 By: Colonel Fayez Karam (Translated freely: By Elias Bejjani) Because words no longer reveal their meaning, and because accountability has vanished and turned into a status and a post, some Lebanese are in a frantic race to carry titles and acquire positions. They look into the mirror to see only images that make them happy, satisfy their wishes and their deep rooted vicious intentions. Their images are customized and their dreams are compound, a new reality in a bad era, made the rabbit a lion and the mouse a peacock. With the loss of accountability images became blurred and contradictory, and arbitrarily imposed on the people who are only left to choose color, shape and outlook. Puppet officials who are not accountable occupy governmental posts with no qualifications, capabilities or academic status. They perform their duties in accordance to foreign instructions, guidelines, as mere custodians by proxy. They illegally permit, forbid and legislate and act as covers for the occupant who appointed them. Their only interest lies in creating and promoting their investments and private businesses. Our officials are living in a world of their own, a world in which there is no place for accountability, knowledge, honesty or efficiency. They have nothing to do with the general public interests. They serve their master, the occupant, and take care of their own affairs. When we look on the civilized world we immediately observe how different is our country and how severely our people are humiliated and oppressed. We observe how other countries deal with their problems and concerns and how our regime creates problems for the Lebanese instead of solving them. We observe how human rights are respected and how deeply and seriously they are undermined in our country. In the civilized world, the people's choices are not based on images, colors and outlooks, but on studies, analysis, preferences, capabilities, resources and needs. Their choices unite and do not divide. Their participation is not based on proxies and subservience, but on practical, positive, influential and constructive concepts. Officials are accountable under the law, and people freely practice their rights in monitoring and questioning. Participation unites and does not divide. Their problems are not sudden, imported or circumstantial, but well anticipated with appropriate solutions and a striving for development, openness and progress. Facing and solving problems unites and does not divide. Their interests are not based on cajoling, appeasement, contracting, negligence or submission, but on determination, solidity, clearness and genuine legal gains. Dealing with interests unites and does not divide. Their nationalism is not based on a religious denomination, a party or a family, but on participation and partnership in history and destiny, in present and future, in success and failure, in danger and safety, in peace and war. Nationalism unites and does not divide. Currently in Lebanon the imposed officials who know nothing about accountability, remain in a psychotic race among themselves. They race in counting heads and followers and in humiliating people through what is termed "services". They made human rights a merchandise, and the law, a means of oppression and blackmail. In Lebanon officials abuse their governmental posts to serve their own interests. They act as if posts are their own property, and abuse them to steal, bribe, harass and oppress people. They break each and every law with no fear of accountability to serve their own individual interests. The dilemma under the occupation umbrella is that no official is accountable because the judiciary body is manipulated, and crippled, and because the only qualifications for an official are subservience and collaboration. Long Live Free Lebanon France, October 2, 1998 |