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Lebanese mob burns Minister's house as currency plunges
SIDON. May 6 Demonstrators burned down the Finance Minister s house In south Lebanon on Tuesday and ransacked money exchange shops in protest against the country’s worst economic crisis since Inde pendence 48 years ago. re ports AP.
The Lebanese currency, once the soundest tn the Middle East, plunged to a record low Tuesday. The pound, which rated 2.5 to the US dollar before the 1975-1990 civil war, was trading Tuesday for 2,100 to the dollar.
The 350,000-strong General Federation of Labour Unions called for a four-day nationwide strike to begin Wednesday. It demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami’s Cabinet to make way for “a new government capable of protecting the national currency.
The economic decline has been blamed on government mismanagement, overspending and civil war damage estimated at dlrs 25 billion. Lebanon imports more than 85 per cent of its basic needs.
Karami travelled to
Damascus for consultations. Syria Is the main power broker In Lebanon with 40.000 troops backing the government's drive to restore stability to the country after the end of the civil war.
The protests were sponta neous. Citizens in Sidon, provincial capital of south Lebanon, the inland market town of Nabatyeh. and the port city of Tyre took to the streets after morning radio newscasts reported the dramatic slide 1n the value of the pound.
Police said some 300 peo pie, mostly students and labourers, stoned the house of Fiance Minister All Khalil In Tyre, sending seven guards posted outside running for cover.
Chanting "Down with a government that starves Its people," they stormed the residence, broke the furniture, stripped off wooden window frames and set fire to the couches, a police spokesman said.
A group outside flung burning frames, tree branches and pieces of wood at the residence before 25 soldiers tn four armoured personnel carriers arrived to disperse the
One demonstrator was slightly Injured while throwing ■ burning log, the spokesman said He could not be named under standing regulations
Khalil was in Beirut at the time of the attack.
Another group ransacked four exchange shops In down town Tyre and smashed their neon sings, the spokesman said
Hundreds of other protesters blocked roads with burning rubber tires, turned back motorists and ordered businesses closed In Sidon. Nabatiyeh and Tyre, the main population centers tn south labanon
In the fishermen s village of Sarafand. just south of Sidon, protesters beat up a Lebanese army officer and smashed the windshields of hts car because he tried to remove a roadblock.
The officer, a first lieutenant whose name was withheld. was rescued by elders in the village. He was not seriously hurt, the spokesman said
Army troops opened some of the blocked roads In late afternoon.