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APalestinian Refugees Finally Organize
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Who To Condemn?
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MER - Washington - 10 Sept:
     Read the excellent article that follows from Deheishe Refugee Camp near Bethlehem and ask, "Who should be condemned for this?".
     Should the condemnation be against the United Nations?
     Well it's true of course, the new U.S.-installed and controlled Secretary- General, Kofi Anan, spends a lot of his time negotiating with U.S. Senator Jesse Helms and cutting back the programs the Americans don't like.
     Or is it the "donor countries" that are deserving of our wrath?
     Sure, they give a few million now and then -- a pittance when the needs are so great and the responsibility so considerable.
     Or should we hold both Israel and the U.S. primarily responsible for this? True enough, much that happens today in the Middle East can be traced back to Washington and Jerusalem; and of course the squeeze on the approximately 3 million Palestinian refugees would not be happening without their encouragement.
     The answer in this case is clearly ALL of the above, maybe with the wealthy Arab client-regimes at the top of the list, closely followed in this particular case by those bureaucrats who so badly mislead today's U.N.
     And of course the U.S. and Israel are most culpable as well; but this is one case where they wouldn't get away with it but for the accomplices just enumerated, not to mention the sucker Europeans who have been drawn into funding the Arafat Regime rather than providing assistant to the Palestinian people.
     Yes, indeed, let's not forget the Arafat "Palestinian Authority" which is so miserably corrupt and so despicably self-centered that many people around the world are wrongly fed up with everything Palestinian.
      The multi-million dollar villas of Gaza and the hundreds of millions of dollars squandered and stolen yearly by leaders of the PA could easily take care of UNRWA's current problems -- IF there was the will that is!
     As for the refugees themselves, we should salute them for organizing, tell them "right on!", and help them if we can.
     This important article that follows explains much about the overall crisis facing Palestinian refugees as they are squeezed still further not only by their enemies, but also by UNRWA itself, the institution founded nearly 50 years ago to help them. (c) MER
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UNRWA'S SQUEEZE ON REFUGEES: BUDGET DEFICIT OR CONSPIRACY?
by: Muna Hamzeh-Muheisen
Dheisheh Refugee Camp -- Under the pretext that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is suffering from a 1997 budget deficit of US$20 million, the Agency's commissioner-general announced late last month that UNRWA is cutting back its services to the 3,368,330 Palestinian refugees registered with the Agency in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
The cutbacks include a 15 percent reduction in international staff; a freeze on hiring 249 new teachers needed to overcome school overcrowding; and end to the Agency's contribution to university scholarships; a freeze on hospital referrals for November and December 1997, with the exception of special hardship cases; and finally, imposing a new unprecedented annual school fee of NIS50 on the 436,169 refugee students enrolled at UNRWA schools.
It is perhaps this latest measure which ignited the strongest reaction from the Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Students in the 167 UNRWA-run schools went on a nine-day strike beginning August 23 (PR, Vol. 3, No. 12) while angry students demonstrated outside the offices of UNRWA directors in several West Bank refugee camps. It was reported late last week that irate students smashed the windows of UNRWA offices and cars in the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps.
Further protests, including sit-ins, demonstrations and strikes, have been organized by the public service committees -- established in early 1996 by the PLO's Department of Refugee Affairs in all the Palestinian refugee camps as a response to growing UNRWA pullbacks -- throughout the camps of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. These protests are expected to culminate in a general strike on September 9, the same day that donor countries are expected to meet in Amman to discuss UNRWA's budget deficit.
In Bethlehem, where more than 18,000 registered and non-registered Palestine refugees live, refugees reacted to UNRWA's newest measures with outrage and bitterness. Many even accused the Agency of a conspiracy to end all its services in the next two years. "UNRWA's recent cutbacks, whether UNRWA likes it or not, fall directly in line with the Israeli program aimed at eliminating the refugee problem which lies at the core of the Palestinian issue," said Mohammed Laham, president of the Dheisheh Public Service Committee.
"We believe that there is a political conspiracy to end all UNRWA services to the refugees," said one Dheisheh refugee. "UNRWA was created by the UN in 1949 to serve the refugees and as long as the refugee problem has not been resolved, the Agency must fulfill its obligations to the refugees in health, education and social services," he added.
Palestine National Council member Mohammed Azza said that "asking refugee students to pay school fees is a big strike against education." Speaking at a public meeting in Dheisheh refugee camp last week, Azza expressed his concern that UNRWA is "doing all it can to end its services to the refugee camps."
The meeting had been called by the Dheisheh Public Service Committee, which issued what it called "leaflet No. 1" on August 24, asking Dheisheh's refugees to decide which protest measures should be taken in order to pressure UNRWA into backing down on its decisions.
Following the meeting, the committee issued a second leaflet indicating that the protest measures will include a decisive refusal to pay the NIS50 school fee; pressuring UNRWA into solving the problem of classroom overcrowding; and approaching international organizations, donor countries, the PLO and the refugee committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council to do their part in defending the refugees and their rights.
Other measures will include erecting a permanent protest tent across from the office of the UNRWA director in Dheisheh; using the fourth school period on August 30 for teachers to discuss the outcome of these cutbacks with their students; organizing a demonstration on September 1 from Dheisheh's UNRWA schools to the protest tent; and holding Friday prayers on September 5 across from the office of UNRWA's director.
Meanwhile, UNRWA teachers voiced their disappointment with the Agency's newest measures. "The Agency wants students to pay fees when our schools suffer from acute overcrowding," retorted one irate UNRWA teacher who, like 99 percent of UNRWA employees, is a refugee. "Some teachers have 63 students in their classrooms because UNRWA does not want to hire extra teachers to ease the problem. How are we expected to educate these students when they are squeezed three to a bench?"
Another teacher said that classroom overcrowding is very stressful on teachers, with many suffering from tension and depression. " Once, I was so stressed out at the end of a school day, I walked into the wrong house thinking it was my own."
Indeed, the two UNRWA-operated schools in Dheisheh -- one for boys and one for girls -- are overwhelmingly crowded. The 995 male students are divided into 23 classrooms with an average of 43 students to a class. One fourth grade branch has 63 students while a second grade branch has 57.
"UNRWA claims that it is currently building a bigger school for girls and construction on a new school for boys will start sometime next winter," said one teacher. "Yet what is the use of bigger schools if the size of students in each classroom is not decreased?" That, teachers agree, cannot be done unless more teachers are hired. UNRWA says that although it is freezing the hiring of 249 additional teachers, it is making an exception in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where in order to "alleviate the effects of overcrowding somewhat, the Agency has decided exceptionally to recruit...double the budgeted number of replacement teachers."
Teachers argue, however, that there is a catch. "In August 1997, UNRWA started so-called monthly contracts which are tantamount to working on a daily basis," one teacher explained. "Every new teacher has to sign such a contract, as well as all the teachers whose previous annual contracts with UNRWA have expired. Under these contracts, teachers receive no benefits, no compensation and not even leave or sick leave. In other words, these teachers will have no rights and will be no better off than laborers working on construction sites."
What UNRWA teachers in Dheisheh cannot understand is why the Agency cannot resolve the classroom overcrowding problem at the boys' school, when the addition of only four teachers would help solve the problem. Most don't buy the story of a budget deficit. And indeed, it is easy to see why. At a meeting of Palestine donors and host countries in Amman last June 10, several donors announced additional contributions to UNRWA. Saudi Arabia pledged another US$2.4 million to the Agency's General Fund, in addition to its earlier pledge of US$1.2 million. Sweden pledged an additional US$1.2 million for education in Lebanon. The Netherlands announced a new contribution of US$520,000 to the Agency's General Fund. In addition, the United States pledged another US$1.4 million for new projects in the Agency's Peace Implementation Program, which directly support UNRWA's core services in education and health.
"There is going to be another meeting of donor countries in Amman on September 9, and UNRWA just might receive pledges to cover at least part of its deficit," said one Dheisheh resident. "What is at issue for us as refugees is that since the Oslo agreement was signed in October 1993, UNRWA seems to be taking steps which imply that the Agency aims to end all its services to the refugees before a political solution to the refugee problem is reached." There is hardly a refugee in Dheisheh who does not agree with this view. Refugees point out, for instance, that UNRWA plans to turn over the UNRWA-operated women's centers to locally elected committees. Such elections already took place in 1996 and even though UNRWA said it would not forego responsibility for these centers before 1999, it is actually turning them over next December 1. "These centers don't have a support system and are not ready to be self-managed yet," said Ismail Nasser, a member of the environment and health subcommittee of the Dheisheh Public Service Committee.
"The refugees cannot help but feel that they are being targeted," said Hussein Shaheen, director of UNRWA in Dheisheh. "The refugee problem has not been resolved and yet UNRWA is cutting back on its services, even thought it is the party responsible for the refugees."
When UNRWA distributed emergency rations of flour to Bethlehem-area refugees last week, it was the first such distribution in three years. It has also been well over a year that many refugees have either been denied hospital referrals or asked to pay for part of the expenses. "Western fat-cats are getting fatter on the salaries that UNRWA pays them while UNRWA thinks it's doing us a big favor giving us a sack of flour," one Dheisheh resident remarked angrily. "They are foolish if they think that man survives by bread alone. They seem to forget the legitimate rights of a people who have been refugees for nearly 50 years. Let them forget if they like -- we sure won't."
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