Maha Al-Azar and Hala Kilani
Daily Star staff

The government told angry taxi drivers Thursday that it was firm about a weekend deadline to get vehicles running on diesel off the roads, sweetening the deal by slightly improving incentives to replace thousands of cars.
After some 2,000 protesters marched on Cabinet headquarters in Mathaf to coincide with the ministers’ evening session, the head of a taxi drivers’ confederation, Abdel-Amir Najda, vowed that the drivers would spend the night in place to signal displeasure with the decision.
Najda told The Daily Star that the confederation would meet on Friday to decide on what to do next, after having earlier pledged to block roads on Saturday, the deadline for the law’s implementation.
“We will stay here until our demands are met,” he said.
Separately, the Interior Ministry issued a statement after the session, warning the public that the diesel ban would go into effect on Saturday.
Information Minister Ghazi Aridi told reporters the government would allow demonstrations and other legal, peaceful forms of protest, but “blocking roads” would not be permitted.
To encourage the replacement of vehicles, ministers amended an earlier decree exempting drivers from customs duties and registration fees on imported cars up to three years old and paying LL2 million in compensation to mini-bus owners. Taxi drivers are also eligible for LL1 million in compensation for replacing diesel engines but require proof of ownership, which is difficult to obtain because many engines were brought into the country illegally.
The amended decree extends the exemption to five-year-old models, and increases compensation for mini-buses by LL500,000 for every year after 1995, apparently meeting one of the drivers’ demands.
Signalling the government’s intention to go ahead with the law, President Emile Lahoud cited the country’s desire to boost tourism, commenting that the state was interested in shoring up other areas of environmental concern, such as forestation and solid waste treatment.
Taxi drivers had urged the government to provide them with two 20-liter tanks of gasoline a day at LL10,000 each instead of their average market price of LL20,000 a tank.
Despite the low turnout, the protest was highly spirited, with demonstrators funneling their anger toward Premier Rafik Hariri, Speaker Nabih Berri and Finance Minister Fouad Siniora.
Earlier Thursday, Najda and Bassam Tleis, who head the two public drivers’ labor confederations, conferred at General La-
bor Confederation headquarters. As they briefed reporters, they appeared to scale down their rhetoric, amid reports that the Cabinet would move toward meeting their demands.
A divide between the two groups also reappeared after they had united on Wednesday for a massive general assembly in Cola. An ally of speaker Nabih Berri, who confirmed his backing of the implementation of the ban on Wednesday, Tleis’ group did not participate in the protests with Najda, markedly decreasing the turnout.
Taxi drivers feel that they are taking all the blame for air pollution while politicians, who allegedly imported the old diesel engines in the first place, are allowed off the hook.
“Taxi drivers did not resort to diesel voluntarily. They were obliged to resort to it as a result of difficult living conditions … Like many other citizens, they looked for the cheaper option,” Tleis argued. Taxi drivers feel that government officials are determined to implement the ban “not to protect the environment but to turn the attention of the public away from them as responsible parties for pollution.”
The confederations also softened their rhetoric after examining the position of Interior Minister Elias Murr, who told Najda on Wednesday that his ministry was not going to allow the taxi drivers to block roads.
A heavy security presence contained the demonstration a few hours later at Cabinet headquarters, with “Down with Hariri ­ Down with the government,” one of the more frequent chants.
Demonstrators also raged at Hariri and Berri, accusing them of “living in air-conditioned castles while people are dying.”
“Let them come and drive taxi cabs and we’ll be ministers and MPs, and show them how to run this country,” said one.
Unlike previous demonstrations, and despite statements from Amal and Hizbullah backing the protests in recent days, no MPs were present at the protest.
Asked why the turnout was not the projected tens of thousands, Najda said: “The streets were blocked. People got stuck in traffic.”
As for the demands, demonstrators appeared unwilling to accept any compromises.
Ali Nasreddine, a cabbie for 12 years, warned that if the demands were not met, “we will then stop working and start stealing and robbing.”
Many protesters felt that the government was jeopardizing their livelihood by allowing Syrians to drive taxis here.
“Look at them,” Ahmed Taha, a diver of five years, said as he pointed at drivers picking up passengers on the other side of the road instead of joining the protest. “All of them are Syrian.”
Taxis following the marchers carried flyers on their windshields that read: “It’s the quality of the diesel that causes pollution. Who imports such diesel into the country?”
Drivers have been calling on the government to import diesel that meets international standards instead of the kind that is available on the Lebanese market, which experts describe as “the waste residue of diesel.”
l In other business, the Cabinet discussed the country’s media sector in the wake of the divisive Metn by-election.
Aridi said the audiovisual media law would be “implemented to the letter,” after warning stations on Wednesday about a series of reported violations.
Lahoud and Hariri, who met with Siniora before the meeting, also agreed that the 2003 budget would see a 10 percent decrease in expenditures. ­  Additional reporting by Nafez Kawas

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