Will those behind the 2020 Beirut Port Blast face Justice?

AlArabiya English

Lebanon’s new Prime Minister Nawaf Salam pledged justice for the Beirut Port blast victims. Political analyst Ronnie Chatah expressed doubt that accountability will occur in his lifetime. #Lebanon #Beirut

Transcript

00:00President Aoun, he specifically stated in his opening speech to Parliament that no one is above the law.

00:05So, does this mean that we will finally see accountability for those behind the Beirut port blast?

00:12Well, that's a big question and if I were to ask it on an individual level,

00:16without having any preview to knowledge that perhaps other actors should have and are not sharing,

00:23I don't think in my lifetime there will be any accountability for that blast.

00:28This is now nearly five years after the largest non-nuclear blast in modern history happened.

00:34And if I were to bet, a lot of the story goes down with regional war that took shape last year.

00:41And I doubt, I doubt there will be any accountability, any serious accountability

00:46for the type of weapons-grade ammonium nitrate parked in Beirut, best known for bombing Syrian cities.

00:54Or for that matter, the type of sub-state group that could best defend that regime's capabilities,

01:01which lost in battle last year.

01:03But with Hezbollah losing its grip on the country now, because in the past,

01:07when the Beirut blast happened, it was Hezbollah that was stopping the investigations, according to reports.

01:12I mean, two judges were threatened and removed.

01:15So now, I think Lebanon is entering a new era where Hezbollah's power is lessened.

01:20It's a delicate question. I'll try to navigate it the way I understand what has happened.

01:24And first, the second judge is still tasked with the investigation, Tarek Bitar.

01:29He was not fired or removed, but he was threatened.

01:32Now, that threat came from a security liaison official, himself targeted in an Israeli strike,

01:39but survived last year, Wafi Safa.

01:42That threat meant the paralysis, the complete stalling of the port blast.

01:48Now, this is nearly four years ago, three and a half, four years ago.

01:52The kind of, let's, to put it very simply, to have a functioning investigation,

02:01that actually condemns a group, or for that matter, finds individuals guilty.

02:07The last time this happened was the special tribunal for Lebanon.

02:12That tribunal, the investigation, the verdict, took the better part of 15 years.

02:18And after 15 years, there were names listed that were involved.

02:23Actually, one of those names was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus last year, Salim Ayesh.

02:30The names, the Hezbollah individuals found guilty for Rafiq Hariri's assassination,

02:38and the 1,000-page report produced by the special tribunal for Lebanon.

02:43That is perhaps a form of accountability, in that Lebanese were told what happened.

02:48They were given proof by an international standard,

02:51and yet the Lebanese government, 15 years later, could not do anything about it anyway.

02:57These were determined by war, and war crippled Hezbollah, not politics.

03:02War damaged the group, not Lebanese affairs.

03:05So if I were to speculate, if I were to guess, if there's any precedent for this,

03:11you may see a watered-down investigation with certain names, maybe years from now,

03:18and maybe if Lebanon is shining in the generations to come,

03:23they may look back and say they had proof, they had some form of accountability.

03:28But that's after years and years of war, of plunder, of collapse, and a battered country.

03:34So I can't really use the word victory or accountability or justice here.

03:40I don't think that applies.

03:42And I add something.

03:44A lot has moved on, unfortunately, in the wrong direction,

03:48and a lot of what happened in the port blast also ended in war,

03:52which means Lebanese politics, for better or worse, was not part of the story.

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