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Lebanese ex-ambassador holds sit-in at Beirut bank amid new wave of heists




CNN

A former Lebanese ambassador held a sit-in at Bank outside the capital of Beirut on Tuesday, refused to leave until he got his money, his wife told CNN.

Georges Siam’s bank was one of four branches across Lebanon that were held up by depositors claiming their savings on Tuesday.

According to his wife, Siam – who served as Lebanon’s Ambassador to Qatar, Turkey, Brazil and the UAE and is now Ireland’s honorary consul in Lebanon – is refusing to leave the bank. in Hamzieh after the branch refused to provide the diplomat with his usual monthly withdrawals.

“It’s our money and we don’t have to beg for it,” said Golda Siam, adding that her husband is unarmed and lives peacefully.

Last month, Siam announced its support for compatriots Sali Hafizwho kept a bank with a toy gun.

“We need more of that. The lady is a hero,” he said tweeted at that time.

Two other men took hold of banks in Lebanon’s Beqaa and Tire Valleys on Tuesday, demanding the return of their own savings, which have become a symbol of the dire living conditions being held back. in the wake of Lebanon’s financial crisis. Two of the men used guns and took hostages.

A fourth bank was also attacked in Tripoli on Tuesday by a group of disgruntled employees from an electricity company protesting overdue pay and salary cuts, according to the advocacy group Association Against Deposits.

Lebanese depositors line up outside a fortified local bank in Beirut.

Across Lebanon, bank accounts have been frozen for more than two years as banks impose capital controls amid the country’s escalating economic crisis.

Increasingly desperate depositors in the country responded by bank branch holding in a series of attempts to get their money. After a series of terrorist attacks last month, the Lebanese Interior Minister accused several groups of organizing illegal activities and destabilizing national security.

The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) closed all institutions for a week after the incident on September 16, only reopening branches for commercial transactions 10 days later.

ABL said banks are bearing the “burden” of a systemic crisis created by the Lebanese government and its Central Bank, ABL said in a statement on Tuesday.

The ABL also accused the Lebanese government of rigging people against banks and warned that one day the country’s currency could collapse to the point where money would be weighed instead of counted, adding that at the time, hope of deposit recovery fades away.”

The Lebanese parliament has been implementing a formal capital control law to stabilize the country’s finances, but the bill’s passage has stalled.

Among the reforms envisioned, the government has also announced it will begin adjusting the official exchange rate in early November, in hopes of increasing foreign currency reserves. The change is part of a series of conditions set by the International Monetary Fund for a loan to help the country’s economies.

Demanding increased security for bankers, the Bankers’ Association of Lebanon called for a sit-in demonstration on October 12.

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