Lebanonwire.com | Lebanese villagers want pro-Syrian Palestinian military bases out

Top Banner

May 2, 2005

Lebanese villagers want pro-Syrian Palestinian military bases out
by Nagib Khazzaka

QUSSAYA, Lebanon - Residents of eastern Lebanon encouraged by the recent Syrian troop pullout from the country are calling for an end to the presence of Damascus-backed Palestinian military positions in the area.

Since Syria ended its 29-year military presence in Lebanon on Tuesday, residents have been criticising the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) of Ahmad Jibril.

The Damascus-based radical group has maintained military positions in the eastern Bekaa Valley for the last 23 years.

"We do not want Ahmad Jibril's men who have been deployed here since the 1982 Israeli invasion to maintain their positions. The Syrians are gone, they should do the same," said one resident, Fouad Abu Farah.

Abu Farah was echoing the concerns of the vast majority of the residents of Qussaya and nearby villages on the western flank of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range which separates Lebanon from Syria.

UN Security Council Resolution 1559, passed in September, called for the end of foreign military presence in Lebanon, in a clear message to Syria, and for the disarming of all militias there, in a reference to the anti-Israeli Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and numerous Palestinian factions.

But the PFLP-GC is the only Palestinian movement to maintain important military positions outside the 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon. The group's bases have been struck by Israeli warplanes.

Toni Keddy, municipal council member in Qussaya, "it is our right to ask for their departure, even if they never did any harm to us. We want to regain and cultivate the lands that they have confiscated from us."

North of Qussaya, an armed PFLP-GC guard in military dress stands by a metal fence at the entrance of the group's position nestled among cherry and almond trees overlooking the Bekaa Valley.

Residents said that since Syria's pullout, the PFLP-GC has reinforced its positions with artillery, rocket-launchers and armored vehicles. The group has also opened a road leading across the borders to Zabadani, inside Syria, they said.

Both Christian and Muslim residents are hostile to the continued foreign military presence.

"We do not want foreigners, we only want the Lebanese army," said Randa Sahli, a housewife in Ain Kfar Zabad village where flags of Hezbollah and its Lebanese rival Amal movement flutter over the houses.

"Armed Palestinians are not welcome," said hairdresser Hassan Dghaidi, who has recently put up in his parlor the portrait of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri who was assassinated in February.

Hariri's murder, widely blamed on the Lebanese regime and its political masters in Syria, led to massive street protests that led to Syria's pullout.

PFLP-GC guards refuse to allow journalists to approach their bases, but goatherds can easily take their flocks near their bases.Goatherd Abu Hussein said the PFLP-GC has expanded a natural cave and dug tunnels on the flank of the mountain.

The PFLP-GC faces similar criticism for maintaining bases on hills overlooking the coastal town of Naameh, south of Beirut.

The group dug a labyrinth of underground tunnels in Naameh in 1978. It was forced to evacuate the tunnels in 1982 by the Israeli army, but returned to the area in 1984 after the Israeli partial pullout in southern Lebanon.

"The PFLP-GC should surrender its arms, maybe to its ally Hezbollah," said Walid Mezher.

However Georges Mattar said the Lebanese army should replace the Palestinian movement.