MARJ ALI, Lebanon — When Walid al-Hajjar stormed into his bank armed with a jug of gasoline, four lighters and ready to set himself on fire, his wife’s bone cancer was already too advanced for him to save her. But he wanted her to be more comfortable in the time she had left—treated with painkillers in a hospital instead of writhing in pain at home, she recalled.
Al-Hajjar, 48, had the money to pay for his wife’s treatment. But like so many Lebanese, his life savings were stuck in his bank account: The central bank hasn’t allowed depositors to withdraw more than a few hundred dollars a month since the 2019 financial crash. So, like others before him he, Al-Hajjar went to his bank in November and threatened to burn it down unless he gave him part of the $250,000 in his account. More than 12 hours later, he walked out with $25,000 in cash.
“If you don’t go in and threaten to hurt them, they won’t give you anythingAl-Hajjar, who was jailed for two days, later said.
Virtually no one in Lebanon has been spared from the collapse of both the banking system and the local currency, the lira, which has lost 98 percent of its value since 2019. But most of the burden has fallen on depositors who overnight lost access to money they had spent their entire lives saving. His anger is reflected in the damage to banks, which have become strongholds.
The phenomenon of Lebanese depositors resorting to force to demand their own money has earned them the nickname “the most honorable bank robbers in the world”.
Before the financial collapse, Lebanon’s banking sector was admired and central bank Governor Riad Salameh was hailed as a financial wizard for overseeing a system that kept a currency stable even during wars. The lira was pegged to the dollar for more than 20 years, and the two currencies were used interchangeably. This required banks to hold large reserves of dollars. To keep dollars flowing, they offered generous interest rates to depositors and paid that interest with newly deposited money. After the collapse, the World Bank called this a pyramid scheme.
Now, while total deposits in Lebanese banks amount to about $92 billion, banks have, at most, $20 billion on hand, Saadeh al-Shami, the Deputy Prime Minister, said in July. “Every depositor deserves every penny, but the numbers don’t lie,” he said.
For many, officials like Salameh, who recently left office, represent a ruling class that has led the country to catastrophe while enriching themselves. The architect of Lebanese monetary policy for the past 30 years, he is under investigation in Lebanon and has been accused of financial crimes by France and Germany, which have issued international arrest warrants for him.
He claims to be a scapegoat for economic problems. The government — long plagued by corruption — has been without a president since September.
For Al-Hajjar, the hard times came after 30 years of prospering in Lebanon’s banking and real estate markets. He put his money in the Credit Libanais bank. “We thought we could rest,” he said.
Instead, he and his children said, his wife spent her final months in so much pain that even the slightest touch hurt. Two days after Al-Hajjar threatened to burn down the bank, his father died of kidney cancer. Forty days later, his wife, Ola, died at the age of 41.
Said he had gone to his bank three times with hospital bills, begging for his money. On his fourth visit, he came with a warning. The fifth time, she came with the gasoline.
Al-Hajjar now works in his brother-in-law’s butcher shop and raises his three children alone. He said he still owes his family and friends $22,000. “They ruined our lives,” he said as he walked away from the cemetery one recent day. “They are robbing us and the government is protecting them”.
*Hwaida Saad contributed reporting to this article.
RAJA ABDULRAHIM. THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6831434, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-08-02 21:50:07
#robbed #bank #recovered #money #wife #suffering #terminal #cancer