SIDON, Lebanon, 16 October 2005 — “We want our weapons as a guarantee for our safety” is a slogan repeated by the majority of Palestinians living in refugee camps across Lebanon since the issue of their disarmament was raised by the Lebanese government.

The question of disarming some 367,000 Palestinians in 12 camps across the country which made headline news last week has caused anxiety among the refugees. “Our weapons will not be used against the Lebanese people. We have them to protect ourselves from the enemy Israel,” said Munir Makadeh, a Fatah commander inside the Ain El-Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon.

“They (the weapons) are our right and our ticket to return to our homeland one day,” he added. The issue of the Palestinian arms was raised after a row between the Lebanese government and pro-Syrian Palestinian factions over alleged weapons smuggling across the Lebanese-Syrian order.

Abu Rushdi, a member of the pro-Syrian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian-General Command (PFLP-GC), believes the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 is intended to give “peace of mind to the enemy Israel.” Resolution 1559, passed in September 2004, demands the disarmament of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance group as well as the 12 Palestinian groups present within and outside refugee camps.

Abu Rushdi called on the Lebanese government to put pressure on the world community to implement UN Resolution 194, “which will allow us to go back instead of disarming us.” Resolution 194 calls on Israel to leave all occupied territories. “If this resolution (194) is implemented then we will hand over our weapons to the Lebanese as a gift...,” he added.

According to a tacit agreement after the collapse of 1987 of the Cairo accord that regulated Palestinian armed presence, the Lebanese army refrains from entering the refugee camps, in which the carrying of light weapons is permitted. However, the Lebanese Army maintains checkpoints on entries and around the camps’ perimeters.

The Lebanese anti-Syrian government has increased its efforts to end the armed presence of the pro-Syrian Palestinian groups no longer protected by the Syrian military after its departure from Lebanon in April.

According to Lebanese government officials groups who are supported by Damascus — such as the PFLP-GC led by Ahmed Jebril - and maintain bases outside the 12 Palestinian refugee camps have been smuggling weapons from Syrian into Lebanon.

Abu Rushdi strongly dismissed such charges. “These are rumors created by some Lebanese factions who wants to disarm the Palestinians in Lebanon...,” he added. The Lebanese government on Thursday backed a decision by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora not have Palestinian arms outside the camps.

The government also announced it had set a commission to deal with this issue through dialogue with the Palestinians.

Siniora held talks last week with the pro-Syrian Palestinian factions including radical groups like the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, in the hope of resolving a burgeoning dispute over weapons-carrying. But for the Palestinians inside camps like Sabra and Shatilla camps who were victims of a massacre in 1982 at the hands of pro-Israeli Lebanese Christian militias, taking away their weapons means “fear and uncertainty.”

“Just few weeks ago a Lebanese Christian pro-Israeli group, the Cedar Guards, whose leader is banned from entering Lebanon, issued a statement saying it is the duty of every Lebanese to kill a Palestinian,” Abu Ahmed, a survivor of the Sabra-Shatilla massacre told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

“Do you want me to feel safe and give away my weapon after this statement?” Abu Ahmed questioned. During the Sabra-Shatilla some 3,000 Palestinians were slaughtered among them women and children. The massacres took place during the Israeli invasion to Lebanon in 1982.

According to a Fatah commander in Ain El Hilweh camp the Palestinians have already given to the Lebanese all the heavy artillery in 1991 and the remaining weapons are individual arms “that should not be handed in.”

The Fatah commander, who requested anonymity, gave the right to the Lebanese government to take away all the Palestinian weapons outside the camps because the “Lebanese Army is in charge of securing all the borders of Lebanon with Israel and we are only in charge of our protection inside our camps.”