Has the state squandered funds for the displaced?

BEIRUT:
Although Lebanon’s Civil War ended more than 17 years ago, thousands of
families have not yet returned home. One of the most difficult
challenges facing successive governments since the end of the war in
1990 has been to rebuild the destroyed villages in the South, Chouf
mountain and Alley, and to pave the way for the return of more than
450,000 Lebanese who were forced out of their ancestral homes.

 

Source:Daily Star

 

The
Ministry of the Displaced, established in 1992, was empowered to return
all of the families to their homes and towns within a matter of years.
To help achieve this task, successive governments earmarked a total of
$1.4 billion for the ministry, according to official records. But the
end result of this sizeable spending has been lacking by all standards.

The government does not
provide a detailed breakdown of the number of refugees who have not yet
gone back to their homes. But according to various unofficial accounts,
fewer than 17 percent of displaced Christian families have actually
returned to the Druze-controlled towns and villages in the Chouf
Mountain and Alley.

This
unofficial statistic – which is unverified but widely circulated – has
prompted serious speculation about the political past of Druze MP Walid
Jumblatt, who headed the ministry for more than 15 years.

Government
officials are quick to defend the state’s record in addressing the
plight of the displaced, pointing out that the consequences of the
flight of hundreds of thousands of people are far-reaching and require
time to address. At the political level, displacement has caused the
country to split along religious lines. It has also strengthened the
feeling of belonging to the sect and altered the feeling of attachment
to region, further impeding national reintegration. At the economic
level, displacement was accompanied by the destruction of productive
assets, particularly agricultural land, as farmers – who constituted 55
percent of the heads of displaced families – were denied access to
their holdings. The industrial sector also sustained direct losses as
displacement prevented workers from reaching their work place. This in
turn exacerbated regional and economic imbalances.

The
director general of the ministry’s displaced department, Fadi Aramouni,
acknowledged that the task of returning all Lebanese refugees is far
from concluded. “We have accomplished a lot during the years as
thousands of houses were rebuilt to help the displaced families
return,” Aramouni told The Daily Star.

Citing statistics published by the United Nations Development Program,
Aramouni stressed that the return of Christian families to the mountain
varied from one area and another. “In some parts of the mountains,
between 40 to 50 percent of original inhabitants returned to their
villages after their houses were repaired.”

Aramouni
insisted that the Ministry of the Displaced has been falsely accused of
hampering the return of families to their original homes. “There were a
lot of houses and infrastructure that were built to facilitate the
return of the families. But it is not our responsibility if some of the
families refused to return to their villages, although their houses
have been rebuilt.”

He
added that the Chouf Mountain, Alley and Baabda regions have long been
used as summer retreats for both Lebanese and Arabs. “One of the
reasons most of the Christians did not return to the mountains was the
fact that they moved [their summer homes] to areas closer to the
capital during and after the war.”

Aramouni
and other officials say that with the exception of four villages, most
of the homes in Mount Lebanon have been fully restored. “We need about
$500 million to close the file of the displaced,” he said. “But the
government is in a budget deficit and that’s why we can’t conclude the
return of the refugees.”

Aramouni
said the four villages include thousands of files that still need to be
processed, but added that the government repeatedly returns to the same
problem: “No cash, no return.”

Apart
from assisting the return of refugees, the ministry also faces the
challenge of covering the high costs of reconstruction. Each displaced
family was reimbursed with LL15 million to LL30 million. This
compensation, according to many, was not sufficient enough to build a
wall around many of the homes.

“Prices
of cement, iron and steel jumped by more than 300 percent since the war
ended and this means that the displaced families which received the
money felt cheated,” one former official said.

In
recent months, the unresolved issue of the displaced has become a bone
of contention between the government and the opposition, particularly
the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), led by MP Michel Aoun.

Cesar
Bou Khalil, who heads the displaced file for the FPM, accused the
ministry of gross negligence. “The ministry is spreading false and
misleading information about the displaced people in the mountain,” Bou
Khalil told The Daily Star.

The
FPM official said that nearly 45 percent of the Christians displaced
from East Sidon returned to their homes after the war ended, compared
to less than 17 percent in the Druze Mountain.

“The
argument that the Christians who were displaced from the Druze Mountain
did not return to their original homes because they moved to Beirut is
quite bizarre,” he said, adding that many Christians who live in
Broummana or Beit Mery, for example, commute to their work in Beirut
without any problem.

“The
issue of the displaced is two-fold: politics and corruption,” he said,
adding that Jumblatt even admitted a few years ago that there has been
serious squandering at the Ministry of the Displaced.

In
a paper presented by the FPM three months ago, Bou Khalil explained how
the fierce fighting during the 1980s in Mount Lebanon between Jumblatt,
backed by Syrian and Palestinian troops, and the Lebanese Forces led to
the exodus of thousands of Christians from their villages. The
Christians fled 70 villages in the Chouf, 51 villages in Aley and 27
villages in the Baabda area, according to Bou Khalil’s research.

Bou
Khalil said that 80 percent of the Christians who are registered to
vote in the Chouf, Alley and Baabda areas backed the FPM during the
last parliamentary elections, demonstrating that “most of these people
were not pleased by the way the displaced file was handled from the
beginning.”

Bou Khalil
pointed to what he said were indications of corruption in handling the
displaced file. “In 1994, the ministerial statement at that time
estimated the cost of returning all the displaced at $400 million.
However, successive governments have spent more than $1.6 billion.”

The FPM official also pointed the finger at the office of the prime minister, long controlled by the Future Movement, for mishandling the file, pointing out that the national fund for the displaced falls under the premier’s jurisdiction.

He
added that a large chunk of the ministry’s funds went to the Druze
families who occupied homes of Christians in the mountain. “We have
shown that the Druze population that has occupied and used what was
left of houses and properties of the displaced Christians have been
compensated by the ministry and national fund many times more than what
has been paid for the displaced who were evicted by force,” he said.

He
also pointed to widespread claims that “middlemen” collected
compensation for some of the beneficiaries in exchange for a cut of the
money. In some instances the middlemen, who had strong links to
Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party, got half of the amount and gave
the rest to the beneficiary, he said.

“This
kind of compensation is [viewed as] nothing more than political money
to buy influence and loyalty in these areas,” Bou Khalil said. He added
that just prior to parliamentary elections in the year 2000, the
ministry dispersed large sums of money, demonstrating that the funds
were viewed as a campaign tool to win more votes.

“Another fishy type of compensation was the compensation for an executed repair of a house for damages incurred during the Civil War.
This type of compensation was mainly granted to Sunnis in Beirut and
Tripoli who were not affected by the 1983-1985 war. This type of
compensation made its way to hundreds of thousands of applicatants,
with no way to prove that the applicant really did incur damages during
the said war,” the FPM official said.

However,
Abou Khalil acknowledged that many of his party’s allegations have not
been proven. “We are not part of the government and hence it is
impossible to know how the money was spent at the ministry.” He added
that the only way to verify whether the money was misused would be to
assign international auditors to carry out a full investigation.

In
the absence of such a probe, ministry officials say that they are
trying to resolve the issue of the Civil War displaced as quickly as
possible. Aramouni stressed that if Lebanon received donations as it
did for Southern refugees after the 2006 war with Israel, the ministry
could close the file within two years. “If we get $500 million from the
government, then we will close the Ministry of Displaced in a couple of
years,” he said.

He added
that the 2006 war has complicated efforts to close the file, since many
Christian refugees are now demanding that they receive the same
compensation as their fellow citizens in the South. “Each family from
the southern suburbs and the South received LL50 million or more for
each lost house. It is only fair to offer the same amount to the rest
of the displaced,” he said.

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