Democratic Palestine : 23 (ص 20)
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- Democratic Palestine : 23 (ص 20)
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homes. As of mid-March, 47 women
had been wounded and eight martyred.
RASHIDIYEH
In Rashidiyeh camp in the South,
another version of Amal’s brutality
prevails. For tactical reasons, tied to
the conditions imposed on Amal with
the Palestinian withdrawal from
Maghdousheh, Nabih Berri’s gangs
have made a pretense of being lenient
by allowing women to leave and reenter
the camp each day, to procure food
supplies. This, however, did not stop
Amal’s militiamen from reverting to
other methods of harassment. Women
were not allowed to carry more than
three kilos of food into the camp.
Flour, newspapers, batteries, heating
fuel and kerosene for Janterns were not
allowed in. A special checkpoint was set
up outside the camp to search women.
At times, their money and food sup-
plies would be confiscated for no
reason.
In the first week of March, Amal
militiamen ambushed and murdered
three camp residents and threw their
bodies in a nearby field. Under various
pretexts, homes of Palestinians are
stormed and people arrested. In the
past couple of weeks, four women were
arrested in this way. Then, on March
19th, Amal issued new _ directives:
Women are not allowed to leave the
camp more than twice a month - surely
a prelude to more horrendous measures
to come.
FALSE MEDIA
No less atrocious is the media cam-
paign spotlighting ‘truckloads of sup-
plies’ entering the camps. Not only are
Amal’s gestures of lifting the blockade
on food and medical supplies ludicrous;
they are utterly false. At times, Amal
pretends that the trucks are not let in
because the roads to the camps are unfit
for passage; thus, they condition entry
of supplies on the Palestinians paying
for clearing the road. At other times,
the Amal militiamen help themselves to
the medical and food supplies, despite
the fact that two or three truckloads
barely cover the needs of the camps for
a couple of days. (Burj Al Barajneh’s
population is 20-30,000, as _ is
Rashidiyeh’s.) Moreover, the bulk of
these supplies are dried milk, flour,
yeast and sugar. Fresh fruits and
vegetables are delicacies not enjoyed by
the camp residents. This has caused
20
scurvy to crop up in Burj Al Barajneh,
a disease resulting from severe lack of
vitamin C, marked by spongy gums,
loosening of the teeth, and bleeding in-
to the skin and mucous membranes.
In Rashidiyeh, Amal’s militiamen
go through the trouble of fabricating
situations which prevent the entry of
food supplies. In the camps of West
Beirut, their approach is more direct,
reflecting their true intentions. Every
instance of unloading supplies in Burj
Al Barajneh and Shatila is accom-
panied by military aggression. On
March Ist, Amal shot at the tires of two
supply trucks being unloaded in
Shatila; four Palestinians were
wounded. On the same day, Amal
started to shell Burj Al Barajneh as
another two truckloads entered. Several
people were wounded, being caught
unexpectedly in the midst of this brutal
attack. The next day, another attempt
to unload supplies of flour and milk
was given the same treatment; one
Palestinian was martyred and three
wounded. On March 4th, a woman
carrying supplies was shot dead.
Amal is not satisfied with exercising
direct brutality against innocent
Palestinian civilians, but resorts to
deceitful tactics as well. In one incident,
Amal set up a point where it offered to
sell 25-liter containers of kerosene to
Burj Al Barajneh inhabitants (four
times the going price on the market).
The next day people came in hopes that
this fuel would be made available
again, and were caught unawares by
machine gun fire. Two women and a
child were wounded. On March 9th,
another two women were wounded so
seriously that they later died.
In protest, the Salvation Front
committee urged women not to leave
the camps, even if Amal declared that
they were allowed to. Clearly, Amal’s
tactics aim at allowing people to gather,
making it possible to mow down the
largest number of victims at one blow.
Again, Amal made a show of providing
fuel supplies and brought in journalists
to cover their gesture. However, the
great majority of women adhered to the
Salvation Front committee’s call, thus
foiling Amal’s theatrical ploy.
On March 10th, the unloading of
trucks was again hampered by machine
gun fire on Shatila and Burj Al Bara-
jneh. In Shatila, three Palestinians were
wounded; in Burj, nine. Moreover, the
trucks were subjected to sniper fire to
prevent anyone from approaching. The
same day, the popular committee of
Burj Al Barajneh petitioned all
religious figures to take action against
these atrocities. Ironically enough, two
days later Amal offered to renovate the
mosque destroyed in Rashidiyeh.
On the backdrop of all this ugliness,
Israeli fighter planes make regular
surveillance flights while their gunboats
float menacingly offshore, the silence
of their guns reflecting implicit ap-
proval. On March 20th, and again on
March 23rd, the Israeli air force went
into action to Amal’s advantage, bom-
bing Palestinian positions east of
Sidon.
SECTARIANISM VS.
NATIONAL STRUGGLE
The tactics to gain time, used by
Amal and those who support the plan
to eliminate Palestinian armed presence
in Lebanon, no longer come as a sur-
prise to anyone. Amal now ties the lift-
ing of the siege on the Palestinian
camps, to Palestinian withdrawal from
Janasnayeh, Ain Al Dulub and Al
Qrayeh, three villages east of Sidon.
This clearly indicates Amal’s intention
to ignite a new situation which would
hinder any solution contrary to its in-
terests. Amal’s new conditions for
Palestinian withdrawal from these three
villages is not connected to the issue of
Maghdousheh. Palestinian forces
entered Maghdousheh because of the
deparate need to force Amal to lift the
siege on Rashidiyeh. However,
Palestinian presence in the other three
villages east of Sidon dates back to the
time when the Zionist and fascist forces
withdrew from the area, under the
pressure of the Lebanese National
Resistance.
It is evident that Amal wishes to
create a new situation which would
enable it to capitalize further on the
Palestinian tragedy, i.e., to push for
more concessions, or possibly to im-
pose a siege on Ain Al Hilweh camp
and find excuses for continuing the
siege on other Palestinian camps.
Moreover, the clashes between Amal’s
militiamen, and those of the Pro-
gressive Socialist Party and _ the
Lebanese Communist Party, substan-
tiate the fact that Amal is a sectarian
force no less a threat to the Lebanese
national democratic project than other
sectarian forces.
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