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SHAME ON EVERYONE INVOLVED
MOST ESPECIALLY THE
U.S., THE U.N., THE WEALTHY ARAB STATES, THE ARAFAT REGIME, AND OF COURSE
THE ISRAELIS
[MER - Washington - 9/25/97].
The following AP story by Samar Assad tells part
of the outrageous situation -- the latest assault against those most victimized
by Israel. The poorest of the poor are once again being screwed by the
politicians and the regimes. While Arafat and his cronies have squandered
and stolen hundreds of millions, the U.N. refugees are more miserable than
ever. It is a scandelous situation and all involved, including the "Palestinian
Authority" should be deeply ashamed.]
.
.SHATI REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) - In a small
classroom, 54 sixth-grade girls in blue-and-white-striped uniforms are
packed three to a desk. The first row is pushed right up to the teacher,
Fatima Hamad. ``Good afternoon, I am Fatima,''
Mrs. Hamad told
the girls in their first English lesson, a blackboard her only teaching
aid. Carvings by generations of students line the wooden desks in the school's
eight classrooms.
They lack air conditioning
despite the oppressive heat of Gazan summers, and open windows look on
dusty alleys.
The education offered
at Shati refugee camp's elementary school - and in hundreds of other schools
also run by the United Nations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - always
has been threadbare.
But despite the dearth
of resources and primitive setting, refugees have always been able to count
on one thing: The education is free.
Now, the subsidy is disappearing,
threatening to put basic education out of reach for thousands of Palestinian
children.
The United Nations
Relief and Works Agency, which looks after Palestinian refugees, faces
a 1997 budget deficit of $20 million because foreign donors are giving
less and sending more directly to Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
At the same time,
the refugee population keeps growing.
In Gaza, about
60 percent of the coastal strip's 1 million residents are eligible for
free schooling and health service provided by UNRWA.
In an effort to reverse
the deficit, UNRWA has started charging tuition and has reduced free health
care. The cutbacks come at a time when the West Bank and Gaza Strip are
struggling to survive a prolonged Israeli security closure that has stifled
trade and put tens of thousands of Palestinians out of work.
Afaf Hassuna, a
mother of nine in Shati, will have to pay $14 a year for each of her six
children attending U.N. schools. While $14 for a year's education may seem
extremely modest by Western standards, the Hassunas and many of their neighbors
don't have a cent to spare. Mrs. Hassuna's husband, who used to work on
construction sites in Israel, has been unemployed for three years.
``If they force
me to pay, I will have to take my children out of school,'' said the 36-year-old
mother, as she struggled to maintain her balance on a worn-out wooden stool.
The family lives in two rooms in Shati, a sprawling shantytown just north
of Gaza City. They are among Palestinians who fled or were forced out of
their homes by Israeli troops in the 1948 Mideast war and who now make
their homes in refugee camps throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip as well
as in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
``They are smart
children and it will be a shame to take them out of school,'' Mrs. Hassuna
said. UNRWA's deputy commissioner general, Mohammed Abdel Mumin, said the
agency understood the refugees' frustration. ``They are angry. I would
be angry ... but we needed to take a stand.'' Representatives
of the donor countries meet today in Jordan to discuss the deficit, and
Abdel Mumin said he wants to be able to show that a serious effort was
made to save money. While the United Nations approves UNRWA's budget -
it was $312 million for 1996-97 - the agency has to collect the money from
contributing countries.
The agency serves
more than 3 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan,
Syria and Lebanon. It also employs 22,000 refugees, including 5,000 in
the Palestinian areas, making it the second-largest employer there after
the Palestinian Authority. Abdel Mumin said the United States has been
the main contributor with $70 million; other countries have been giving
less and less, he said, even though he has told donors for the past year
that a deficit was unavoidable.
A rival for foreign aid
is the Palestinian Authority, which has received hundreds of millions of
dollars since the 1994 start of self- rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
where it runs its own schools. When the cuts were first announced in August,
parents in Gaza kept their students home from school for a week in protest.
But studies resumed this week, and the agency hasn't levied the fees yet
or expelled students who haven't paid.
At Shati Elementary,
none of the 509 students have paid tuition. Teacher Fatima Hamad said that
even if UNRWA is able in the end to maintain the current level of funding,
conditions are becoming unbearable. Students have to study in morning and
afternoon shifts to ease overcrowding, and class sizes keep growing. Hamad
was told she may soon get six more students in sixth grade class. Wiping
the sweat off her face and loosening her head scarf in the stifling air,
she said: ``I will not be able to handle it.'' - AP 09-16-97
M I D - E A S T R E
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