Mr Gebran Bassil The Leader Free Patriotic Movement

The burden borne by Lebanon and its people NO country was willing to accept

Bassil launched the Central Committee for the return of the displaced: The great challenge is being in converting the project from partisan to popular and national level‏ in which all Lebanese contribute.

13 July 2018

(Translated and Edited by the M. E. Times Int'l)

Lebanon - The head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Minister Gebran Bassil, launched the Central Committee for the Return of Displaced at the Center of Conferences and Meetings at the Tayyar Center-Sin El Fil.

Dr Ola Boutros

The Committee of displaced Syrians coordinator at the Free Patriotic Movement, Dr Ola Boutros talked about the reality of the Syrian exodus in Lebanon.

“In 2011, a mass influx of Syrian refugees reached 1.5 million people in a country of 10,452sq km, which lacks the vital range and resources, with a population of four million compared with 14 million diaspora in the world. Displaced peoples accounted for 35% of the population, the highest proportion of the world’s population. The percentage of population density per kilometre was 574%.”

“Syria has a total area of 185,180sq km with an administrative division of 14 governorates, of which 13 are safe, with the exception of some small enclaves and one unsafe governorate, Idlib, which is about 148km from the Lebanese border at Arida. The border provinces of Lebanon are safe, including Homs, which is four times the size of Lebanon, 42,220sq km and constitutes 22.8% of the total area of Syria.”

“Displaced people came to Lebanon for economic issues from the border areas of Syria with Iraq, Turkey and Jordan with crossing points of up to 500km, and not for the known reasons of asylum, to escape persecution and fear of life. Most of them are wage earners, labourers, peasants and artisans.”

“High birth rate of 130,000 Syrian born has been recorded, where we have one displaced child of three, 83% were not registered at the register of foreigners in the Directorate General of Personal Status in the Lebanese Ministry of Interior until the beginning of 2018. This means there is a mass of  Stateless People or Undeclared Nationality, in addition to the presence of 216,000 students in the Lebanese public schools for two shifts before noon and afternoon at an annual cost of $365 million.”

“The largest mass of displaced persons is concentrated in Mount Lebanon, where employment opportunities are available and then Beirut, followed by the Bekaa, with a spread over the entire area of Lebanon by 82%, and 18% in informal camps, 50% of which are in Baalbek Hermel and 37% in Bekaa. Syrian refugees receive from international organizations only $27 per month and the poverty rate is 76%.”

“In international law, Lebanon has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol, so it is a country of transit and migration, not a country of asylum and settlement.”

“The cost of the public treasury amounted to $19.496 billion, the fiscal deficit increased from 5.7% to 8%. Growth has fallen from 8% in 2011 to 1% in 2017 and to 0.08% in 2018.”

“Electricity: Consumption of 425MW of energy, which is equivalent to five hours a day, at a cost of $220 million on "Electricité du Liban" and $110 million cost on the Lebanese citizen because of the use of private generators. 54% consume electricity illegally, 85% of them in Beirut, Mount Lebanon and the North.”

“Increasing consumption on goods, which means high imports, low exports, shortage of foreign currency and benefiting from government-subsidized goods, consuming six million loaves of bread per day.”

“The unemployment rate reached 35% and the migration of Lebanese youth increased after the spread of illegal institutions (150 establishments) in violation of the law. The labour competition of the displaced (384 thousand) for the Lebanese labour force because it is 50% lower than the minimum wage (the Syrian displaced average wage is $278) resulted in the exit of 270,000 Lebanese from the labour market, 150,000 of them in the services sector prohibited to non-Lebanese and led to a decline in quality.”

“40% increase in traffic crisis, 40% increase in spending on sanitation, 40% on medicine, 40% on Syrian prisoners (16,000 crimes of misdemeanour, felony and terrorist acts of illegal infiltrators).”

“In conclusion, the Lebanese constitution prohibits resettlement. It is clear in its introduction: The Lebanese territory is one and undivided land for all the Lebanese people. There is no division, no separation and no settlement of people on the basis of their belonging.”

“Lebanon is also in line with the principles of international law of non-refoulement. The sustainable solution to this crisis is the safe, dignified and sustainable return to the settled areas of Syria, with 96% expressing their desire to return. The international community, based on the principle of international cooperation, is responsible for facilitating the return and economic empowerment of internally displaced persons in Syria to safeguard their dignity.”

“Therefore, it is enough to delay with the absence of a unified policy because Lebanon is bleeding and the new government must approve the safe return in its ministerial statement.”

Shadrawi

The coordinator of the Central Committee for the Return of the Displaced, Nicola Al-Shadrawi, said in a statement: “We are meeting today to launch the Central Committee for the Return of Displaced Persons. It is time for a dignified, safe and reassuring return for every displaced family. The displaced brothers want nothing but safety and security. This is what we seek to secure for them in cooperation with all parties of goodwill.”

“I say to the displaced brothers: the homeland is not a luxury. It is one of the essentials for the existence of every human being, for the dignity of every human being and for the completion of every human being's humanity. Who does not believe, may ask our Palestinian brothers.”

“We do not want speed or rush, but we want a gradual and organised return sympathetic to the tragedy of displacement. This committee will support every displaced family that wants to return.”

“In the era of His Excellency President Michel Aoun, and our Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, we will achieve this goal, in solidarity and cooperation with the Lebanese and Syrian loyalists. Stability will reign in Syria, and the Syrians will be returning to reconstruct their country. So let the return bells tolls.”

Bassil

Minister Bassil made a speech in which he said: “Today, on July 12, 2018, we announce the establishment of the Central Committee for the return of displaced Syrians to their country of Syria.”

As for the composition of the committee, he said: “It is a central and regional committee at the same time. The coordinator is Nicola al-Shadrawi, with a group of central assistants. However, we will announce later the larger working group. We have just held a preliminary meeting. It will include one or more people from each region where there is a presence for displaced Syrians.”

“The aim of the committee is to facilitate and encourage return, in other words, to prevent any friction between the Lebanese and Syrian peoples, and to deepen the brotherhood between the two peoples.  Its work basically is to contact the displaced Syrians, where the survey can be recorded and not in all Lebanese territories, to register their desire to return and to contact the Municipalities and the Mukhtars. 

“The second stage is to contact the concerned departments of the state, especially the Lebanese General Security.

“First, because today, on July 12, is the anniversary of the July war, which paved the way for the Lebanese people to return to their homeland after the most brutal war against them and their people. The main victory is that the Lebanese immediately returned to their land, built their homes, stayed in their homes and land and became more entrenched.”

“We are the Lebanese people who gave an example of how a human being lives free on his land. We who fully understand the relation between land and identity. July 12 may have been the beginning of a war against Lebanon, but it was the first victory recorded by an Arab country, not only by liberating its land.”

“Why today? Because the conditions of return have been assured. Because the Syrian regions are in a state of calm and the Syrian provinces are in a state of popular reconciliation, and because we in Lebanon can no longer wait, when the return is possible, because we as the FPM, we can no longer wait.”

“The return is turning into a popular demand rather than a political and security one. It has become a popular will that we are seeing translated every day.”

“And again, why today? Because today we are on the verge of forming a Lebanese government; we believe that its main task is to secure this dignified, safe and sustainable return, which I believe is the main challenge for this government.”

“Some of these forces have announced themselves, including those who are backdoor and has intentions until today, but are subordinate to foreign policies in this regard. We will talk about this return today more and more, and as we are forming a government, we will discuss it in the minimum in its ministerial statement and policy, we will assure the minimum national consensus on securing return.”

He asked: “Why is the Free Patriotic Movement doing this?”

“First, because the FPM is the godfather of all these major issues of concern to the human being; it bears to this day the Palestinian issue, the issue of the return of the Palestinians to their land, the issue of Jerusalem, because the FPM in 2006 lived the bitterness of displacement.”

“There is no identity without land, it becomes a dispersed identity, like many people who have become extinct or lost their national cohesion. A land without an identity becomes common; the identity and the land form together a homeland and make a nation that believes in its homeland and remains in it.”

“We do not want for the Syrian people what happened to the Palestinian people or part of what has happened to us. As a Free Patriotic Movement, we will do everything we can so that the Palestinians’ experience with the Syrians will not be repeated. And the issue of their displacement into Lebanon becomes a case beginning with a year and up to seven years and may be up to 70 years as has happened with the Palestinian question.”

“The Free Patriotic Movement is the first to present the government policy paper, which was approved in the government of President Tamam Salam, and presented the second paper four years ago and has not yet been ratified. Because the FPM is sovereign and takes free decisions and cannot be accused of subordination, it has the necessary independence to be outside any foreign policy against it in this subject.”

“The FPM can communicate with everyone in this subject. It has a human approach far from racism. A national approach not a fictional one. It has of course a sovereign approach refusing to surrender.”

“The FPM puts this issue as a national priority because it is first an existential issue of a constitutional constitution that is essential and inevitable and because it is directly linked to the national economy and the lives of people and cannot be separated.”

“Practically, Syria entered gradually the reconstruction phase, albeit in spite of other international aspirations, but this is an inevitable reality in which Syria will face. With the spread of calm, the reconstruction will spread and because the Lebanese state started through the presidency of the republic and the Foreign Ministry to engage directly with the Syrians, a people and a regime in this matter.”

“This is a natural step to be issued by the FPM with its timing and content. It is not coordinated in time with anyone but coordinated in context with others and specifically with the Lebanese. Secondly, this work is being done among us as Lebanese. The Free Patriotic Movement does not replace the Lebanese State or any official administration or apparatus. All we can do is to be an encouraging and promotive agent for this return to become a popular factor growing up and becoming more acceptable among people.”

“The major challenge is to turn this project from a party project into a popular, national project in which all the Lebanese contribute with good word with the Syrians, but with determination towards their state, because our main problem today is that the Lebanese State refrains from applying the Lebanese law on Lebanese territory.”

“We are the most willing country in the world to apply international law and treat the displaced humanely. We do this in an unprecedented manner, even more so than the most esteemed European countries that praise human rights and have the capacity to implement policies of assistance to any displaced person. No one can follow us by treating the displaced and this is because of the sense of brotherhood we have towards the Syrians.”

“We cannot remain spectators of a state that does not want to work and does not let others work. It does not want to carry out its duties and implement its laws. It does not want anyone to move even by word, as happened during the occupation of Lebanese territory by the Takfiri groups.”