A country so battered by woes that “even hot bread brings no joy.” The price of a bundle of bread has reached 100,000 Lebanese pounds, leaving people to draw on the famous phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette about the starving population: “Let them eat cake.”
And since Paris Day opened the doors of its history to Lebanon, Emmanuel Macron chose a “home for the elderly” built by Louis XIV to care for war veterans and those wounded in battles. It is also the final resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte. Over time, it became a majestic landmark and an icon of French military history.
And in one of its latest chapters, Macron turned it into an international forum to rally support for the Lebanese Army and security forces.
The preparatory Paris conference gained significance in terms of its format, as it was attended by senior commanders and high-ranking generals from 17 countries, including the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
At the table, Army Commander Rodolphe Haykal presented the military institution’s key requirements and needs to carry out the missions assigned to it, while military sources told Al Jadeed that the meeting was “very good.”
The Lebanese Paris day began with a bilateral meeting between the French president and the Jordanian king, before becoming a trilateral meeting with the participation of the Lebanese president.
And in keeping with Napoleon’s famous saying, “An army marches on its stomach,” highlighting the importance of supplies and funding, there was agreement that supporting the Lebanese Army is crucial for it to replace the illegal Israeli presence in southern Lebanon.
The implementation of the framework agreement, along with pressure on Israel to respect and implement it, was also on the table.
Meanwhile, the day after UNIFIL takes on added weight in the conference’s discussions, so that southern Lebanon is not left in a vacuum of UN and international monitoring of Israeli actions on its territory.
But the country’s woes did not stop at securing military and logistical support “for the nation” to protect the nation, nor at the citizen’s daily struggle to secure a loaf of bread.
They extend to an energy crisis that has grown so severe that there seems to be no energy left to endure it.
An electricity crisis that drained billions of dollars from the treasury for an electric current that remained nowhere to be found. Its story was chronicled through the tenure of a chairman and the “diaries of a director general,” earning him the distinction of being the longest-serving head of Lebanon’s electricity utility, for nearly a quarter of a century.
Throughout that period, he moved across the entire political spectrum, until challenging him became almost taboo. His name became synonymous with the institution itself, and he came to be portrayed as the man most adept at weaving darkness, as electricity supply in some areas reached zero.
Today, Lebanese citizens looked toward a moment of “accountability.”
But the political “protected zones” in which Kamal Hayek had shielded himself stood in the way of taking the appropriate measure against him and removing him from an institution he had brought to the brink.
So the government chose the lesser of two evils in its battle today: it stripped him of his position as chairman of the board while keeping him as director general.
The move, although bold in breaching the supposedly untouchable “Hayek zone,” did not cut off the head of the snake of darkness, nor bring an end to his 25-year tenure.
During those years, Kamal Hayek earned the distinction of having the longest tenure as chairman of the board after “Long Life” Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, while presiding over the fewest electricity supply hours and a bill for millions of dollars in wasted public funds.
There was also an added dimension: Kamal Hayek’s name became linked to a case involving the alleged theft of copper from Electricity of Lebanon warehouses, reportedly worth no less than $10 million.
“And the chain of scandals goes on.”
At the very least, he should be escorted to the judiciary to face questioning, rather than remaining firmly seated on the throne of director general.
And that is the beginning of dismantling the “deep state.”