No Accountability One Year After Beirut’s Blast

No Accountability One Year After Beirut’s Blast

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the devastating Beirut port explosion, perhaps the worst non-nuclear blast in a heavily populated area in human history. A large stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored at the port ignited in a devastating eruption that left much of the city shattered.

The anatomy of the disaster, one of numerous calamities that have befallen Lebanon over the past two years, sums up all the essential dysfunctions destroying the country: corrupt and incompetent administration; a complete absence of transparency, accountability and justice; and the willingness of powerful forces to place the entire society in extreme jeopardy for their own narrow, selfish purposes.

The official explanation of how the chemicals, which can be used as either fertilizer or explosive material, arrived in Lebanon was always implausible and now appears beyond ridiculous. In 2013, a Moldovan-flagged vessel arrived at the port, supposedly en route to Mozambique. Eleven months later, the dangerous cargo was offloaded to hangar 12, where it remained until the explosion that killed at least 218 people and injured thousands.

But according to a 2020 FBI report completed shortly after the catastrophe, of the original shipment of 2,754 tons of ammonium nitrate, only 552 exploded. Lebanese authorities quietly agree with