<html>
<body>
<font size=3 color="#191919">Nahr al-Bared was destroyed, but who
noticed? <br>
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9060.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9060.shtml<br><br>
</a>Michael Birmingham, <i>Electronic Lebanon,</i> Oct 25, 2007 <br><br>
<img src="http://electronicintifada.net/artman2/uploads/2/071024-bared-2_1.jpg" width=483 height=362 alt="[]">
<br>
A view of the main road in the Nahr al-Bared "new camp" which
before the war connected Tripoli in northern Lebanon up to the
Lebanon-Syria border. <br><br>
Nahr al-Bared is a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of Lebanon which
has been home to about 40,000 Palestinian people, most of whom are the
children and grandchildren of those who left Palestine in 1948. Some like
Abu Mohammad were born in Palestine. He was ten years old, and next year
it will be sixty years since the formation of the State of Israel was
achieved through the ethnic cleansing of Abu Mohammad and so many others
from their home in Palestine. He told me this as the two of us sat alone
in the pitch dark while rats ran around beside our chairs at his house.
As I left he went in to sleep alone amongst ashes and rodents, with no
neighbors around him. Trying to believe that he still has something left
to protect.<br><br>
Between May and September of this year, a ferocious battle took place
between the Lebanese army and a small armed group known as Fatah
al-Islam. From the first the day, the Lebanese army surrounded the camp
and fired in artillery, maintaining this course for months. Most of the
residents of the camp were forced to leave with the clothes on their
backs within the first three days. As the number of young Lebanese
soldiers killed and horribly maimed rose through the battle, Lebanon
became awash with patriotism and grief, any questioning of the army
taboo. <br><br>
Something terrible has been done to the residents of Nahr al-Bared, and
the Lebanese people are being spared the details. Over the past two
weeks, since the camp was partly reopened to a few of its residents, many
of us who have been there have been stunned by a powerful reality. Beyond
the massive destruction of the homes from three months of bombing, room
after room, house after house have been burned. Burned from the inside.
Amongst the ashes on the ground, are the insides of what appear to have
been car tires. The walls have soot dripping down from what seems clearly
to have been something flammable sprayed on them. Rooms, houses, shops,
garages -- all blackened ruins, yet having had no damage from bombing or
battle. They were burned deliberately by people entering and torching
them. <br><br>
How many we do not know; it is too large for a few people to
comprehensively assess. But finding an house or business spared from the
bombing that has not been torched is very hard indeed. <br><br>
Why did this happen? Why have the people whose entire life's work is to
be found in ashes on the floor of these burned out homes, not been given
any information about this -- not a word? Each day new people return to
find that this is what has happened to their homes. <br><br>
<img src="http://electronicintifada.net/artman2/uploads/2/071024-bared-4_1.jpg" width=483 height=362 alt="[]">
<br>
A view of the "old camp" where still no residents or NGOs have
been allowed to enter. <br><br>
It is not just the burning of houses. Cars that residents were ordered to
leave behind in the first days of the battle have been smashed up. Mopeds
and TVs and all that ordinary people value, also broken up. Fridge after
fridge with bullets through them. All of this clearly done from inside
the houses, not from any outside battle. <br><br>
People returning to their homes sit outside alone on the ground. Stunned.
When you ask them to bring you into their houses, they tell you, person
after person, of how their valuables were stolen. Even where the
valuables were well hidden, everything was ransacked and valuables found.
Explosives were used to get through locked doors or to open safes. Items
that people have had stolen include everything from clothes to cars. That
which has not been burned, which was not smashed, which was of value
seems to have vanished. Where? <br><br>
This camp was strictly out of bounds to the Palestinian people. They
could not have done this. Who did this and why must surely be
investigated before more vital evidence has disappeared. A small amount
of this may be attributable to Fatal al-Islam fighters. But there is
clear evidence that some elements of the army acted improperly. <br><br>
On the inside walls of many, many houses, are written slogans. Everything
from proud soldiers noting army units, to profoundly racist, offensive
slogans against the Palestinian people. Many families have found some of
their belongings in nearby houses. Feces are on some mattresses and
floors. <br><br>
Every day that goes by more families return to the camp. Within hours,
they have swept up and cleared away ashes and debris, so that they can
try to imagine where to begin again. Mattresses with feces are being
burned. Journalists are still prohibited from the camp. Cameras are
illegal there. Human rights groups have not entered. Every day that goes
by, more evidence is lost. <br><br>
For those of us who lived in nearby Baddawi refugee camp during the
battle, this follows months of people from Nahr al-Bared telling stories
of torture and abuse at checkpoints, and in the Lebanese Ministry of
Defense at Yarsi. It also follows Nahr al Bared residents, who bravely
tried to tell the world through nonviolent demonstrations what was
happening, being shot dead near Baddawi. The world ignored completely
even their deaths.<br><br>
Amnesty International, the largest human rights organization in the
world, was concluding a report on the situation of Palestinians in
Lebanon during the past week. Its delegation left Lebanon without seeing
Nahr al-Bared -- before it left holding a Beirut press conference which
was abruptly ended at the first mention of Nahr al-Bared. <br><br>
The United States government played a key role in this battle, strongly
supporting politically and with munitions the Lebanese government's
decision to seek a military solution. The Lebanese offered to Fatah
al-Islam the choices to simply surrender or die. The European Union and
many Arab countries also clearly supported this approach. The moral and
legal imperative to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and not
to target civilian communities was not a concern. The Palestinians of
Lebanon, the subject of so many crocodile tears from around the world
during infamous massacres in the past, once again are without support at
the moment when it might actually matter. <br><br>
What happened in Nahr al-Bared? Why does the world not seem to
care?<br><br>
<i>All images were taken on 14 October 2007, and are published
anonymously.<br><br>
Michael Birmingham is an Irish peace activist who has been mostly based
in Lebanon since July 2006. He has formerly worked on human rights and
social justice in Ireland and Iraq. This article was originally published
in Arabic by <a href="http://www.alquds.co.uk/">Al-Quds al-Arabi</a> and
is republished with the author's permission.</i> <br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>