... The same fight against the same enemy!
Editorial Board of the paper The Truth of the Oppressed |
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