General Joseph Aoun chairing a meeting on military pensions and salaries on Sept. 13. (Credit: National News Agency)
The Cabinet meeting scheduled at the Grand Serail on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. is not expected to be disrupted by the protest of retired military personnel demanding an increase in their pensions, which have been cut to the bone since the economic and financial crisis and the devaluation of the Lebanese lira.
Instead, a meeting is scheduled for today, Tuesday, between their representatives and army financial experts, aiming to harmonize the demands of all military personnel, explained retired general Sami Rammah to L'Orient-Le Jour. The goal is to submit these demands to the army's Commander-in-Chief Joseph Aoun, who will in turn present them to outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Due to the government's slow implementation of their retirement pensions' revisions, retired military personnel resumed their protest movement on Sept. 10 in the city center. They prevented the Cabinet meeting from happening that day to protest that their demands were not on the meeting's docket. Initially, they succeeded in getting the Prime Minister to postpone the it.
The following day, Mikati held a previously unannounced meeting to avoid another disruption. He had issued a statement in which he explained that a comprehensive plan to readjust public sector salaries was being submitted to the State Shura Council ahead of its adoption by the Cabinet, adding that it included provisional allowances for retired military personnel.
But according to Rammah, trust has been broken with the outgoing Prime Minister. "To discuss our demands, Mikati has found nothing better than to summon the President of the Retired Military League, General Nicolas Mezher. However, this league has not represented us for a long time, given its unfortunate habit of accepting anything proposed by successive prime ministers. We therefore consider that it neither speaks on our behalf nor defends our interests," he said.
The provisional “allowances” promised by Mikati to retired military personnel include two payments of two salaries each, one imminently and the other on New Year's Day, according to Rammah. "But our salaries are being reduced to nothing and these payments are not acceptable, especially when we know that the salaries of the Finance Ministry officials and certain officials close to the Prime Minister have been increased handsomely, and that the government is paying for them using loans contracted by the state,” he continued.
No sit-in on Tuesday
To break the deadlock, General Joseph Aoun entered the equation and the affair changed course. On Sept. 13, he received a delegation of retired soldiers, and the meeting focused on "the situation of retired soldiers and coordination with the government to find appropriate solutions to their demands," according to the official press release.
"The meeting was attended by representatives of our group, those of the League, and officers specializing in finance," explained Rammah. According to him, "a new meeting is to be held today with these specialized officers, in order to harmonize all our demands and come up with unified demands that the Commander-in-Chief of the army will present to the Prime Minister, for consideration by the Cabinet." He emphasized that retired military personnel are not limiting their demands to their specific cases, but to all military personnel, even those still in service, and to civil servants in general.
We tried to contact a source at the Grand Serail without success so far to verify all this information and find out whether the matter will be raised today at the Cabinet. However, Rammah asserted that "logically, this issue will not be discussed today [Tuesday], since the unified demands have not yet been communicated to the outgoing Prime Minister." He also confirmed that "there will be no sit-in by retired military personnel this afternoon."
"However, if our demands — communicated to Mikati by General Aoun — are not adopted soon, we will resume our protest in the streets,” he assured.
Retired military personnel are not the only ones expressing their discontent. The League of Public Administration Employees in Lebanon has been raising its voice against the government since Friday, in the wake of demands launched with the start of the study of the preliminary draft budget 2025.
This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour.
