Stories like this makes you wish Solidere burns down to ashes

[X]

قتلوا زوجتي وباعوا ممتلكاتي للسوريين والقضاء متواطىء.أفيديس إبن ال 86 عاماً: 2،5 مليون دولار سعر منزلي الذي صادرته سوليدير

مارون ناصيف -
طيلة أيام الحرب بقي أفيديس هماليان وزوجته في بيته مقابل مدخل السرايا الحكومية ولم يتعرّض يوماً للسرقة على رغم مرور الميليشيات والجيوش الغريبة على المنطقة. أفيديس إشترى منزله الأثري المؤلف من ثلاث طبقات قبل 60 عاماً وبعدما أجبرته الحرب على إقفال متجره في وسط المدينة، احتفظ بالقماش ولوازم الخياطة وغيرها من المواد هناك ايضا. لم يكن قد استخدم المتجر أكثر من 15 عاما عندما انتهت الحرب وبدأ ممثلون عن سوليدير السعي لشراء العقار المذكور. ونظراً لقلة الخيارات المتاحة أمامه، وافق على بيع المتجر مقابل السعر الذي حددته لجنة التخمين المعينة من قبل الحكومة : 15000 دولار من اسهم سوليدير.
عام 1994 علم هماليان أن شركة سوليدير كانت تخطّط للسيطرة على المنطقة حيث يوجد منزله ايضا لكنه اعتقد ان بإمكانه إيجاد مصير مختلف لمنزله، أفضل من المصير الذي لاقاه متجره فقصد مكاتب الشركة ليرى إذا كان بإمكانه ان يبقي على منزله شرط أن يتعهد أعمال الترميم التي كلفت بها الشركة. وافقت سوليدير على الأمر، وفي شهر كانون الثاني، حصل على شروط الترميم الواجب الالتزام بها. كما نجح في الحصول على الضمانات المصرفية المطلوبة ليتمكّن من تغطية التكلفه الكاملة لأعمال الترميم وقيمتها $ 2،5 مليون دولار، على أن نسبة 10 % منها الى سوليدير كبدل رسوم.
ولكن بعد ثلاثة أشهر أبلغت الشركة هماليان أن أعمال الترميم لا يمكن أن تمضي قدماً ما لم يزل اشارة من عقد ملكيته كانت قد وضعت في وقت سابق، قبل ثلاثة عقود تقريباً، عندما حصل نزاع بينه وبين شقيقه على ملكية المنزل. كان أفيديس على يقين أن ذلك غير قانوني، خصوصاً بعد إعطائه سوليدير منذ وقت طويل نسخة عن ملكيته.

إقتحام ميليشيوي

8 آب 1998 لم يكن الموضوع قد بتّ بعد في محكمة الاستئناف، والمحكمة كانت في فترة العطلة القضائية الصيفية فدقّ عمال سوليدير بابه. وما إن فتحت زوجته الباب حتى رأت امام المنزل حوالى اربعة وعشرين شخصاً بين عسكري وعامل بناء، يرافقهم ممثل عن الشركة وهو الذي أبلغ هماليان ضرورة إخلائه وزوجته المنزل فوراً. وبعدما رفض هماليان الخروج من المنزل إنهال عليه عمال الشركة بالضرب وأخرجوا إبن ال 76 عاماً آنذاك ورموا بزوجته في الشارع الامر الذي أدى الى إصابتها بكسور بليغة دخلت بعدها المستشفى وجراء الصدمة التي تعرضت لها أصيبت الزوجة بمرض السكري وماتت بعد حوالى أشهر من الحادث. أفيديس أبن ال 86 عاماً اليوم يروي ان سوليدير كانت تعتزم هدم المنزل ولكن الشركة عدلت عن الأمر عندما أكّد لها فريق من المهندسين الاجانب ان للمنزل قيمة تاريخية خاصة.
لا يزال ذكر هذه الحادثة يسبّب لـ"هماليان" الدموع والالم ويقول اليوم بغصة: "هذا لم يحدث في أي بلد فسوليدير سلبتني كل ما أملك، أخذت بيتي، أموالي، كرامتي، أخذت كل شيء".

إنحراف قضائي

في المجموع، قدّم افيديس خمس دعاوى بحقّ سوليدير ومجموعة من الطعون الشخصيه لسياسيين وممثلي الشركة لتقديم المساعدة. وحتى الآن، كانت جهوده تذهب سدى وكل ما كان يعرض عليه من قبل المحكمة هو عدد أكبر من اسهم سوليدير على سبيل التعويض. ولكن مع بلوغه 86 عاما، ووجود كل أولاده في الخارج، وبعد أن بدّد كل مدخراته على الدعاوى التي تنحى عنها الكثير من القضاة قبل أن يقبل واحد منهم عرض الشركة، لم يعد يريد إلا عودة ممتلكاته وهو يرى أن محكمة التمييز الذي كان ينتظر حكمها طيلة ثلاث سنوات ونصف السنة، هي بكل بساطة "تنتظر وفاته". وباعت الشركة منزله على رغم عدم صدور الحكم القضائي لمواطن سوري الجنسية من عائلة دغمش.

بين انتهاك سوليدير للمادة 15 من الدستور اللبناني التي تحظر مصادرة الملكية الخاصة لأي غرض لا يخدم الصالح العام وارتكابها عمليات احتيال مالي ومحسوبية سياسية واسعة النطاق، واستهتارها في تدمير المواقع الاثرية التي تواجهها اثناء البناء كل ذلك يأتي في المرتبة الثانية نسبة للصدمات الشخصية والأساليب الوحشية التي إعتمدتها سوليدير في مصادرتها أملاك المواطنين.

[†.)]

Lebanon videos - tayyar.org :VIDEO

"

أنا لبناني, كيف بياخدولي بيتي؟"

[Ra3ed]

This one of the reasons not to vote for the future movement , bass baddak min yefham ....

[Venom]

St. George Hotel is still fighting Hairri and Solidere!

Press Release by Fadi El-Khoury


Peace & War

I am not here to bore you with my problem.
Nor to make war with Solidere or anyone else contrarily to what they are saying calumniously
I am here once again merely to defend the St George Hotel and its Marina
Would I fight a monster? The lock ness? That terrible thing that used to haunt a Lac in Scotland.
No one has ever seen it.
But Solidere is all over the place everyone has seen it.
Everyone has seen this amazing peace of work of a wall 3 storey high.
They say it is aimed at protecting St Georges from tsunamis! While they build a hotel right on the sea opposite!
If they want to protect St George Hotel and its Marina all they have to do is leave it alone!
After the tragic accident I have made peace with Mr Nasser Chammaa )The President of Solidere(
I have accepted to meet with Solidere’s board of directors in their offices and have exposed as nicely as possible the situation.
I have begged them to leave the St Georges alone.
I have explained with pictures the importance of the St Georges for Beirut and Solidere and the need for both to have friendly neighbourly relations.
The only proposal I ever got from them is a request:
That we relinquish our rights first and discuss later.
Solidere knows it has no right over the water front.
Solidere knows that its aggression is flagrant and illegal.
Solidere has been putting pressure against the St Georges to force it out.
Solidere is still aggressing the St George Hotel and it Marina everyday and is using its entire means and might to stop the St George Hotel and it Marina from existing.
I personally have not said a word for nearly 3 years now.


Aggression

Ropes

All summer Solid has purposefully installed ropes along our border to stop people from arriving to the St George Beach

Attack Guards by night

A few days ago Solidere attacked our guard during the night
Why would they come like thieves in the night if they were doing something legal?


Hariri & Me

I told the late President Hariri
There will be a disagreement with Solidere.
He said I have to agree with Nasser.
This was my only disagreement with him.
I wanted him as a referee and judge.
I did not want him as an opponent.


Construction of the Hotel

We would like today to build the St George Hotel to be a candle of remembrance for Mr Hariri too, and for my friends who have died, five of them, whom I have spent a life time with.
I call upon those who care to stand with us and unite for justice to prevail and not allow an employee from some company to take us both for a ride.
We believe Solidere is not a good thing.
But some consider it as positive
Let it be so, but
Why not the St Georges?
Why should we sell it to them?
Why the hate and war against St George Hotel?
How can they attribute to Solidere the reconstruction?
It is merely a site which is what was left after the war destroyed Beirut!
Solidere destroyed what was left standing and covered up ruthlessly all the vestiges of the past and all the history behind it! What is one or 2 streets where people go to play?
Where is the city, the city of Beirut?
I have nearly died during the explosion on 14 Feb 2005 and have decided
to hand over the management of the St George to a trust who will continue to protect this land mark long after I have gone and make sure it will be built one day!
Why not now?
Let those who knew it see it again and project to the young some of Beirut’s nice history


Corruption & Justice

Politicians

A lot of politicians are corrupt they want either power or money that is all.
Very few care about justice for the people.

Justice

Has anyone seen justice prevail much in Lebanon lately?
Anyone who knows about justice having been done. Please stand up and tell us about it.
The problem is that a lot of people do not stand up for their rights for one reason or another.
I will not be here to stand up for ever!
Please help us stand up together.
Not to talk politics.
Let us talk about justice for all human kind!
Let us talk about peoples rights!

Police

The police, instead of busying them selves to uphold security and stop crime have for years had a continuous presence in the St Georges to stop us from upgrading just one swimming pool!
Every beach owner in Lebanon is allowed to repair and upgrade his premises!
Not us!


Road Closed

The road was closed for 2and a half years in front of the St George Hotel there was nothing we could do to open it and it only did harm to the St George Hotel no one else.
I said once: Is it acceptable to have the road closed for ever?
Someone answered: Mr Hariri was an extraordinary man!
But he was a man! And we are all men!


Indemnity

A committee from the army has evaluated the damage to the property and an indemnity was submitted for payment!
The prime minister has always had a positive attitude towards us!
I am sure that he would like to help the St Georges Hotel!
Can Solidere stop everyone from helping us?!
The fact remains that the prime minister has done nothing about it!
However we all know that millions of Dollars have been paid to everyone in Lebanon every were and is still being paid but not to the St George Hotel.


Greatness of St George Hotel

I think everyone has probably forgotten me.
This will happen any way.
But no one will ever forget the St George Hotel.
If I don’t talk about it you won’t know about it!
If you knew someone is beating your daughter or your son or your sister or brother or someone you love would you stand aside and watch?
Someone is beating the St George Hotel everyday and has been for 14 years.
It is Solidere!
No one else.
St George is a must for Lebanon!
St George symbolises a golden age which Lebanon once had and that solidere was unable to bring back!
St George is a light house that tells the world where Lebanon is!
St George has been loved by the east as well as the west!
St George has no religion it is Lebanon we want to see rebuilt!
I am not here to burden people with my problem!
My problem is I am getting old… God will look after that!
The St George Hotel is a quest it is history
History does not start with Solidere
It starts with Lebanon
It starts with Beirut
It starts with what’s underneath Beirut of ashes, people who have died, stories that our fore fathers have left for us.
Solidere is trying to put a veil over all of that!
St George Hotel is a flame burning that can’t be extinguished by Solidere.
No one can extinguish it!
St George has become more important than martyrs place.
It represents courage!
Continuity “Soumoud” “Moukawamat”
The essence of a country!
We call upon the Lebanese people to come to the St George to shake hands for peace and friendship!
This was the heart of Lebanon this is where the Lebanese loved each other.
Here is where they became enemies for one instant.
Here is where they should remain friends and love each other again for ever.
The French have given up the St George Hotel in 1958 and my father has continued its quest.
We ask the Lebanese people to join us in the St George Hotel’s quest.
Even Nasser Chamaa President of Solidere invited people to leave Lebanon after he has invaded its capital and erased its history.
Lebanon must not stand still in front of such a crime!
The St George Hotel & its Beach & Marina are still here for Lebanon like Baalbek and the Chabrouh and Litany Dams it will remain open for Ramadan and Christmas together and will marry sons of kings of Arabia and presidents of countries around us.
That is what it did and is what it will do!


Greed & Money

Believe me if my aim was to make money out of the St Georges’ misery I would have listened to Mr Chamaa who said once to me:
Do you want the St Georges or do you want to make money?
As if they had any intention ever to pay for anything they acquire.
When someone is used to take what is not his by force or politics, one looses the habit of paying.
They want me to betray This institution and Beirut and Lebanon!
Is this acceptable?
Do you accept that I do that?
Does anyone accept such تصلبط تعسف و استهتار


Message to President Bush

We have heard you spell the name of streets in Beirut in some of your speeches.
It has pleased our ears and warmed our hearts to know that you care.
Your father, Mr President has stayed on the terrace of the St George Hotel.
It is a famous landmark of peace and democracy and has been the meeting place of the West and the East.
Friends and enemies must unite for freedom here!
It has been subjected to imprisonment without enticement!
For 14 years now we are the prisoners of greed not war it is much worse!


Investors

I have been educated in England and when I was 15 which is a long time ago I thought of Lebanon as a village.
It is obvious today that our politicians have failed to make a country of it!
We live in the time of globalization and yet we are still worrying about our petty differences!
I have come to Lebanon and my parents before me to spend our money in this country and not to take money out of it like others have done.
Solidere has lost money for many years and now that it has began to make some it is taking it away from the country and the shareholders and the Lebaneese people.
Is this not a crime?
But
La hayata liman tounadi


Hotel & Marina

The St Georges has had a marina for as long as Lebanon has existed as a state.
It is on all the international navigation plans.
It was the first and only pleasure boat marina in Lebanon long before the Automobile Yacht Club in Jounieh
The president of ATCL Cheikh Fouad El Khazen has described us to the international community as a competition and an illegal marina!
He has fought for Solidere against St George Hotel although he is part of The CAT organisation which belongs also to us. He is also the President of The Compamie du Port who is a shareholder in St Georges Hotel.
Can anyone believe that?!

[X]

Originally Posted by †.)

Lebanon videos - tayyar.org :VIDEO

"

أنا لبناني, كيف بياخدولي بيتي؟"

Someone should put this video on Youtube

[elador]

Hariri 3allam, Hariri 3ammar

[GMA forever]

Originally Posted by elador

Hariri 3allam, Hariri 3ammar

Hariri hajjar, Hariri fa2ar

[elador]

Originally Posted by GMA forever

Hariri hajjar, Hariri fa2ar

we should say: Avedis Hamelian 3allam, Avedis Hamelian 3ammar

coz it with Avedis money that hariri 3allam w 3ammar

[lebanon4ever]

I read yesterday the story.i felt so sad for the guy and i was wondering:what if such issue happenned to me?what will i do?

[ecce homo]

Sect Symbols
By Annia Ciezadlo
This article appeared in the March 5, 2007 edition of The Nation.

page 1

For most Westerners, the words "downtown Beirut" conjure up two distinct images: a farrago of bullet-scarred buildings, car bombs and machine-gun-toting militiamen, and a glitzy, picturesque pedestrian mall. Nobody remembers Wadi Abu Jamil, the old Jewish quarter of downtown Beirut, a warren of winding alleys, antique Ottoman and French Mandate houses, and a lonely crumbling synagogue. By the mid-1990s, it was home to everything the Lebanese government would rather forget. Most of those who lived there were Shiites from the south of Lebanon, routed from their homes by the Israeli occupation and shunted into the neglected neighborhood by a city that didn't want them.

But somebody wanted Wadi Abu Jamil. Solidere, the private company that had the contract to rebuild the city center, was determined to raze the old downtown by any means necessary. So when the Ayad family refused to leave their home in February 1996, Solidere dispatched a crew of Syrian and Egyptian guest workers to begin tearing down the four-story building--with the family still inside. As the laborers began to dismantle the building, not surprisingly it collapsed. Seven workmen and six of the Ayads, including a 2-year-old boy and a 3-month-old baby, were crushed to death by the march of reconstruction.

Rafik Hariri, the billionaire prime minister who founded Solidere, expressed his "sorrow" while attending a banquet at a five-star Beirut hotel. "This incident has shaken the hearts of all of us," he assured the grandees at the banquet, promising to conduct an investigation, punish those responsible and guarantee the "rights of the innocent." Predictably, Hariri's foes, the Shiite political parties Amal and Hezbollah, made a great show of wanting justice for the Ayads--mainly to squeeze more money from Hariri. But in Lebanon, the innocent have few rights; and so Solidere continued its mass clearance, bulldozing neighborhoods and critics alike until barely a memory of either was left.

You won't find a whisper of this tragedy in the paeans to Beirut's resurrection that parade with fulsome predictability through Western newspapers. Nor will you read about it in the bushel of biographies published in the two years since Hariri's assassination, or the buckets of glowing travel-brochure prose about Lebanon's post-civil war revival. In these accounts, a simplistic narrative dominates: a wounded city healed, rebuilt by a savvy, big-hearted tycoon who transformed a war-ravaged capital into a gleaming tourist hub before his dramatic assassination on February 14, 2005; followed by the peaceful "cedar revolution," which ousted Syrian troops from Lebanese soil. The phoenix works overtime in this version of events; and if you had a dollar for every time the old "Paris of the Middle East" shibboleth rears its head, you'd feel almost as rich as Hariri himself.

The problem with this confectionary tale is that it does almost nothing to explain why downtown Beirut is today the center of a battle for the future of Lebanon, a brewing proxy war for the soul of the Middle East--and for America's tarnished image abroad. To understand why the playground of downtown Beirut has become a battleground once again, you have to look past the glittering surfaces of its luxury stores, past the pretty flags and banners of the so-called cedar revolution. The secret history of downtown Beirut and the man who rebuilt it is more complicated than the fairy tale; because it doesn't go down as smoothly, and is not as easy to report, it remains largely untold. Which is a shame, because compared with the fable, it's every bit as much of a thriller.

After the explosion that shook Beirut on February 14, 2005, crowds of soldiers, policemen and bodyguards gathered around the huge crater punched in the road by approximately one ton of TNT, dragging charred bodies from flaming cars. "This is the car of the big man! The big man!" one of the rescuers shouted over and over again, with hoarse anguish, pointing to Hariri's blackened Mercedes. The news anchor at Future TV, the television branch of Hariri's media empire, wept as she read the news: The big man was dead.

The ex-prime minister was burned to an unrecognizable cinder, but in Killing Mr Lebanon, Beirut-based journalist Nicholas Blanford tells us how one of his bodyguards, Abed Arab, identified the big man's body by looking at the hand that Hariri had once magnanimously allowed him to kiss: "It's the fingernails that give it away. An image of Hariri...flashes into his mind. It was November 1, the boss's birthday. Abu Tarek [Hariri's chief bodyguard] asked [Arab] if he would kiss Hariri's hand as a gesture of respect. Hariri didn't like offering his hand to anyone, but Arab was different. He was family. Hariri had sat on the sofa and raised his hand. Arab took it and kissed it. It was an intensely personal moment. And now here he was sitting in the back of an ambulance before this ruined corpse whose clean, neatly clipped fingernails were the same as those he had kissed three months earlier."

If this sounds embarrassingly feudal--the faithful retainer agog with gratitude at being permitted to kiss his lordship's hand--it's a sadly accurate depiction of Lebanese politics. Lebanon's government is still heavily stacked with hereditary clan chieftains known as zaims, defined by Michael Johnson in his excellent sociological study of the Lebanese civil war, All Honourable Men: The Social Origins of War in Lebanon, as "powerful parliamentarians who operated as patriarchal political bosses." A zaim is a feudal warlord, a political patron and a party machine boss all rolled into one: a big man. The zaims have dominated Lebanese politics, by virtue of their last names (Gemayel, Jumblatt, Franjieh, Arslan) and little else, for centuries.