10/02/2009 Almost two years on the Lebanese Armed Forces' (LAF) three-month conflict with Fatah al-Islam militants at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, faltering fundraising efforts are still haunting the first baby steps of reconstruction…
"As we said at the beginning of the battle, the Lebanese state is committed to rebuilding the camp and today we are restating this pledge," Saniora vowed at the end of the battle in 2007. "As the state stood by you when you were forced to flee Nahr al-Bared, we stand by you again in rebuilding the camp so that you can return there with your heads held high," Saniora said, addressing the estimated 30,000 Palestinian refugees who were forced to flee at the start of the standoff between the army and Fatah al-Islam militants on May 20, 2007.
Yet, two years have passed and the camp is still destroyed, reflecting another failure for Saniora in fulfilling his own pledges… Indeed, two years after fierce battles reduced Nahr al-Bared to rubble, the refugees are growing bitter over a tight-budgeted rebuilding plan, which aims at placing the camp under the control of the Lebanese government for the first time.
"I fled the camp with my children and grandchildren three days after the fighting. I did not even carry identification papers or money," Ghneim, 45, said. "We once owned warehouses and shops, making tens of thousands of dollars a day. Now, we are left with nothing but the revenues of a small shop."
Like many in the camp, home to 31,000 U.N.-registered Palestinian refugees, Ghneim's father-in-law Mohammed Atiyeh is frustrated. "If they wanted to rebuild the camp they would not have destroyed it in the first place," said Atiyeh, 75, who described himself as an "unemployed merchant."
"I hardly managed to get a few thousands dollars to renovate my house and buy some appliances for my shop, even though I have lost more than a million dollars."
A major reconstruction operation by the Lebanese authorities and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) is to kick off later this month to rebuild a "model camp," according to the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC), a government focal point in the reconstruction effort. "The rebuilding plan is the result of a partnership between UNRWA, the Lebanese state and the Palestinian Authority," said LPDC advisor Ziad Sayegh. "We seek to build a model camp that would provide a minimum standard of decent living for the Palestinians under the state's sovereignty and authority."
UNRWA has appealed for 450 million dollars for the rebuilding, which is scheduled to be completed in around three years. So far it has raised around 120 million dollars. "We do need more resources to rebuild the camp but that doesn't mean we are not going ahead with it," said Charlie Higgins, UNRWA's project manager. "At a certain point in the middle of this year if we don't receive any more resources or funding we will stop and the process will be delayed."
He said UNRWA was appealing to different countries for additional funds. "We are confident we'll have this money but we have to show that we are actually moving ahead," Higgins added.
A Lebanese naval base will be set up at the edge of the camp despite strong opposition from the resident refugees who view this as a "form of restriction" and point to the fact that the base would be located near schools. "The base is necessary for monitoring all the northern coasts and combating trafficking... this is not a restriction," said Sayegh. He added that an army post and a police station will also be built inside the camp, along with health centers and schools. "The police station will ensure law enforcement and protect the Palestinians," he said. "There will be no compromise on sovereign decisions. "It will be a model camp in terms of services and quality of buildings and roads."
But the refugees, at least for now, view such plans as "empty promises."
"God's mercy is better than all their empty promises," Ghneim said. For Hani Mustafa, a construction worker in the camp, the entire rebuilding project is nothing but a "lie."
"There will be no reconstruction. Don't believe this lie," he said bitterly.
Higgins argued that although he understood the skepticism of the dispossessed residents about rebuilding efforts, he remained confident the camp would rise from its ashes.
According to Othman Badr, who is in charge of a committee for displaced refugees in the camp, the unemployment rate in Nahr al-Bared is estimated at 67 percent.
Since the end of the battles, some 13,000 of the camp's residents have returned to the newer part of the camp which suffered less destruction. They live in renovated buildings, garages, warehouses or housing units provided by UNRWA. The remainder fled to the nearby Beddawi camp or to other camps.
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