A crowd of several dozen angry protesters went on a rampage in Beirut on Thursday, blocking roads and vandalizing bank offices to protest the collapsing Lebanese economy and rules which prevent depositors from withdrawing their money.
A lobbying group for distressed bank customers called Depositors Outcry told Reuters on Thursday that at least six banks were attacked. One of them was set on fire, obliging riot police to surround the building while firefighters extinguished the blaze.
Lebanese citizens have been angry about their moribund government, disintegrating economy, and sealed-off banks for years. Some have concluded the only way to withdraw their money from the banks is to rob them at gunpoint. Depositors Outcry endorses, and even encourages, these protest robberies.
The latest round of violent demonstrations was touched off by the Lebanese pound hitting an all-time low against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, slipping to 80,000 pounds against the dollar from 60,000 at the beginning of February. The pound has now lost fully 95 percent of its value since 2019 when it was trading at 1,500 to the dollar.
The most immediate effect of the latest devaluation is that fuel became incredibly expensive, threatening to wipe out the taxi industry as drivers find it impossible to operate at a profit. Protesting taxi drivers held a three-day strike last week and blockaded the interior ministry in Beirut on Wednesday.
“There was a time when a taxi driver’s son could become a doctor, an engineer, anything prestigious. Now the taxi driver can’t even feed his children,” one of the protesting drivers complained.
“The poor person who can’t eat anymore is going to burn the entire country,” the driver predicted glumly.
Protesters throw bottles glasses at the Lebanese Central Bank building, background, where the anti-government demonstrators rally against the Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and the deepening financial crisis, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
On that note, Lebanon’s acting Economy Minister Amin Salam said on Thursday that Lebanese supermarkets will begin pricing their goods in U.S. dollars beginning next Wednesday.
“We cannot change the prices of 38,000 products daily in supermarkets with every change in the U.S. dollar exchange rate,” Salam explained.
Some Lebanese shops were reportedly removing prices from their stock altogether because keeping up with the rapidly devaluing pound was impossible. Salam assured Lebanese customers they would still be able to pay for their food with huge piles of nearly worthless pound notes at the current exchange rate, rather than having to obtain actual U.S. currency to go shopping.
“We are keen to protect our national currency, but there is an exceptional situation, and we do not know how long it will last,” Salam said.
No one knows how long Salam will last, either. Lebanon does not have much of a government at the moment. President Michel Aoun left office in October and has not been replaced. The Lebanese Parliament waved aside the national constitution, and ignored Aoun’s parting request, by giving Prime Minister Najib Mikarti authority to cobble a “caretaker” cabinet together. The caretaker cabinet rarely meets and its ministerial edicts are of debatable legality.
On Monday, representatives from the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt met with Mikati in Beirut and warned him that “all ties with Lebanon will be reconsidered” if clean elections for a new president are not held soon.
The international group made it clear that Mikati’s caretaker government will never qualify for the billions of dollars in loans needed to restart Lebanon’s economy. The Lebanese parliament has unsuccessfully tried to name a new president 11 times since Aoun departed. Aoun himself only came to power in 2016 after two years of wheeling and dealing.
Deutsche Welle reported in January that the Lebanese middle class has been virtually wiped out by the currency crash, with about 80 percent of their purchasing power eroded over the past few years, while the rich and well-connected, plus foreign visitors and people who work for international corporations, can live in luxury because they have access to dollars. Unable to get their money out of banks in any currency denomination, average Lebanese are increasingly reliant upon remittances from overseas relatives to survive.