Mange libanesere forbinder syriske arbejdere, indvandrere og nu flygtninge med de grusomheder, som syriske tropper begik under 29 års besættelse af det lille naboland ud mod Middelhavet – især de kristne er forbitrede.
BEIRUT, 1 November 2012 (IRIN): Syrians in Lebanon are increasingly coming under attack as lingering anti-Syrian sentiment intensifies amid the current conflict next door.
The Syrian imbroglio (redelighed) has polarized various sects and factions in Lebanon. While Sunni Lebanese in the north have welcomed tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in the last year and a half, Lebanese of other sects and in other parts of the county are less welcoming.
On the streets of Beirut’s Christian neighbourhood of Geitawi, a stronghold of the Lebanese Christian right, their intolerance of Syrian migrants, who have worked in Lebanon for years, is palpable (tydelig):
“Syrians ruled us for 30 years, how can we like them?” protested Kamal Sa’ad, 48. “God willing, the war will kill them all. They are an Arab people; we [Lebanese Christians] are Europeans.”
Residents of the neighbourhood have gathered around 60 signatures demanding the governor of Beirut take “the necessary security and legal measures” against Syrian workers who are perceived to pose a threat.
“We are sending this letter to warn the authorities that if they do not intervene, we will organize ourselves and solve the situation through violence,” warned Cesar, a local butcher who preferred not to divulge (fortælle) his second name.
“Drunken Syrian workers are always around harassing women at night,” said Charbal Issa, 29, adding:
“You know what we will do? [Impose] a 6pm curfew (udgangsforbud) for Syrians, so that they work and sleep – nothing else.”
Military raids and mob violence
The estimated 300.000 Syrian seasonal workers in Lebanon before the Syrian uprising began in March 2011 were often the object of anti-Syrian sentiment – a legacy of Syria’s 29-year occupation of Lebanon, starting in the 1970s.
“Following the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon [in 2005], each bombing blamed on the Syrian regime was followed by the beating of some Syrian workers,” said Yara Chehayed, a member of the Beirut-based Anti-Racism Movement.
But when Syrians started fleeing to Lebanon in large numbers, fears that the Syrian opposition will use Lebanon as a base for its own struggle – the way Palestinians did in the lead-up to the Lebanese civil war – have intensified pre-existing xenophobia (fremmedhad). Military raids are now increasingly replacing the usual mob violence.
On 7 October, the Lebanese Army raided the apartments of around 70 Syrian, Egyptian and Sudanese workers living in Geitawi and another Christian neighbourhood in Beirut, Mar Mikhael, late at night.
One week earlier, on 1 October, soldiers stormed a construction site where migrants worked and slept in the adjacent Ashrafieyeh neighbourhood, according to residents who told Human Rights Watch (HRW) they “heard screams from the building”.
Several `mukhtars’, administrators of the neighbourhood, reportedly issued a statement encouraging more such raids.
On 17 October, in the coastal neighbourhood of Ramlet al-Baydah, a mob of more than 20 Lebanese men attacked Syrian workers with knives and sticks, injuring 10 people.
Targeting Syrian Sunni dissidents?
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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96679/Analysis-Catch-22-for-Syrian-migrants-in-Lebanon
