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25 March 2012 By Franklin Lamb
Shatila Palestinian
refugee camp, despite being targeted over the past six
decades for numerous crimes including massacres from
various sources, in many ways is representative of all
the Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
Located in South
Beirut, Shatila was one of the first Palestinian
refugee camps set up during the 1948 Nakba. When the
Lebanon-Palestine border was closed on May 15th
1948, a gentleman named Abed Bisher ("Abou Kamal")
from the north-western Galilee village of Majd al-Kroom,
found himself trapped inside Lebanon as hundreds of
his countrymen were streaming in seeking short term
sanctuary. Mr. Bisher, was in fact a mujahidine
leader whose mission in Lebanon was to purchase arms
for the Mufti of Jerusalem to be deployed in the
scattered villages in the Galilee, then still under
heavy assault from Zionist forces.
Shocked by what he was
witnessing of his Palestinian neighbors squatting
wherever they could find some vacant ground, often in
appalling conditions, and unable to complete his
original mission, Bisher focused on helping his
countrymen as best he could.
His good luck included
making the acquaintance of a Lebanese gentleman named,
al Basha Shatila a Lebanese Sunni Muslim businessman
sympathetic to the arriving refugees. Mr. Shatila
allowed Bisher the use an oblong strip of land
roughly 200 by 400 meters free of charge. From the
newly organized UN Agency, UNRWA, Bisher and his
growing group of refugees were able to procure 20
tents and before long also milk and rice rations.
Bisher sought out
refugees from his village but no refugee was refused
sanctuary in "Shatila Camp" and by early 1950 nearly
two dozen Palestinian refugee families were
accommodated and a few months later there were 60
families and by the early 1960's more than 3000
refugees lived in and around Shatila camp. While
approximately half the camp population was from Majd
al_Kroom, more than 25 of the 531 Zionist ethnically
cleansed villages were represented in Shatila.
The uprising in Syria
has re-opened some old wounds in Shatila camp and
between the Baathist Assad regime, now in its 41st
year, and Lebanon's Palestinian refugees. Today the
Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon appears
divided over the credibility of pledged "regime
reforms" and whether more patience is warranted.
A growing number of
Palestinians, according to activists in Shatila, Burj
al Barajneh, and Bedawi camps, as well as contacts
with camp residents elsewhere, suggests ambivalent
opinions generally but a perceptible trend shift in
favor of the Syrian uprising. This is explained by
some camp residents as being due to the fact that the
killing shows no signs of ending despite global pleas
this week from among others, UN and Arab League envoy
Kofi Annan. Yet doubts and concerns persist over the
groups seen exploiting the unrest.
There is close
association between Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria
where since the start of the Syrian uprising, young
Palestinians have been protesting against groups
closely associated with the regime and tensions
exploded in June when "pro-regime thugs " opened fire
on a demonstration in Yarmouk camp, killing 14
refugees. In retaliation, Palestinian protesters then
burned down the militia's headquarters.
Relations between Syria
and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon's 12 camps and as
many ‘gatherings' have been complicated since the
early 1970's as Syria played the Palestinian card in
the international arena in competition with Yassar
Arafat and was inconsistent in its attitudes and
actions toward the refugees during the Lebanese civil
war including participating in the 1976 massacre at
the Tel al Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp.
Yet every Palestinian in
Lebanon knows and appreciates the Syrian government's
stance toward more than 130,000 fellow refugees who
sought sanctuary in Syria in April and May of the 1948
Nakba. They know well the chasm that exists between
the civil rights afforded their family members, former
villagers, and fellow refugees in Syria on the one
hand and Lebanon's continuing refusal to grant them
even the most elementary civil right to work and to
own a home.
In sharp contrast to
Lebanon, the 500,000 Palestinian refugees living in
nine official camps and three unofficial camps in
Syria have been granted the same civil rights as their
Syrian hosts.
According to AUB
Sociology Professor Sari Hanafi, who was raised in
Yarmouk camp in Damascus, Palestinian refugees in
Syria are more socially integrated than in any of the
host countries in the Middle East. Since January 25,
1949 their status has been guaranteed by Syrian Law
450 and then Law 260 of October 7, 1956. In
combination, these laws they grant Palestinians
essentially the same rights and responsibilities as
Syrian citizens including equal rights to education,
owning property, the right to work, business and
military service, all while retaining their
Palestinian nationality. In Syria Palestinians do
military training and serve in the Syrian army in what
is called the Palestine Liberation Army (Hattin
Forces).
Palestinian political
groups in Syria are even allowed some freedom to
operate depending on their relationship with the
Syrian government. The Vanguard for the Popular
Liberation War (al-Saiqa) in actually part of the
Syrian Baath Party and is given much freedom of
operation while Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Palestinian
factions such as Ahmad Jibril's PFLP-GC, Fatah
Intifada, the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the People's Party,
among others, are given rather less freedom to operate
independent of government direction.
Along the fairly long
spectrum of Shatila camp resident views of the Syrian
uprising are those being expressed by Druze leader
Walid Jumblatt. Jumblatt is a popular and influential
politician among Palestinians in Lebanon partly
because of the PLO alliance, during the 1972-82 decade
with the National Lebanese Movement led by Walid's
father Kamal, who according to Walid, was killed on
the orders of Hafez Assad. Walids discourses carry
weight among progressives generally in Lebanon.
Jumblatt has been saying
recently that Hafez Assad's treatment of the
Palestinian cause resembles that of the Zionists. .
Walid has asked Palestinians, "Have some of you
forgotten that Hafez Assad did not recognize the
existence of Palestine to the south of Syria and that
he was the one who introduced this idea into Syrian
history textbooks and that this dovetails with
Zionism's refusal to recognize Palestine and the
rights of the Palestinian people? …And can you forget
that Hafez Assad, while he was defense minister before
he turned against his colleagues to seize power,
arrested the national Palestinian figure Yasser Arafat
in 1966?"
Jumblatt's views are
respected also because he is one of very few
politicians who match his words about the need for
Palestinian civil rights in Lebanon with deeds.
Jumblatt's his 2009 Parliamentary draft bill for
Palestinian civil rights was the second most
comprehensive introduced. The ideal bill introduced
was the one drafted and put forward in Parliament by
the Syrian National Socialist Party (NSSP), for all
intents and purposes an adjunct of the Syrian Baath
party. While Syria was thus on record as favoring
civil rights in Lebanon's camps, neither draft bill
was even given a hearing for the reason that the
Lebanese parties opted to let Samir Geagea take the
"lowest common denominator" lead and thus the
predictable result on 8/17/09 was a worthless
Parliamentary "feel good" gesture of cutting the work
permit fees for Palestinians. It is likely that no
more than a dozen Palestinian refugees, if even that
many, gained any benefit or work permit as a result
of this embarrassing Parliamentary effort and the
criminalization of Palestinian home ownership and ban
on their right to work remains in place. Some unfairly
blame Syria for this failure given its continuing
influence in Parliament despite removing its troops
from Lebanon in 2005. In reality, the fault lies with
nearly every Lebanese confession and others including
the international community which is obligated to
enforce international humanitarian law and rights for
refugees.
Some efforts at
organizing demonstrations, led mainly by Palestinian
youth in Lebanon's refugee camps have been attempted
and partially thwarted by the so-called "Popular
Committees" generally backed by Syria. These camp
‘leaders' were never elected but are left over from
political appointments imposed on the camps. They are
widely considered illegitimate and corrupt. Following
the Sabra-Shatila Massacre many were installed by
Syria from anti-Arafat factions including Fatah
Intifada, and Saiqa. They still dominate in the camps
and have been successful in preventing camp residents
from organizing themselves in order to provide
services including much needed infrastructure
improvements. Reports of corruption and nepotism by
these "Popular Committees" are widespread as their
record of improving the lives of camp residents is
dismal. These popular committees tend to support the
Assad government in the current uprisings.
The experience of
Shatila camp is instructive. As recently as 2004 there
was no electricity in the camp for nine months.
Violence was rising dramatically. Yet the "Popular
Committees" did nothing to address these and many
other problems. Camp activist formed a "Follow-up and
Reform Committee (FRC) to rid Shatila of the widely
opposed camp leadership. An election was organized for
May 22, 2005 and expectation was high that the newly
organized Committee of the Camp's Population (CCP)
would achieve historic results for Shatila Camp. The
CCP attracted highly motivated and skilled specialists
to tackle with government agencies the electricity,
water, and sewage problems. The newly formed CCP
began organizing projects with NGO's and even some
foreign governments indicated interest in supporting
their projects.
The "Popular Committee"
in Shatila Camp saw the CCP as a threat to their
continued domination and exploitation. Their
perceptions were accurate and the camp population,
that for years had dismissed them as incompetent and
corrupt ignored their claimed authority and aimed to
replace them. The "Popular Committee" reacted with
intimidation, threats of violence and creating
divisions among the CCP leadership and was successful
in 2005 in forcing the CCP's collapse. Many camp
residents saw Syria's wish to maintain its team in
control in Shatila at play and with memories still
very fresh from the 1980's "camp wars" organized by
Syria its always easy to see its regime in a negative
light.
Another factor causing
some Palestinian in Lebanon's camps to support the
Syrian uprising are three recent assassinations which
targeted prominent officers in the Palestine
Liberation Army (Hattin Forces) in Syria. The most
recent being the killing of Colonel Abdul Nasser al-Makari,
the leader of a platoon in the PLA, Well informed
Palestinian sources in the Yarmouk Camp were quoted in
Asharq al-Awsat as saying: "General Rida al-Khadra,
the leader of the Hattin Forces, was assassinated a
week ago and this operation was preceded by another
assassination that had targeted Major Bassel Rafik
Ali. Major Ali had been abducted and tortured before
being thrown in the street."
Some Palestinians,
without absolute proof, claim that the Syrian regime
was behind these assassinations. A prominent
Palestinian official was quoted by Asharq al-Awsat as
saying: "The Syrian regime is responsible for these
attacks and they come in retaliation against the PLA's
and Palestinians refusal to take part in the
oppression campaign led by the regime against the
Syrian revolution. The regime wanted to implicate the
Palestine Liberation Army in its military campaign in
Homs and the Palestinian officers refused this request
because there is a wide Palestinian agreement over
non-interference in the Syrian domestic affairs…"
Other factors
influencing opinion in Lebanon's Palestinian camps to
the Syrian uprising include Hamas leaving Damascus and
relocating in Egypt partly under pressure from Syria
as well as the Palestinians insistence on maintaining
its independence. Probably a majority of Shatila camp
resident agree that this is a good move given Hamas'
parentage from the Muslim Brotherhood that will
dominate Egypt's government and likely re-open the
former front against the Zionist occupiers of
Palestine.
Probably the general
view from Shatila camp is one of public neutrality
with the refugees believing that is not in their
interest to interfere in Syrian affairs.
How long this remains
the case will likely depend on how long the killing
continues and it is simply not true that the
Palestinian camps in Lebanon or Palestinian society
in general automatically supports the Syria
government given what is widely perceived as the
massacre of protesters, most of whom, like the
Palestinians, are Sunni Muslims. Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and
is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com |
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