March 1, 2010

Reconstructing and Governing Nahr el-Bared Camp: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?

As reconstruction of the destroyed camp requires a huge amount of funding, often, donors will seize the opportunity to empower the formation of a new local elite, channeling funds and resources through them, the cases of Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan are but a few examples. What is pertinent in the case of Nahr el-Bared, is that all donor funds were channeled through the Lebanese state, ambivalent to some Palestinian stakeholders. Since the beginning of the battle against Fatah el-Islam, the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp (NBC) had become a laboratory for the Lebanese state to explore new urban forms, governance structures, legal frameworks, relationship to adjacent areas and to the Lebanese state, and security regime. Typical to postwar scenarios, where a destroyed landscape becomes an opportunity for different actors to change the status quo and achieve their own understanding of improvement, Nahr el-Bared is important because it can potentially impact the rest of the camps in Lebanon.

This paper is about the saga of Nahr el-Bared, its destruction, looting, and difficult postwar negotiation and reconstruction. The discussion is also intended to be conversant with current debates on governance and its iteration in the Vienna Document (issued in June of 2008) and the Lebanese government’s policies and scope of actions regarding camps in general, and Nahr el-Bared in particular.

First, we ought to acknowledge that we could not have a complete discussion on governance in the contexts of Palestinian refugee camps in host countries without referring to their right to political representation. Palestinian refugees living in camps and in exile are deprived of the right to vote for their political representatives, even at a level as basic as the camp in which they live. On a national scale, the issue is complicated because of the duality of the PLO and PNA, however there are no mechanisms in place for refugees to elect or select their political representatives. The lack of representation became more acute after the PLO’s apparatus of institutions was rendered dysfunctional, and the ability to defend the rights of refugees, as well as manage everyday urban and camp lives was incapacitated. Their role is today more symbolic than effective, thus have refugees become more exposed to the policies of their host country as well as more dependent on the resources of international organizations like the UNRWA.

In spite of repeated, positive claims and gestures between Lebanese and Palestinian diplomats, there is yet to be a sustainable, working relationship, and trust between the two counterparts. The participation of the community in the design and reconstruction of the camp was possible and fruitful only because of a strategic alliance between Palestinian civil society and the UNRWA. The Lebanese government and officialdom did not want to see the community involved in the process of reconstruction, besides their blind endorsement of a top down approach to all forms of governance, legal, human rights and planning issues in Nahr el-Bared were dominated by a logic of security.

This study is based on two years of fieldwork and action-research, it involved in-depth interviews with Nahr el-Bared dwellers and community leaders as well as close observation of people during the process of planning for the reconstruction.

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The Arrival of Fatah el-Islam

In the postwar, Lebanese authorities regarded the Palestinian refugee camps as “security islands”, implying that they breached –even defied– the sovereignty of the Lebanese state. The reference became salient, especially after the emergence of Fatah el-Islam in Nahr el-Bared and Ain el-Hilweh camps. While Ain el-Hilweh may have presented a critical security situation, it was not the case for Nahr el-Bared. Fatah el-Islam was primarily a late phenomenon, and around the camp, not of the camp. Their fighters used the camp as a “strategic localization” (Knudsen 2003) for guerilla warfare.

The Nahr el-Bared refugee camp presented an urban form and society that was socially and economically intertwined in its larger northern Lebanese context. The international highway connecting Lebanon to Syria that passed right through the middle of the camp was one of the major reasons for this. It presents one of the rare instances where a major public national Lebanese thoroughfare intersected with a Camp's Space.The residents’ active entrepreneurial spirit combined with the camp’s strategic location and the advantages of being surrounded by a dense urban mass within a greater chiefly rural region transformed the camp into an important commercial center. Lebanese farmers from the north came to sell their produce and purchase goods lured by the camp’s competitive prices. The availability of low-cost and dense assortment of businesses constituting markets became a formidable asset, and attracted customers from the city of Tripoli and other cities in the north, where inflation was rampant as well as high prices. The scene in which Fatah el-Islam emerged is one where the Palestine refugee community is deeply integrated into the social, economic and cultural realm around the camp, the result of relationships of business and kinship spanning sixty years.

During and after the conflict, the Nahr el-Bared community was blamed for harboring and protecting Fatah el-Islam. Investigations revealed that the arrival of these militants, who would later constitute Fatah el-Islam, was neither simple nor easy for the camp. They tried to penetrate camps in Beirut and Baddawi but failed because the local popular committees and residents managed to force them to leave[3]. Their arrival to Nahr el-Bared is attributed to several factors, the most important being space.

Over the years, the communities of Nahr el-Bared and nearby region of Akkar, elaborated a rich fabric of positive relationships, so much so that refugees started to purchase lands surrounding the camp and build informally. Gradually a “new” or “adjacent” camp began to emerge around the old camp, thus creating a new and different layer of urbanization. This informal building boom was fueled by Palestinian refugees living overseas sending money to improve the living conditions of their families, kin or build for themselves a home to return to upon their retirement. While this new zone was in effect a social and urban continuation of the “camp”, it was not, however, legally or politically classified as within the “camp”, and remained officially and theoretically under municipal jurisdiction.

The regime of this jurisdiction did not articulate itself in providing services, issuing and enforcing building permits, or policing, the zone was a vague in-between realm, neither camp nor city. This ambiguity combined with informal, unregistered and thriving real-estate proved attractive to the various international and Lebanese Islamic fundamentalist groups that flocked to Nahr el-Bared. They were unable to infiltrate the closely knit social and urban fabrics of the camp, and remained an outsider group based in the near proximity of the camp. Their presence caused alarm in the camp; people were worried about the impact of their presence on commercial and economic activity.

On November 26^th 2006, Shaker el-Abssi announced the formation of Fatah el-Islam, causing stirs in Nahr el-Bared. The head of the camp’s popular committee, Abu Hisham Leyla, resigned after the failure of ‘official’ actors at expelling them from the camp. The Lebanese army set up checkpoints at entrance and exit points of the camp, and businesses and general commerce came to a standstill.

Our field investigations evidenced that Fatah al-Islam was composed of three groups: a Lebanese contingent that originated mainly from Seer el-Dinniyeh (under the leadership of Abu Hurreira –Chehab Khoder Quaddor), groupings of Saudis and other Arab nationals, and a group of Syrian Palestinians under the leadership of Shaker al-Abssi. Al-Abssi was designed as ‘emir’ of Fatah al-Islam because he was able to appropriate military bases that had belonged to Fatah al-Intifada in the camp. According to Rougier (2009: 187), the Lebanese judiciary council reported that Fatah el-Islam was composed of sixty-nine Lebanese, fifty Palestinians, forty-three Saudis, twelve Syrians, a Tunisian, an Algerian, a Yemeni, and an Iraqi. According to our interviews, the fifty Palestinians had come from Syria, and only seven people were from Lebanon. This composition further reinforces the international and regional character of the Fatah el-Islam, namely as a body extraneous to the camp, not conceived from within it. Scholars (see ICG, 2009; Rougier, 2009) attribute two objectives to Fatah el-Islam, firstly, the establishment of an Islamic emirate in the north of Lebanon, and secondly a jihadist base to train militants against U.S. and other western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In spite of the fact that their first declaration used language of Palestinian nationalism and global jihadism, fighting Israel was never in reality on the agenda (Rougier, 2009:193). What seems clear is that the organization meddled in local politics skillfully, exploiting contradictions between different Lebanese political actors, and for a while, maintaining ties with a wide spectrum of Lebanese actors (ICG, 2009).

Under financial pressure to make ends meet, some Palestinian camp dwellers rented rooms and apartments, most of which were located in areas and neighborhoods adjacent to the camp, claiming they were unaware of Fatah el-Islam’s mission or ambitions. Some sheikhs, especially those of a salafist persuasion, were glad that Fatah el-Islam imposed a moral order in some sectors of the camp. Several witnesses confirmed that conservative imams, who have been given the role of new notables, had pacified the presence of Fatah el-Islam in the camp with their Friday sermons. Although the research does not suggest that the sheikhs were complicit with Fatah el-Islam’s subsequent actions, it does corroborate the ignorance or naivety of many Islamic organizations that were enamored with the devotion of these purportedly rigorously observant groups while ignoring their extremist beliefs. After two clashes between the population and Fatah el-Islam militants, at least two imams in the camp asked the population not to harm them because they were “pious people”, as many interviewees reported. Their presence did not attract a lot of attention because conservative Islamist demeanor (men with long beards) had been common to the population of the camp for decades, even if the jihadist ideology of Fatah el-Islam was radically new.

Moreover the camp’s community had been weakened by internecine Palestinian fighting and the absence of the PLO’s military force to prevail or arbitrate. There is an additional factor that should be mentioned, namely of the facilitation of Abu Khaled Amleh, General Secretary of Fatah al-Intifada from Syria, who enabled the transfer of control of his organization’s military bases to Fatah el-Islam. The spread of sympathetic like-minded salafist groups and their affiliated religious leaders in north Lebanon also played a significant role in ‘normalizing’ the presence of Fatah el-Islam in a northern city. The Lebanese salafists based in Tripoli granted Fatah el-Islam local cover and ideological support. On a regional scale, the new group was regarded as a kin movement invested in armed and violence action against the so-called American project in the region. Journalists, scholars and researchers have speculated widely about the real command of the movement and its financial backing. Serious hypotheses point fingers at Syria, Saudi Arabia,[4] and al-Qaeda. Fifty interviews conducted amongst social actors in Nahr el-Bared, confirmed that the camp’s residents perceived the conflict as part of a larger Lebanese conflict.

The battle was sparked by the killing of thirteen Lebanese army soldiers at a checkpoint, a retaliation by Fatah el-Islam militants to a raid by Lebanese security forces on one of their apartments in downtown Tripoli. The confrontation, which would last three months, escalated to a full-blown heavy artillery battle between the Lebanese army and Fatah el-Islam, squatted inside Nahr el-Bared camp. The toll amounted to the death of more than forty Palestinian civilians, one hundred and sixty-eight Lebanese soldiers, over two hundred and twenty-two Fatah el-Islam militants[5], the destruction of almost all of the old camp’s structures, and the flight of around thirty-three thousand people to other refugee camps.[6]

Today, two years after the end of the battle, a painstakingly slow and incessantly stalled reconstruction process is taking place. Nahr el-Bared’s dwellers remain dispersed, mostly between the Baddawi camp and areas adjacent to the old camp. The community has become exclusively dependent on relief assistance from various sources including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), that has built more than five temporary collective centers housing some four hundred families in tightly-packed and difficult shelters, in addition to disbursing low rent subsidies to some six-hundred families. Meanwhile economic activity remains frozen as the camp has become a closed military zone besieged by barbed wire where movement in and out is firmly controlled by checkpoints. Passage into the camp is only possible with temporary permits issued by the military command overseeing the camp.

Nahr el-Bared as a Space of Exception

The circumstances surrounding the destruction of Nahr el-Bared are disturbing on many levels. Despite the refugee’s public dissociation from Fatah el-Islam some media outlets leveled accusations without investigation on the ground, or into the organization’s sources of funding. When the battle was taking place, Palestinian refugees across Lebanon were arrested at various army and internal security checkpoints. The camp has since been declared a war zone and held under security siege. The army prevents the passage of relief, medicine and media until now. In the beginning, refugees preferred to stay in the camp for fear that their departure would cause its total destruction, but the heavy indiscriminate shelling of homes, schools, mosques and such, forced eventually a total exodus. That was the first time Palestinians were compelled to leave their camp, without defending it –thus reinforcing their dissociation with Fatah el-Islam. However, at the end of the four months long battle, the old camp was totally destroyed and reduced to rubble, its one-thousand and seven-hundred buildings were completely destroyed. It was only after surviving Fatah el-Islam militants’ attempted escape that the army declared its operation complete and victory in its battle against global terrorism secured.

In spite of all that the war against terror has legitimized in the administration of violence globally, and the license for retaliation spurred by the murder of thirteen Lebanese army soldiers, it is doubtful that such an excessive and indiscriminate use of force, disregard for human life and property, would have been exercised in any other urban realm in Lebanon were it not for Nahr el-Bared being perceived as a ‘space of exception’ (Agamben 2008) that houses non-citizen refugees excluded from a host of civic rights in Lebanon, represented by internally divided Palestinian factions[7] and serviced by a UN agency that lacks a mandate for their protection.

From the moment the fighting ended officially in early September until October 10^th, 2007, Nahr el-Bared was placed under the exclusive control of the Lebanese army, prohibiting residents from returning to their homes. Eventually, thousands returned to homes that were burnt, looted and vandalized. Interviews conducted by our own team, as well as the Amnesty International Fact Finding Mission, attest to a systematic pattern of burning and looting. Racist graffiti were found inscribed in homes, tagged by the names of various Lebanese army battalions involved in the operation (Amnesty International, 2007). While a preliminary looting had seemingly been committed by Fatah el-Islam and some camp residents, speculations over the identity of the perpetrators need not dwell far and wide considering the army’s tight policing over who can enter the camp.

Both Fatah el-Islam and Lebanese army officers perceived the camp as a space of exception, outside the realm of law. The looting and destruction remain until now without investigation, even though Amnesty International have pleaded to the Lebanese Prime Minister and Ministry of Defense for an inquest and holding those responsible accountable (2007).

It is most noteworthy that there was (and still is) almost no public debate over such an important issue. As a space of exception, the camp has constituted an emergency zone where witnesses are not allowed: journalists and human rights organizations are denied entry to the camp to this date, without special permission from the army. It is the suspension of law that enables vendetta and looting. The Palestinian population is homo sacer (Agamben 1998), their property was destroyed and looted, and the perpetrators granted impunity.

Camp residents feel that what happened in Nahr el-Bared is part of a planned conspiracy against them. The sweeping majority of interviewees confirmed there were other solutions to the Fatah el-Islam problem that would have avoided the total destruction of the camp. For instance, the intervention of Palestinian armed militants, who knew the geography all too well, and had experience in dense urban warfare might have spared civilian lives and property. Or a more efficient mediation between Fatah el-Islam and the Lebanese army might have averted such a massive destruction.

Negotiating Space: Urban Planning Process

The state of exception and logic of security continue to over-rule life in Nahr el-Bared, that was most obvious in the planning process of the reconstruction. The official body overseeing planning in Lebanon, the Directorate General of Urbanism (DGU), was entirely absent during discussions on the development of the master plan that took place over the span of an entire year. In fact, the most prominent Lebanese stakeholder in the process of planning would prove to be the Lebanese army. This set a dangerous precedent for Lebanon generally, and for the camps specifically, with increasing infiltration of the military in governmental and civil affairs under the guise of security. The presence of the army elevated security as the chief parameter in the negotiations of the master plan. The DGU became involved at the end of the long process to formalize the approval of the master plan.

The process of reconstruction planning was also thoroughly informed by the UNRWA’s new camp improvement department that advocated a radically new approach to planning, and convinced the UN agency to develop a full partnership with a grassroots initiative comprising experts and professionals, known as the Nahr el-Bared Reconstruction Commission for Civil Action and Studies (or NBRC).[8] While tragedies, crises and emergency relief situations become exaggerated in situations of political vacuum, they nonetheless give rise to new opportunities for social networks, activists and movements to come together in providing or answering the needs of a particular community/space. Within the camp, the various grassroots initiatives filling in the voids in governance and service provision began to discuss possibilities of action after the dust of battle settled.

What is interesting in the case of Nahr el-Bared is that activists, academics and practitioners from other camps and cities managed to convene around the initiative. Of particular importance in this diverse network was the active participation of architects and planners who were able to transfer knowledge and expertise that empowered the community to strategize effectively against the master plan produced by a private company contacted by the government. The Camp Improvement Program’s (of the UNRWA) practical experience in marshalling community participation in reconstruction projects as in the Jenin refugee camp also brought invaluable knowledge to the reconstruction and planning process.

The community was energized to participate in the process because of their far-reaching conviction that their camp had been destroyed for a political reason, and that the Lebanese government’s plan for reconstruction was also politically-motivated and they wanted to have their say. As the battle was ranging, various political figures announced plans to rebuild the camp according to principles and standards not acceptable to the local community. After the battle was over, it became clear these plans were based on simplistic design concepts, like a grid with wide streets to secure efficient security control, and standardized apartments impervious to social mores, rituals and practices. The NBRC presented the first draft of the ‘Reconstruction Principles’, the product of many community workshops, open meetings and surveys during the second month of the battle. The initiative involved community participation and a transparency in surveying process from its inception, the reconstruction of destroyed homes was premised on what had existed on the ground, preserving individual housing units, neighbourhoods, circulation routes and landmarks. And politically, the idea was to rebuild the camp as such and not as a town, thereby preserving the temporariness of the space.

Architecturally, there was an ambiguous desire to preserve the extended-family building type as the cornerstone of the camp, where younger generations build their dwellings on top of their parents’ home. The reasons for this scheme are manifold, on the one hand, the social coherence of families and village origin is maintained, on the other hand, the ease and cost-effectiveness are significant for a marginalized community that is not allowed to legally own property in Lebanon. The UNRWA-NBRC partnership eventually prepared a Geographical Information System (GIS) plan/database documenting the spatial and ownership information of all the families in the camp and that database was used as a foundation for the eventual reconstruction project. Managing community participation in the process of planning was not easy. Moreover, the Lebanese government did not believe in community participation and wanted to deal only with international and official organizations, like the UNRWA and the PLO. The UNRWA played a pivotal role in empowering community participation and the NBRC in the design and negotiation process entirely. As the deadline for a donor conference planned to take place in Vienna approached, the prime minister approved the UNRWA-NBRC proposal, particularly since participating donors insisted that a developed reconstruction plan be presented at the conference.

Ironically, later on, Lebanese government officials would take pride in the fact that the reconstruction plan had involved community participation, when speaking to donors and local media. It is important to note, in conclusion that praise of community participation did not extend to very important issues such as civil rights of refugees, governance, security and economic autonomy of the camp, and most importantly, the demilitarization of the camp, two years after the battle was over. Security would remain the chief concern guiding government decisions.
 

Governing the camp: Conflicting Visions of Governance

The topic of governance in the camp is commonly misrepresented and misunderstood. This is partly due to the fact that governance practices are informal, inconsistent, changing and variable from camp to camp. It takes the form of a multi-layered tapestry with multiple actors, groups, individuals and factions, maneuvering, competing and negotiating different aspects of life in the camp. While it might be incomprehensible to the outside spectator, it is a reflection of the complexity, irony and difficulty of Palestinian politics and status of a sixty-year old temporary-permanent urban refugee camp. In the case of Nahr el-Bared, the traditional actors: a popular committee (composed of representatives from all political factions in principle, but in reality and historically, the pro-Syrian coalition prevailed[9]), neighborhood committees, an assortment of prominent notables, religious figures and some NGOs.[10] Nahr el-Bared is also an interesting case study in how several grass root committees, initiatives, commissions and advocacy groups became involved in the reconstruction, playing a bigger role in the camp's scene. In actuality, the crisis evidenced the weakness and ineffectiveness of traditional factions. Meanwhile, the Lebanese government decided to institute a new model of governance in the camp, based exclusively on principle of Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF)control and surveillance, ignoring the genuine issues of everyday life in the camp.

The Vienna Document

The Vienna conference was hosted by the Austrian government, Lebanon, the Arab League, the UNRWA and the EU. The Vienna document was compiled by the Lebanese government in collaboration with the LPDC its consultants and what was to become later known as the RRC. The document compiled several technical studies that had been prepared by the UNRWA, NBRC, UNDP and World Bank, in addition, the firm Khatib & Alami presented a unified and comprehensive vision for the reconstruction as well as an estimate of total cost. In spite of Palestinian officials’ endorsement of the document, Palestinian political representatives played only a symbolic role in its actual preparation because of the lack of technical experts within the PLO to conduct, co-author and prepare such a study. This vacuum was filled in part by the various civil society initiatives, NGOs and experts who played an active role in collection data and lobbying, used formal and informal channels as well as participatory mechanisms. The political implication of questions of security and governance in the document, were authored entirely by the government and its consultants in absence of any Palestinian counterpart.

The Vienna document proposes "[…] establishing a transparent and effective governance structure for Nahr el-Bared camp. This includes enforcing security and rule of law inside NBC through community and proximity policing." (p. 46), in addition it requests donor funds (to the amount of 5 million US dollars) for "capacity building and technical assistance to the (Lebanese) Internal Security Forces (ISF) aimed at introducing community and proximity policing into NBC" (p. 48). The document further explains that "community policing in NBC context entails the presence inside the camp of a culturally and politically sensitive ISF that will work to reduce the fears and tensions that existed prior to and after NBC conflict. Such type of policing will promote community engagement, partnership and proactive problem solving. The above security arrangements for NBC was agreed upon with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. [...] Building trust between the ISF and the NBC community would encourage camp residents to be more supportive and forthcoming in reporting community problems and security issues. Police officers would engage in various types of community activities (youth schemes, community programs, etc.) to foster a closer relationship with the residents of the camp. A closer partnership between the ISF and the community would ultimately help make the rebuilt NBC a safer place and would promote a successful security model for other Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The ISF police officers will be exposed to the political history of the Palestinians refugees in Lebanon, and will be trained to better understand the cultural and social specificities of the Palestinian community. Moreover, officers will be trained on problem solving, conflict resolution, and communications skills."

In spite of the fact that the various Palestinian civil society entities sensed that such a document was being prepared, it was only made public a few days before the inauguration of the Vienna conference, it had been already printed and distributed to donors. The embassy of the Palestinian National Authority received the document at the same time as the other donors. Although the PLO objected to the concept of community policing during an official meeting with ambassador Mekkawi a few days before the Vienna conference, no changes were made to the document. None of the Palestinians presented an objection during the conference. The funding for training Lebanese ISF officers, budgeted at 5 million US dollars was pegged and delivered to the Lebanese government as a result of the document.

Governance Reduced to Security

In the Vienna conference document, the governance section is brief, however, it clearly reflects the continuation and further development of an existing policy. It was authored by Lebanese policy makers and their consultants without consultation with the local community, and framed in the language of partnership and community policing. Community policing or neighborhood policing is a philosophy and strategy based on the assumption that community interaction and support can help control crime, with community members helping to identify suspects, detain vandals and bring problems to the attention of police.[11] If theoretically a community policing strategy needed to be implemented –it would need the full cooperation of the community and it cannot be enforced on the community. Community policing is embedded in the discourse of improving and empowering citizenship action and initiative, in the case of Nahr el-Bared, the notion is not applicable because the very fact of proposing community policing as the cornerstone of governance reduces refugees to ‘security’ subjects and the camp as ‘security island’. In fact, implementing norms, laws and practices that pertain to the citizenship of a refugee population that is denied basic civil rights illustrates the dark irony of the concept.

Extensive interviews determined that the section on governance generated a strong and negative reaction among the local community. Moreover, a petition addressed directly to Prime Minister Fouad Saniora, signed by hundreds of the camp’s dwellers, was published in two Lebanese dailies, al-Akhbar and as-Safir on the 24^th of January 2009, it stated clearly their rejection of the government's exclusive regard for security in dealing with their camp and the government’s policy for governance. Any potential for partnership and discussion with the community in the future have been tarnished by the political implications of the Vienna document. And finally, in spite of the fact that the Vienna document states, officially, its authorship in coordination with the PLO, effectively, there was neither understanding nor approval for its policy proposals among the various groups from the PLO factions[12].

The document answers solely to the concerns of Lebanese security bodies, in vision and perspective. The popular committee, for instance, is remarkably absented as an interlocutor to the ‘community police’. The documented glosses over the reality that preceded the eruption of the conflict, and the various actors that played a role, in addition to the Popular Committee, such as the Armed Struggle group, the Security Committee, the political factions, neighborhood committees, notables, various professional unions and local NGOs, in other words all the bodies that interacted and competed to negotiate the public good of the camp. Obviously, there were tremendous problems in the management of this formal and informal type of governance that includes conflict and corruption, however, there was no ground for excluding these local actors.

More significant is the fact that implementing security is regarded simply as introducing a ‘new’ police force. Whereas research on post-war reconstruction[13] and actual experience reinforce the argument that the foundations for a successful post-conflict reconstruction articulate rebuilding the spatial environment, re-starting the economic cycle, establishing truth and reconciliation commissions, and instating principles for good governance. Only through this holistic approach can Nahr el-Bared overcome the social, political and economic challenges it faces in this post-conflict phase, and a real and sustainable Palestinian-Lebanese relationship be established. Instead, the situation that preceded the conflict was maintained: arbitrary checkpoints, barbed-wire fencing, controlling movement in and out of the camp with permissions for all Palestinian and Lebanese residents. Shortly after the battle was concluded, the cabinet of ministers approved the building of a military base at the edge of the old camp. In February of 2009 the cabinet of ministers issued another decree to establish a naval base on the coast of camp’s beach. And the LPDC and ISF continue to lobby for instituting a police station inside the old camp. To draw a clearer picture, the density of the space in question is of the highest in the world, with 1,700 buildings are squeezed in a 190,000 sqm, housing 20,000 refugees. There were other options, more sensible and respectful to the community, such as locating the police station at the edge of the camp, but it is vehemently rejected by the Lebanese government and LPDC. It almost seems as if it were a political statement to assert their absolute authority over the camp. Other states hosting Palestinian refugees prefer to maintain police stations at the outskirts of camps, in Amman, for example, after insisting on locating stations in the center of the camp, they were eventually relocated to the periphery because of repeated burnings by the refugees.

The Vienna conference proposal introduces unilaterally a new actor in the camp. The principal question is why should Lebanese policing be introduced into the camp? And why are the established conventions being over-ridden? If policing is meant to control crime, Nahr el-Bared was not a crime-infested ghetto, whatever crimes took place were contained and the violators prosecuted. If policing is meant to control the presence of Fatah el-Islam, then one can only wonder why the ISF and army failed at arresting an armed militant group whose offices, bases, training grounds and homes were predominantly based outside the camp’s boundaries, on Lebanese territory prior to the eruption of the conflict. The point is not to inculpate the Lebanese counterpart in what happened, rather to highlight the fact that the security of the camp is not the outcome of the absence of a Lebanese policing force. One of the main problems pertaining to security and policing is the nature and coordination mechanism of jurisdiction between Palestinian structures and the Lebanese state with regards to the camp and its environs. Since the expiration of the Cairo Agreement (1969), the terms of reference between the two parties has remained ambiguous, at best. The camp is a legally suspended space where military intelligence has governed it in a state of exception.

De-legitimizing the Popular Committee

The Lebanese state's de-legitimizing of the Popular Committee was neither new policy not practice, interviews with members of Nahr el-Bared's Security Committee spoke a great deal about the absence of an external political cover, and how Lebanese military intelligence treated them merely as informants and implementers of their orders. As one of the members testified: “If any citizen from the camp was in trouble, if he had wronged someone and the Security Committee jailed him, he would sue and would become a fugitive of the state. I have been jailed three times by the government…I am working for my people! I have no problem as long as I am serving my people. But if the state jails me three times because of complaints, then what? Once a thief complained about me and had me jailed.” The role of the Lebanese state in creating a security vacuum within the camp through disempowering its local security structures is clear. Lebanese military intelligence and the internal security force used the Security Committee when they needed favors, like delivering wanted persons for justice, in exchange, they never gave them the acknowledgement or resources as a local municipal power. Internal security still resort to recruiting local “informants” who ultimately use their connections to the security apparatus to exert influence and deploy intimidation. After the crisis in Nahr el-Bared, that practice intensified, focusing specifically on disenfranchised youth.

On the other hand, recent fieldwork in Ain el-Helweh, Baddawi and Nahr el-Bared camps revealed that the absence of a legitimate Popular Committee was a serious stumbling block. Historically, Popular Committees were dependent on the political and financial backing of the PLO and various political factions. Since the transfer of the PLO’s leadership from Lebanon to Tunisia in 1982, their resources have been scarce, with the passage of time, as the camps became among the densest urban configurations in the world, the popular committees gradually lost their capacity at dealing effectively with them.

The Vienna document does not mention providing resources, capacity building or assistance to re-empower Popular Committees. In Nahr el-Bared, a disempowered Popular Committee can only play a symbolic role in the reconstruction, in which a swarm of international NGOs, development agencies, UN agencies, government agencies have been involved formally and directly. In February 2009, International Habitat, the Italian cooperation organization initiated a project of connecting the sewage system in the new camp areas of Nahr al-Bared to al-Muhamara, the neighboring municipality. The LPDC organized several meetings without excluding the popular committee, at the conclusion of negotiations, the committee was invited to come and sign. They refused to do it. Community leaders complained in interviews that several projects proposed by international cooperation offices and organizations did not meet the list of priorities for their camps. They were often driven by technical considerations, such as the kind of expertise the cooperation offices have at their disposal, or their ability to disburse only small grants that cannot cover the cost of serious infrastructure projects. In another instance, UN-Habitat proposed to provide equipment for sanitation and waste removal to be shared by the municipality of al-Muhamara and Nahr el-Bared’s Popular Committee. However, considering that the committee has no legal status in Lebanese law, the contract for joint-ownership could not be drafted.[14]

Beyond the scarcity of means at their disposal, absence of expertise and systematic delegitimization from the Lebanese state, the Popular Committee ails from fundamental problems at the level of representation. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s most refugees were affiliated to political parties and movements that had more or less democratic processes in electing their leadership, popular Committees included members from the various political groups in each camp, and thus were representative of the camp’s population. Moreover, there was space allotted to unions and to a member from a liberal profession, such as engineer or teacher. With the steep marginalization of party politics and dramatic reduction in numbers of active party affiliation, the committees no longer represented the camp’s population appropriately, and their legitimacy further undermined from within.

Conclusion: A Critique of Security-Based Sovereignty

Although camps in Lebanon can be easily compared to the size of towns (varying from 10,000 to 80,000 people) they are managed without municipal structures. In interviews, people often times used words signifying arbitrariness and chaos. “Camps are not under the responsibility of the Lebanese state,” claimed a senior officer in the Lebanese internal security force. This said, while camp residents are excluded from the realm of municipal planning and service-provision, they are at same time included with regards to questions of security and taxes[15]. This paradoxical implementations of the law is characteristic to the space of exception, specifically in uncovering how power structures define the relationship between the space of the camp to the space of the city. While under the Refugee Convention of 1951 have the right to work without requiring a permit, in Lebanon, Palestinian refugees are barred from practicing more than seventy professions, and are required a work permit even in the case of manual labor.[16]

After sixty years and three generations, Palestinian refugees cannot still be considered as a category of “foreigners” whom, in Lebanon, are usually temporary migrants. Reduced to their status as individuals in need of shelter and food, the governance of their bare-life has been transferred to the hands of the police and military on the one hand, and to apolitical relief organization like the UNRWA, on the other hand. The Lebanese state has sustained a status quo (of sorts) by juggling the inclusion/exclusion duality subverting the legal with the political and vice-versa. So while Palestinian refugees are excluded from the regime of rights and benefits, but included in the regime of security, as subjects under permanent control and surveillance, under the guise of the writ of law or political imperative. Moreover, the Lebanese state has endorsed to international humanitarian laws, the Refugee Convention (1951), as well as Arab League decrees pertaining to human right laws, however with regards to Palestinian refugees, these laws and regulations are at best overlooked, at worst violated. The Lebanese state implements the state of exception by all means but specifically using the recourse to law, essentially political questions are treated as a matter of law. When Palestinians lobbied to be granted basic civil rights as refugees, the government claimed the question did not pertain to the law, rather to the political construct of the country and its cautiously gauged balance between confessional groups.

The question of governance in the camps should neither be the responsibility nor purview of the Lebanese state, it is chiefly the task of the camps’ population, organizations, committees, factions and networks. Understandably, establishing genuinely representative bodies is not a simple ambition for a nation under occupation at home and in a state of dispersal on various host countries. And while there are no clearly-defined solutions or models and a great deal of what exists on the ground is flawed, there is also a rich legacy of practices within the camp that can be learned from or used as starting points. It was hoped that after the tragedy of Nahr el-Bared, there might have been serious motivation for a sober assessment of previous (and existing) policy and practices, and a thorough investigation into the conditions that led to the crisis. Unfortunately, neither the LPDC nor Lebanese officials are willing to admit the reality of institutional and legal discrimination against Palestinians. Until Palestinians are considered equal to the Lebanese, there cannot be a real partnership or cooperation, and the destruction of Nahr el-Bared would simply be another tragic chapter of the Palestinians’ difficult presence in Lebanon.

Bibliography

Amnesty International (2003) Lebanon: Economic and Social Rights Of Palestinian Refugees. Amnesty International AI Index MDE: 18/017/2003.

Amnesty International (2006) Living in the Shadows. A primer on the human rights of migrants. September. AI Index: POL 33/006/2006

Agamben, Giorgio (1998) Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Standford: Standford University Press.

ICG (International Crisis Group) (February 2009). Nurturing Instability: Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugee Camps. Middle East Report, nos. 19-84.

Knudsen, Are (2003). Islamism in the Diaspora: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon. Working Paper 10. Bergen: Christian Michelsen Institute (CMI), p. 23.

Rougier, Bernard (2008) “Fatah al-Islam: un réseau jihadiste au coeur des contradictions libanaises”. In Bernard Rougier, Qu’est ce que le Salafisme. Paris: PUF.