MAROUN
KARAM, founder of Beitna Beitak
[‘our home is your home’]:
“The
government is not here, is not anywhere, is not present. Only Lebanese people.
Students, elderly people, youth. We are building the country.”
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: The
day after the blast, volunteers gathered in Mar Mikhael,
one of Beirut’s worst hit neighbourhoods, to register
victims’ needs, distribute aid and plan how to rebuild.
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: They’re now getting three or four thousand volunteers daily, helping up
to 15,000 people each day. These young people are repurposing skills like party
organising to coordinate a widespread humanitarian
emergency response.
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: 30-yr-old
Maroun lost his own home and office and three of his
closest friends were killed. He’s been working
20-hours days for more than two weeks.
[LEILA:
And you’re getting no government funding? MAROUN (shakes
head): and we will not take anything from them. We don’t
want them. We just want them to leave, and we’ll
take care of the country.]
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: For
nearly a year, activists like these have taken to the streets demanding the
downfall of a political system they see as corrupt and self-serving. Now, they’re demanding that any aid coming into the country go
directly to them and local NGOs. It’s the networks
forged during the protest movement that have allowed them to respond so quickly
and effectively to this crisis. They say they’ve
learned they can’t depend on anyone but each other.
SAMIR
EL KHOURY, volunteer:
“Every single person in this
government is a crook, They destroyed our past, they
destroyed our present and they're destroying our future.”
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: The
grass roots effort extends beyond Lebanon’s borders. They’ve
been working with Lebanese expats around the world to get aid and medical
supplies into the country manually until the slow-moving wheels of NGO
bureaucracy turn.
[MAROUN:
This is the aid. As you can see. This is from London LEILA: Okay MAROUN:
And you can see there’s more aid coming.
LEILA: So a community fund-raises,locally then one person buys a plane ticket,
one person gets on the plane and brings as many suitcases as they can carry? MAROUN:
Yes.]
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: While
we’re there, a representative from the US embassy
turns up.
[VOLUNTEER:
Don’t give them the money, give it to us. We’re doing the distributing. [Shouting in background:
“Don’t bail them out!
US
REP: So this is why it’s important for us to come down to the
ground here.]
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: The
next day, it becomes clear why. Undersecretary David Hale has come from
Washington to look at how to get Lebanon back on its feet. And just hours after
landing, it’s not the government he’s meeting with.
[ VOLUNTEER: "We don't have any government, the
government doesn't care, It’s us. We’re here for each
other. " Crowd applauds, HALE nods and responds
"That's why this is my first stop, for that very reason."]
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: The
operation, dubbed ‘Min taht il
rudm’ – from beneath the rubble – is a tall
order, and these young people may end up overpromising. While international aid
organisations may be unwieldy and have
to work around political concerns, they have experience managing big
sums of money and mechanisms to get hard cash into the country quickly. These
volunteers say foreign governments and NGOs should be working with them.
CHARBEL
ABYAD, volunteer:
This
is the first time we see these people coming and checking on organizations and
walking around with people, meeting with the people, usually they only meet
with the government. So maybe this will change.
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: Like
many international donors the United States has taken a hard line on aid to
Lebanon, saying they won’t let any money fall into
corrupt hands.
But that’s
easier said than done. And while they say they won’t
funnel money through the government, they’re still working with increasingly
unpopular state institutions.
DOROTHY
SHEA, US Ambassador to Lebanon
“We have tons of meals ready to eat… the army is helping us
distribute them.”
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: Across
Beirut, food has been the fastest response in the relief effort, with the WFP
and USAID working to get Beirut port up and running enough to receive some
deliveries.
MALAK
JAAFAR, WFP Lebanon:
“Part
of the key message we sent and we are repeating is
that we will not accept for aid to be politicised. At
the end of the day we are here to ensure that the people in need get the aid.”
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: But
many of those people say the aid they’re receiving
isn’t what they need. They don’t want bags of food –
an easy win for NGOs because it can be distributed fast and looks good to
donors – but cash, to rebuild their homes and businesses.
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: Just
a few streets away is Karantina, one of Beirut’s
poorest neighbourhoods. The area was ravaged by the
blast; residents say they’ve long been neglected and
still aren’t getting the help they need.
NABIL
AL MIR, video technician:
“Every day they bring 2
boxes, 3 boxes. But we don’t want food aid, a lot has
been distributed and people are throwing it away… We need people to send money
to rebuild the house.”
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: Nabil’s
house used to have four walls. Now it has just two, and those are cracked
beyond repair. He tells us it’s even worse upstairs,
but it’s too dangerous to take us up there.
[LEILA:
“So Nabil, this used to be your kitchen and the entire wall, it collapsed
and fell out into the street?” NABIL: “Yes.”]
NABIL
AL MIR, video technician:
“I was getting a half
salary then it became a quarter salary. One work, one day no work. And then
this. We are broke. Zero. We have nothing... We can’ t rebuild.
We have money in the bank but they won’t give it us.”
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: Nabil’s
neighbours are refusing to move out, even as cranes
come to remove what’s left of the building’s roof. They’re scared to leave in case developers swoop in and
level the area to build new high rises in this prime seafront location. Unless
this community gets a cash injection, and soon, they’re
out of options.
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: A
short walk away is the deformed structure that’s at
the heart of this crisis. Not just the explosion, but the years of
mismanagement that allowed it to happen, and bled so
much money to corruption that Lebanon was already on its knees when the
disaster hit: Beirut port.
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: Riad Kobaissi is a Lebanese investigative
journalist who’s been digging into corruption at the
port and airport for years. He’s been arbitrarily
arrested, repeatedly threatened, and beaten to a pulp for trying to reveal what
goes on in the shadows of these shipping crates.
RIAD
KOBAISSI, investigative journalist:
“There’s
a famous slogan here at the port: whenever Benjamin Franklin is there, problems
are solved… Because this is not a government, this is a mafia.”
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: That’s because the port is run just like another public authority: the
parliament. Each position is reserved for a particular
religious sect, and they’re linked to political factions. They choose
who they want for each job and then those people take bribes both to smuggle in
goods in and to avoid import taxes, draining
vital state revenue. It’s estimated up to $2 billion a
year are lost just to Beirut port.
LEILA
MOLANA-ALLEN: Hundreds of millions of dollars in donations have poured in
since the blast. But it caused an estimated $15 billion in damages to the city.
And with political factions holding tight to their control of the only entry
points for bringing in aid, each will likely take a cut of the pie. For Nabil
and others like him, despair is setting in as they realise
they may not get the help they need.
NABIL
AL MIR, video technician:
“It’s
the first time I’ve cried. I’ve lived here through the
bombardment, through 30 years of war. If the house can’t
be repaired what can I do? There’s no future for us.”
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER
THIRD |
1 |
0:48 |
MAROUN KARAM BEITNA BEITAK |
2 |
1:25 |
SAMIR EL KHOURY VOLUNTEER |
3 |
3:11 |
CHARBEL ABYAD VOLUNTEER |
4 |
3:35 |
DOROTHY SHEA U.S. AMBASSADOR TO LEBANON |
5 |
3:50 |
MALAK JAAFAR WFP LEBANON |
6 |
5:01 |
NABIL AL MIR VIDEO TECHNICIAN |
7 |
6:04 |
RIAD KOBAISSI INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST |
8 |
6:18 |
BEIRUT, LEBANON LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT |