The Daily Star - Jumblatt calls for Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon, July 17 2012

BEIRUT: Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said Lebanon should build camps for the thousands of Syrian refugees who fled unrest in their country similar to the ones in Turkey and Jordan, in remarks to be published Tuesday.

He also slammed Russia and Iran’s stance toward the Syrian crisis.

“If the policy of disassociation has led to an ambiguous description of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon, we see that the humane and moral duty makes it imperative to build camps for them similar to the ones in Turkey and Jordan to provide the minimum of assistance for them,” Jumblatt said.

His comments came in his weekly statement to be published by Al-Anbaa newspaper.

According to the latest weekly report released by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, there are now 30,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The government’s Higher Relief Committee announced last week that it can no longer provide Syrian refugees with food or medical care because funding has dried up.

Jumblatt also commended the country’s judiciary for issuing arrest warrants for army officers involved in the killing of two sheikhs in north Lebanon earlier this year, describing it as “a step in the right direction.”

The PSP leader also condemned the massacre of the Syrian village of Tremseh last week where activists say more than 150 people were killed. They held the Syrian government responsible for it.

“Here is the Syrian government adding to its record of murder a new massacre in the town of Tremseh that has taken the lives of hundreds of innocent and defenseless people and we severely condemn it,” Jumblatt, one of President Bashar Assad’s fiercest critics in Lebanon, said.

He added that daily events in Syria are revealing what he described as a project by “Assad’s gangs” to systematically destroy the country and throw it into oblivion and fragmentation.

Jumblatt also questioned Russia and Iran's stance with regard to the crisis in Syria, saying: "We have the right to wonder whether Russia's slogan of supporting the Syrian regime and rejecting foreign intervention ... hides certain oil, economic and military interests even if they were at the expense of the Syrian people and Syria's unity.”

He also hinted that Iran's supportive position of Syria could be linked to promises of arms deals with Russia, criticizing the failure of countries to arm the Syrian rebels.

"The silly excuse of Syria's friends to withhold arms from the opposition out of fear of a civil war makes us question whether the daily massacre suffered by the Syrian people does not resemble a civil war or its catastrophic results,” Jumblatt said.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Jul-16/180795-jumblatt-calls-for-syrian-refugee-camps-in-lebanon.ashx#axzz20mFkUNDx