Prime Minister, Dr. Hassan Diab, addressed Tuesday the Cabinet members during a session at the Grand Serail, stressing that tampering with security and stability is forbidden.
What follows is the full text of PM Diab’s address:
Today, we are facing a new reality; in fact, the social and livelihood crisis has been exacerbated at a record pace; it is partly manipulated, especially with US dollar exchange rate in the black market reaching record levels.
The debate about the reasons for the dollar rise does not call for many experts. In fact, there are objective factors, commercial factors with political backgrounds, shortcomings in addressing the problem, resulting from deliberate acts or deficiency, putting additional strain on Lebanese people.
Whatever the case may be, it is just normal for people to take to the streets and express their anger again, as they did during October 17 uprising, especially after it became clear to them that there were political attempts to prevent the government from opening the files of corruption.
We understand the screams of people against the policies that brought the country to this social, living, financial and economic reality, and we understand popular demands insisting on holding accountable corrupt people who caused this collapse.
We support every democratic expression, especially the one which reflects people’s pain, but we vehemently reject all malicious attempts to distort this expression by deviating it from its path and transforming it into a riot that compromises people’s concerns and rightful demands. Thus, riots are politically exploited to serve personal and political ambitions, interests and intentions.
Therefore, as I said before, tampering with security stability is forbidden; those who tamper with security stability must be held accountable, and the State will not stand idly by.
Attacks on public and private property in some areas, including targeting of the Lebanese army and assaulting soldiers, indicate that there are malicious intentions, behind the scenes, to cause instability. It’s playing with fire; the fire will burn those who want to exploit people’s blood to serve their own interests. Unfortunately, there was a victim in Tripoli and we express our deepest condolences to his family.
I call on all Lebanese people who went out against corruption and corrupt people who have caused this stifling crisis, to stop any attempt to kidnap their revolution against corruption in order to exploit it in politics.
In any case, the government is moving forward with meeting Lebanese people’s demands to fight corruption, and nothing will deter us from continuing to face this challenge. Today’s agenda is full of items closely related to fulfillingLebanese people’s hopes of recovering stolen funds and exposing corrupt people.
At the political level, nothing will deter us from pursuing our course of action. Politics does not matter for us, because flipping politicians are doing nothing to fight corruption and shun personal interests and intentions. Nothing here is a much better testament than stained files that disinfectants can no longer clean or hide.
Source: NNA
