In tonight’s news bulletin:
•On the March 14 anniversary, will the Cedars Revolution crowd come together to forge Lebanon’s third independence?
•How far along is the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Lebanon? What are the used vaccines?
•Food items stocks almost depleted, brace yourselves for a 30 percent price hike.
•March 14 is an exceptional day in Lebanon’s history, for on this day in 2005 around 2 million Lebanese took to the streets of Martyrs’ Square for two intertwined reasons. Finding out who were behind the assassination of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and the withdrawal of all Syrian armed forces from Lebanon. The reason both requests are interlocked is because Hariri was assassinated a month earlier only after taking a leading role in facing the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. What protesters demanded then became fact and Syrian troops left Lebanon after around 30 years of fully controlling the political decision-making of the country, and the international community granted Lebanon’s request to form the STL. Ever since, March 14 became as symbolic to the Lebanese as February 14. Then blood that was shed in February 14 was the spark that launched the Cedars Revolution that ushered the second independence.
•Sixteen years since March 14, 2005, where are we from this anniversary? It’s clear that not everything the godfathers of this revolution wanted realized is achieved. The freedom fighters of March 14 wanted to build a true nation not an almost nation. They wanted to implement the Taef Accord in both form and spirit, guaranteeing the unification of the armed forces and preventing the existence of two armies on one soil. They also wanted to build a strong Lebanon where all Lebanese would live dignified and with prosperity without having to consider leaving it for better opportunities. Those goals are yet to see the light of day. Things are actually deteriorating for known reasons; chief among them is the presence of illegal arms and raging corruption among politicians.
•March 14, 2005 was a glorious day during which the Lebanese declared their battle to liberate the nation, when will they launch war against this corrupt system, a war to actually build the state?