DSE: Downtown Beirut paralyzed by anti-government protest

Downtown Beirut paralyzed by anti-government protest

By Liam Stack
First Published: January 23, 2007

BEIRUT: The chic shops and eateries of Downtown Beirut have fallen eerily silent as opposition parties, led by Hezbollah and the party of Christian General Michel Aoun, have erected a sprawling tent city across the heart of this seaside capital.

The protestors demand the resignation of Prime Minister Fouad Seniora and the creation of a new government in which Shiite parties will hold veto power. The protest has crippled the city and driven scores of merchants out of business.

“Seniora is a thief and a liar!” exclaimed an energetic teenage protestor, offering coffee and cigarettes to a foreign visitor. “He learned all about how to steal and create a civil war from his friends in the White House.”
“He is a weak man.” Laughed another. “He cried on TV!”

For over six weeks, whole families of protestors have been camped out in the shadow of Beirut’s opulent government palace. Many are young people who leave the camp each morning to go to school and return in the evening for a boisterous rally that draws thousands. Vendors sell balloons and chicken shawarma. Men smoke shishas as their young daughters, draped in Hezbollah flags, dance to the militaristic music blared throughout the camp.

The protest has the atmosphere of a carnival, albeit one which demands the overthrow of the government.
Outside the campsite, in the near silent streets of downtown, a few merchants sit on the sidewalk outside their empty shops.

“No one comes to my shop anymore, or to this whole area, because of their campaign,” said a shawarma vendor, a member of the Druze sect. “They don’t like the government and they don’t like this country. They don’t like Lebanon. They like Syria and Iran, because they get so much money from them. But they won’t succeed. These people are nothing. Nothing.”