By Stephen Dockery
BEIRUT: A frenzy of kidnappings
targeting Syrian workers has startled many laborers in Lebanon and pushed their
generally poor and unprotected community into the middle of a conflict sparked
by the violence in Syria.
The Meqdad clan and al-Mukthtar
al-Thaqafi organization has claimed to have kidnapped over 30 Syrians and one
Turkish man over in the past two days. People were snatched from their cars at
gunpoint and pulled off the Airport Road in response to reports that some
Lebanese being held in Syria had been killed in airstrikes and over the
detention of clan member Hassan Meqdad in Syria by rebel forces.
Both the clan and group say that
everyone they have detained is active within the Free Syrian Army, and not just
those who support the Syrian opposition. These claims have not been verified
and provide little assurances to a Syrian worker community that has few people
to represent it or protect it.
“I was afraid after what happened. I
became anxious,” said 25-year-old Said, who came to Lebanon 15 days ago to work
a construction job after being forced out of his home in Syria. “We come here
just to live.”
A delegation of Syrian workers from
the southern suburbs visited the Meqdad clan Wednesday to lobby the family to
protect their community, but there are few other advocates for the thousands of
Syrian laborers in the country.
The Lebanese government has been
able to provide little protection to working Syrians over the past two days,
after months of tit-for-tat kidnappings and years of poor treatment and abuse
in the country. Syrians make up the vast majority of Lebanon’s construction
force, often working for long hours and low wages with few work regulations.
Many Syrian workers in Beirut felt
uncomfortable talking about the recent kidnappings and those who did said they
were afraid and trying to protect themselves from being targeted.
While working a construction project
in Hamra, George Saha said he hopes that being a Christian offers him a measure
of protection from being pursued by the kidnappers whom he thinks are searching
for Sunni members of the Syrian opposition.
But Saha also isn’t totally secure
either; he knows there little protection for people like him in the country,
with some things beyond his control.
“When I go to Dahiyeh I’m afraid,”
the 53-year-old said.
As the Syrian conflict has raged for
a year and a half, Lebanon has found it increasingly difficult to stay removed
from the nearby violence. Events such as the kidnapping of 11 Lebanese Shiite’s
in May came before a spike in tit-for-tat cross-border abductions that targeted
Syrians in Lebanon.
“The current wave of kidnappings is
unfortunately something that has been going on now related to Syria for a
while,” said Lama Fakih, from Human Rights Watch in Beirut.
Many of the kidnappings have been
short lived or quickly resolved. When al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi claimed to have
kidnapped Syrians in the Bekaa last month they were released within several
hours. But the new mass kidnappings represent a worrying escalation in the
intensity of the conflict in which Syrians are caught.
“The wave of violence in Lebanon
really begs the question of what the Lebanese government is going to do to
people responsible for these attacks,” Fakih said.
This isn’t the first time Syrians
have been targeted in Lebanon over regional conflicts. Syrian workers were
attacked and abused after the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in
2005 by people who blamed the Syrian regime for the assassination.
In addition to political
retribution, there have also been numerous reports of wanton abuse against
Syrian workers and crackdowns on worker’s rights.
Many Syrians interviewed Thursday
wanted to emphasize the reasons they were in Lebanon – work, not politics.
Under an overpass along the
Beirut-Damascus highway, 25-year-old Abdallah said he and his co-workers were
in Lebanon because there are few other places they can go to work, especially
now with the war in their country. Abdallah said he is trying to avoid the
areas that have been targeted for kidnappings, but adds that he doesn’t know
what else he can do.
“Where would the Syrians go?” he asked, before
adding, “Definitely we are scared.”http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Aug-17/184906-hezbollah-not-against-helping-syrian-refugees.ashx#axzz23pl5xycQ
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