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A Rare
Victory For Lebanon's Palestinians: Are There Limits to
Bashing Lebanon's Refugees?
18 June 2010 By Franklin Lamb
Known simply as the 'General' Michel Naim Aoun was
born in a peaceful mixed Christian-Shia area of Haret
Hreik, now a core Hezbollah area. He rose from poverty
to become the head of Lebanon's newly created Eighth
army following the September 1983 battle of Souq el
Gharb against Palestinian and Druze forces. Six years
later he served a forcibly truncated term as President
of Lebanon. Since returning from a self imposed 15
year exile in France in 2005, he is widely believed to
intend to gain that office.
A current outspoken member of Lebanon's parliament,
Aoun has many supporters and detractors being
variously referred to a brilliant, cunning, honest,
corrupt, obstructionist, mercurial, mentally ill,
Napoleonic, and Hezbollah's most important political
ally.
The past couple of months have seen the General's
popular support shrink a bit and one of his recent
antics led to Hezbollah signal its concern since the
leaders of the Resistance were reeiving political heat
they did not need nor felt they deserved.
This current problem began on August 13, 2009 when the
key Hezbollah ally and ambitious leader of the Free
Patriotic Movement sought and was immediately granted
from Lebanon's highest administrative Court, the Shura
Council, an injunction freezing any and all
reconstruction of Nahr al Bared (Arabic: Cold River)
Palestinian Refugees camp which had been destroyed two
years ago in a three month battle between the salafist
group Fatah al Islam and the Lebanese army. The
renewable injunction was initially for 60 days and it
instantly froze UNRWA's $445-million rebuilding
project for the complete rebuilding of Nahr al Bared
by the projected April 2012 completion date. Aoun's
injunction added to the skepticism over the
reconstruction among some Nahr al-Bared displaced
residents, who have long voiced fears that the state
would never allow them to rebuild their camp, and
feared the fate of the disappeared Tell Zaatar camp
leveled during the 1975-90 Civil War.
Specifically General Aoun had petitioned the State
Shura to halt backfilling in the camp, a method of
rebuilding on top of archeological ruins which secures
and preserves them for future exploration.
Are There Limits to Bashing
Lebanon's Refugees?
Aoun argued that he was just trying to protect
Lebanon's heritage. Hezbollah did not immediately
respond to queries of `what gives?' from the Sabra
Shatila Foundation and others who assumed that Aoun
would not have acted without their ok. Few in Lebanon,
and no one in the Lebanon's 12 Palestinians camps and
10 gatherings, credited his sudden pro- environmental
epiphany as they reminded each other that when the
General was head of the Lebanese army and during
battles in 1989-90 he savagely destroyed plenty of
Lebanon's heritage including ancient ruins, places of
worship and museums if they were located in areas
controlled by his adversaries.
Some analysts have pointed out that Aoun surely knows,
that Lebanon, to paraphrase Robert Fisk, is a giant
historical club sandwich, the lower slice of stone
"bread" being Canaanite --about 5,000 years old along
with Greek, Roman, Crusader, Omayed, Ottoman and
European slices. Wherever one puts in a shovel and
digs a few feet, chances are `antiquities' will be
close to the blade.
Many suspected that Aoun in expressing concern for
ancient ruins had more than archaeology in mind since
his petition, if sustained by the State Shura Council
would mean that UNRWA would have to rebuild much of
the camp on a different site, meaning many of Nahr al-Bared's
more than 31,000 registered residents would never
return to their homes. Government representatives have
stated that it would be impossible to rebuild in the
area adjacent to the camp, as Aoun proposed, because
there is no land available in the area within miles of
Nahr al Bared.
According to Ammar Saadedine, an urban planner with
the Nahr al Bared Reconstruction Commission, Aoun is
trying to use the Palestinian issue to send political
messages to friends and foes. "We don't want to get
involved in internal Lebanese issues. We are just
demanding our rights."
Many Christians and other Lebanese still fear that the
reconstruction or granting basic human rights, would
promote the assimilation of Palestinians, skewing the
Muslim-Christian balance by encouraging
naturalization. These sentiments appeared to be echoed
initially by Hezbollah's spokesman on the Palestinian
question, Hassan Hodroj, who explained: "The threat of
tawtin is genuine. It is one of the ways in which
Israel, backed by the US, is endangering the region."
What Lebanon Can Learn From Syria
About Human Rights for Palestinian Refugees
According to progressive Lebanese MP Ghassan
Moukheiber, "our official policy is to maintain
Palestinians in a vulnerable, precarious situation to
diminish prospects for their naturalization or
permanent settlement".
What some supporters of Lebanon's Palestinians are
pushing for from the next government is a simple law
patterned after the 1956 Syrian one that grants
Palestinian Refugees "the right to employment,
commerce, and national service, while preserving their
original nationality."
Such an enactment in Lebanon would create immediate
civil rights for refugees but not give them
citizenship. In fact few of Lebanon's Palestinians
would accept naturalization (tawtin).
Others accused Aoun of shameless pandering to
embittered Akkar residents who lost sons fighting
Fatah al Islam as a majority of the 175 Lebanese army
soldiers killed were from their community opposite
Nahr al Bared Camp.
Still others accused Aoun of trying to carve out some
of Samir Geagea's more right wing Christian base.
Geagea, who is promoted in some circles here as the
Obama's administration's only remaining reliable
operative in Lebanon as a result of three years of
clumsy US-Israel interference in internal political
disputes (Comment: one is reminded of the 25th
anniversary at the October 24, 1983 explosion at the
US marine barracks which was a direct and foreseeable
result of the Reagan administration joining the same
Phalange party against the Sunni, Shia and Druze
population) is making a move to corral Lebanon's
Christians under his leadership.
Broad Based Opposition to Aoun's
Injunction
More than 2000 people rallied in downtown Beirut on
10/20/09 in a show of solidarity with the displaced
residents of Nahr el Bared. More than 40 different
community organizations, including the Washington
DC-Beirut based Sabra Shatila Foundation, joined the
protest organized by the Nahr el Bared Advocacy
Committee. Lovely Palestinian children from camps
across Lebanon arrived for the protest and some had
built small cardboard houses to illustrate their
worries over becoming displaced and homeless.
A majority of the destroyed camps 31,000 refugees are
packed into `temporary' housing including garages or
metal storage sheds where in summer the inside
temperatures can soar beyond 140 degrees F. and in
winter plunge below freezing. Some are indefinitely
warehoused along the tall grass perimeters of the
camp. The same grasses from which Fatah al Islam
fighters crawled to carry out their initial slaughter
of Lebanese soldiers in May of 2007.
Beirut's Daily Star quoted one of the Nahr al Bared
demonstrators: "It's very hot in summer and very cold
in winter," said one of the children's fathers, Ziad.
"We want to see the reconstruction started before
looking for any food or water or anything else. We
don't have a house. I want a house to live in, so the
first thing we need is the reconstruction."
Simultaneous demonstrations protesting Aoun's
injunction took place inside Nahr al Bared and at
Beirut's Shatila and Burj al Barajneh camps as well as
in the Ain al-Helweh, Al-Buss and Burj Shemali refugee
camps down south. In Saida's Ain al-Helweh, some
Islamist groups discussed ominous and threatening
contingency plans if the rebuilding ban was not
lifted. Decades of exclusion and marginalization has
incubated among some young Palestinians millenarian
ideas associated with al-Qa'ida. Some of the young men
have been organizing attack units. They pose as the
protectors and guardians of international Sunni Islam.
As is well known in Lebanon one of the 9/11 hijackers
dedicated a poem to Ain al-Helweh jihadists in his
videotaped will and dozens of Palestinian fighters
from the camp have joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq.
One Hezbollah source told this observer after several
attempts to explain the party's position in Aoun
project:
"No way does Hezbollah control the General, only his
wife can do that!" he said with a grin. "We in
Hezbollah consult regularly with his staff but frankly
we benefit more from our alliance that he does and
there are limits to what we can press him to do. I
personally think Aoun made a mistake with his Nahr al
Bared case and it appeared he was bashing the
Palestinian refugees for immediate personal political
gains. Honestly, all parties in Lebanon have been
guilty of doing that including us I am sorry to say,
but I would insist we have done it less than others.
But that's my view and it may or may not be that of
our leadership. There are many strongly held opinions
within Hezbollah. Contrary to Zionist propaganda and
what some in the West believe, we are very democratic
within the party and we are always analyzing and
debating events and ideas. If a party member comes up
with a sound idea it has a good chance of being
implemented. In that sense we are different from the
Lebanon Ziam (tribal leader) system still dominant in
so many of the 18 Confessions here. But I believe the
party has insisted that General Aoun drop his case".
Following talks encouraged by Hezbollah between Michel
Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and Palestinian
factions just before the 10/20/09 demonstrations, an
FPM representative was sent by Aoun to the protest to
show solidarity with resuming work at Nahr al Bared.
Aoun's representative stressed that the FPM still
remains opposed to the naturalization of Lebanon's
Palestinian refugees. So do an estimated 95% of the
refugees who want to live in Palestine not Lebanon but
they need some civil rights until their departure.
For some of the surprised demonstrators seeing Aoun's
representative was a good sign. Another positive sign
for the Palestinians came when Aoun could have
submitted reminders asking the Shura Council to extend
the rebuilding ban past the original two-month
suspension. Although expected by many to do so, he did
not and let the deadline lapse.
A Request from Hezbollah's Shura
Council to Lebanon's Shura Council?
This was confirmed to this observer on 10/11/09,
twelve's days before the Shura's injunction was widely
expected to be renewed. During a Conference in
Damascus on the Golan Heights, which subject is also
of concern to Hezbollah, a good friend and member of
Hezbollah's delegation and one of the brains behind
Hezbollah's spate of successful German aided prisoner
exchanges, came to my room. Knowing of my often
expressed concern, he embraced and said, "It's over,
Aoun will abandon his actions against Nahr al Bared."
Without pressing my friend for details, I concluded
that Hezbollah did not approve of preventing the camps
rebuilding and instructed Aoun to back off because the
Resistance did not need the heat.
Sure enough, on 10/23/09 caretaker Prime Minister Fuad
Siniora gave the good news to Palestinian
representatives that he had instructed UNRWA to
immediately restart the reconstruction of Nahr al
Bared, despite the possibility that theoretically the
Shura Council might still decide for a permanent halt
to the rebuilding. Hezbollah sources advised this
observer that there will not me any similar delays by
Aoun or others regarding Nahr al Bared.
A collective sigh of relief could be heard by this
observer all the way deep inside the Yamouk
Palestinian Refugee Camp in Damascus from Lebanon's
Palestinian refugee community. For their friends know
well the paucity of breaks they receive these days.
- Franklin Lamb is Director of the Sabra Shatila
Foundation. Contact him at: fplamb@sabrashatila.org.
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