Jumblat Asks State to Aid Syrian Refugees instead of Flexing Military Muscle in North
Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Monday described the rare double veto used by Russia and China to block a resolution condemning Syria as a “slap in the face of the Syrian people,” urging the Lebanese state to “aid the Syrian refugees” instead of staging “airborne military parades in the northern border areas.”
In his weekly column in al-Anbaa newspaper, his party’s mouthpiece, Jumblat said the vetos “destroyed what’s left of the Arab League’s initiative which tried to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.”
The Arab solution would put an end to autocracy and help Syria transit to “pluralism, democracy and diversity, away from the fake promises of reform which have not and will not be fulfilled,” Jumblat added.
“The policy of disassociation is maybe useful at the Arab and international forums due to the sensitivity of Lebanon’s stance towards the Syrian crisis, but it is not appropriate in dealing with the Syrian refugees,” the Druze leader noted.
He stressed that “it is past time for the (Lebanese) state authorities to acknowledge their existence, as they are afflicted people who need help and all kinds of medical, social and humanitarian aid.”
Jumblat said that such a step “would be better than the airborne military parades in the northern border areas,” wondering “have we forgotten that the Syrian people had hosted tens of thousands of Lebanese refugees during the (2006) Israeli aggression against Lebanon?”
The Lebanese army deployed on Saturday in the northern border area of Wadi Khaled after media outlets reported that members of the rebel Free Syrian Army were present in the region.
“On Saturday morning the military carried out three airdrops in al-Rami village near Wadi Khaled and searched the area for hours,” a military source told LBC.
MP Moein al-Merehbi confirmed the incident, slamming the deployment of the army as “Syrian orders to President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Najib Miqati, and Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji.”
Al-Akhbar newspaper reported that Wadi Khaled is a military base for the Free Syrian Army.
According to the daily Free Syrian Army officers and troops are moving freely along the illegal border crossings, smuggling weapons and transporting injured soldiers.
Thousands of Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon amid a deadly crackdown on a popular revolt against President Bashar Assad’s regime, now in its eleventh month.
In November, the Syrian army laced the Lebanese border with landmines in a bid to curb arms smuggling and hamper army defectors and refugees from fleeing.
Syrian troops have also staged deadly incursions into border villages in neighboring Lebanon.
Source: Naharnet
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