Beirut explosion investigation stalled 4:16
Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) -
I shudder every time I see images of the Beirut port explosion.
In the run-up to their anniversary, my colleagues and I have had to pore through hours of video of the explosion and its aftermath.
It is not an easy task.
I was at my desk in CNN's Beirut office, contemplating what to do after work on a hot August night, when I felt the building shake.
An earthquake, I thought.
As I ducked for cover, I heard a huge explosion, followed by a tide of shattering glass.
I stumbled from room to room in a daze, stepping over twisted aluminum window frames, cables, chairs, and broken equipment.
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Was it a car bomb?
I asked myself.
An air strike?
I looked out and saw a strange orange-red cloud floating by chance.
Down on the street, car alarms screeched in a cacophonous chorus, the air was dusty, people ran, shouting in confusion.
I called CNN producer Ghazi Balkiz.
He replied, just to say he was fine, but that was it.
Next, I tried calling our cameraman, Richard Harlow.
Unanswered.
I called over and over again.
Still no answer.
Richard finally returned to the office, his right hand bloody and an open wound on his leg that he only discovered hours later, numb from the shock and adrenaline of the moment.
Ghazi later appeared, having taken his wife Sally to a chaotic hospital to be treated for multiple injuries caused by flying crystals.
The scenes from that hospital, he said, were worse than the ones he had seen about the wars in Syria and Iraq.
All who survived the events of August 4, 2020 in Beirut vividly remember the shock, bewilderment and confusion they felt in the moments after the explosion.
Since then, those emotions have been replaced by others - anger, anger and resentment - that the dangerous ingredients that caused it had been so close to the heart of this bustling city for more than six years.
The reason a mushroom cloud formed in Beirut 2:03
One year ago, at 6:08 pm on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday, they detonated in a mushroom cloud of death and destruction, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.
Since then, Lebanon has sunk further into an abyss of economic and financial oblivion, political paralysis and despair into which it had begun to sink long before the explosion.
For those who lost loved ones, the explosion and its demands for justice and accountability remain constant.
An artist creates a work among the rubble of a gallery after the explosion in Beirut
On a hot and humid afternoon in late July, Elias Maalouf stands in front of the Ministry of Justice in Beirut holding a photograph of his son, George, in military uniform.
George was killed when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate, stored in the port since it was seized in 2013, exploded leaving a 120-meter-wide crater and a trail of destruction that stretched more than 10 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion.
"Every day his mother cries and cries," Maalouf said.
"She asks, 'Why doesn't George come for coffee? Why doesn't he come for the weekend?'"
Elias Maalouf outside the Ministry of Justice in Beirut holding a photo of his son George, who was killed in the blast.
George, 32, was engaged and going home.
"I wanted him to fill our house with grandchildren," said his father.
Maalouf says he searched for eleven days to find his son's body.
He and the families of many of those who died have come together regularly to demand justice for the more than 200 people who died in the blast, but, a year later, it remains elusive.
A year after the explosion in the port of Beirut, the official investigation is stalled
The investigation goes nowhere
The day after the blast, Lebanon's Interior Minister Mohamed Fahmi promised an investigation that he said "will be transparent, will take five days and all officials involved will be held accountable."
The first judge appointed to lead the investigation, Fadi Sawan, was removed from office after the politicians he wanted to press charges against brought him to court.
They argued that he was unable to be impartial because his house was damaged in the blast.
Another judge, Tariq Bitar, took his place.
But when asked to question senior officials, including the powerful head of public security, General Abbas Ibrahim, the interior minister ruled that Ibrahim could not be questioned.
Dozens of members of Parliament, representing nearly every political party across the spectrum, signed a petition to remove the case from Judge Bitar and transfer it to a previously unknown "Judicial Council."
This sparked a campaign on social media against the so-called "deputies of shame."
A year later, the "quick" and "transparent" investigation has gone nowhere.
A report released by Human Rights Watch this week summarized some of the reasons.
"In the year since the explosion ... a series of procedural and systemic failures in the internal investigation have rendered it incapable of credibly delivering justice. These failures include lack of judicial independence, immunity for high-level political officials, lack of respect for the standards of a fair trial and violations of due process, "the report concluded.
Relatives of the victims of the Beirut port explosion gather in front of the home of Lebanon's Interior Minister Mohammad Fahmi during a protest to demand the fair handling of the investigation, on July 13, 2021.
"What I saw on August 4 killed my heart," recalled Samia Doughan, holding up a photograph of her husband Mohammad, who was killed in the blast.
"I saw people torn to pieces," he said.
"I saw mutilated people while looking for my husband."
Putting his anger on those who govern the country, he said: "For 30 years they destroyed us, they made us beggars, they impoverished us, they humiliated us, they murdered us."
"They" are Lebanon's political elite, a mostly male group representing the 18 officially recognized religious sects of Lebanon.
A power-sharing arrangement dating back to the French colonial rule ensures that Lebanon's spoils are divided between them, behind a facade of democratic elections.
They are a seductive bunch, especially to Western media: friendly, approachable, sophisticated, worldly, well traveled, and often fluent in English and French, handing out short sentences and insider gossip that guarantee an interesting article or report.
They have done well for themselves.
Most are fabulously wealthy and live in splendid isolation in their luxurious mansions, protected from a population reeling from one crisis after another.
But sometimes the utter absurdity of that separation becomes vividly apparent.
Najib Mikati, Lebanon's last designated prime minister, the third to attempt to form a government in less than a year, recently appeared on Lebanese television to mourn the fate of the self-proclaimed leaders of this cursed blessed land.
"We are ashamed to walk the streets," he told local station MTV.
"I want to go to a restaurant!" He said with frustration clear in his voice.
"We want to live!"
Najib Mikati, Lebanon's prime minister-designate, speaks during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Beirut, Lebanon, on Monday, July 26, 2021.
Despite the economic crisis in Lebanon, politicians are indifferent to inflation and food shortages in Beirut
Since the October 2019 uprising that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets to protest Lebanon's rotten political system, politicians and their spouses trying to go out to dinner have become the favorite target of activists seeking blaming and shaming those who have brought the country not only to the brink of ruin, but to its own ruin.
More than 50% of the population here now lives below the poverty line.
In the past two years, the Lebanese currency, the lira, has lost more than 90% of its value against the dollar.
Two years ago, the minimum wage was equivalent to US $ 450, now it is worth just over US $ 35.
There is a shortage of gasoline.
Power outages in Beirut typically last more than 20 hours a day.
Thousands of companies have closed.
Unemployment has skyrocketed.
Baby formula has disappeared from the market.
People beg their relatives who come from abroad to bring them the life-saving medicines that are no longer available in pharmacies here.
All of which means that Mikati's seemingly sincere plea - "We want to live!" - falls on deaf ears.
Miqati, a native of Tripoli, the poorest city in Lebanon, is the richest man in the country.
Forbes Middle East estimates his net worth at $ 2.5 billion in 2021, an increase of $ 400 million over the past year.
Mikati was charged with corruption in 2019. He denied the allegations.
It seems that self-awareness is the only thing the elite lack here.
Investigative journalist Riad Kobaissi has spent years unearthing stories of corruption and mismanagement at the Beirut port, from which he says various Lebanon's political factions have benefited for years.
Kobaissi scoffs at the idea that one faction is better or cleaner than another;
He says the port catastrophe only made that more obvious.
"It is a failure of the system," he said.
"And those who make up this system, despite the contradictions between them, refuse to take responsibility for what happened."
The port explosion, he said, "is a direct result of the cohabitation of the mafia and the militia. That is the bottom line!"
'Rage that grows exponentially'
I met Paul and Tracy Naggear 17 days after the port explosion.
They were still in a state of shock.
Their three-year-old daughter Alexandra, who had been brought to the protests in 2019, was killed when the force of the blast threw her through a room in their home and crushed her skull.
"We were assaulted and murdered in our homes," Paul said then, his face still bruised.
"The only shelter, or the only safe place that you thought was still there, we don't have it anymore. It's just too much."
"The anger that we have today is growing exponentially and reality hits us," Tracy said.
Paul and Tracy Naggear's 3-year-old daughter Alexandra was killed when the force of the blast threw her through a room in their home and crushed her skull.
I interviewed the couple again a few days before the anniversary.
Just before turning off the camera, Paul said, "Wait, I only have one thing to say to you."
"All we ask," he said, "is that the European Union, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, the UN, cut all diplomatic ties with this ruling mafia regime. They are criminals. They are traitors to the homeland".
"It's ridiculous," Tracy added.
“The problem with this government is that they are not just criminals.
They don't know how to do things.
They are great failures.
They don't know how to manage electricity.
They do not know how to manage food.
They do not know how to manage health.
It's not just the economy.
We have nothing in Lebanon. "
Paul ignored increasingly urgent calls from abroad to Lebanon's disputed politicians to form a government, implement reforms and root out rampant corruption.
"Please! Stop asking them to form a government," he said.
"Not these guys. They're bullies. Trash in, trash out."
Lebanon experiences an apocalyptic scenario after a new fire in Beirut
Almost everyone in Beirut today is angry.
One of the slogans of the October 2019 uprising against the political elite was "Kulun yaani kulun" - "All of them, that is, all of them" - referring to the widespread demand that the entire political elite be swept away to allow May Lebanon realize its potential.
However, all of them have managed to weather last year's triple storm (explosion, economic collapse and coronavirus pandemic) intact and healthy, physically and mentally.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country continues to fight, day by day.
Lebanon's political class has failed, as Tracy Naggear, who is still mourning her daughter, said.
A year after the deadly explosion, many here wonder when there will finally be accountability.
Beirut explosion