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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Study Special Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Black Thursday in Hebron
By Graham UsherAt around 8.30 am on 21 October a 12-year-old boy hauled a box of refilled lighters on the ground floor of a three-story apartment block in Hebron's Bir Haram Al-Rami district. Overcome by the vapour escaping from the lighters, the boy fainted and the box exploded on impact with the floor. The flames swiftly engulfed the rest of the building, including the second floor where most of the factory's women workers were segregated.
It took two hours and the combined efforts of Palestinian and Israeli fire fighters to bring the blaze under control. When they did so, rescuers disinterred the charred remains of 16 bodies, 15 of them women, most of these in their early teens. It was the worst fire in Hebron's recent history and the initial reaction of its people was one of shock compounded by grief. A mass funeral for the victims was held in the neighbouring village of Dura and a two-day mourning period was declared throughout the Hebron district. It took about the same length of time for the grief to give way to anger.
On 23 October, a 400-strong demonstration rapidly turned into a full-scale assault on Hebron's municipal headquarters and its mayor, Mustafa Natshe, whom most of the protestors held responsible for the fire. "Tell the truth about what happened at the factory!" cried one youth, as the demonstrators laid siege to the building. The crowd was eventually brought to heel by Palestinian Authority (PA) riot-police armed with batons and semi-automatic rifles, though not until several municipal windows had been smashed and the mayoral car thoroughly gutted.
But were Natshe and the municipality to blame? The common answer of those who lived near the factory is a resounding "yes". The factory was unlicensed, built in a densely populated residential area and didn't have a single safety exit that worked. Nor did Natshe do himself any favours by feigning ignorance rather than innocence in the fire's aftermath. "It is very regretful that accusations are being made to the municipality," he told Voice of Palestine radio on 22 October. "In 1987, we issued a licence for the owner of the factory to build a refrigerator for vegetables. We were not aware of his current work [of refilling lighters]. Nor has anyone from the building filed complaints to us about the work". Residents of the area say that the factory's work was common knowledge and that several complaints had been made to the municipality, especially when the factory became operational two months ago.
Other Hebronites say that while the mayor should shoulder some of the blame, it would be unjust to make him the only scapegoat. On 21 October, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) took the rare act of convening an "emergency meeting" about the fire. This called for an "investigation" to be set up and on the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to hold "a meticulous reading of the Labour Law". But the PGFTU's protest is disingenuous. Salaried and largely appointed by the PA, the PGFTU's main task in the autonomy has been less to support labour disputes than to snuff them out. Nor has the union made any effort to organise the thousands of men, women and children who work for less than a dollar an hour in hundreds of unlicensed and uninsured Palestinian "factories" similar to the one that went up in smoke in Hebron.
But the PGFTU was right in its gentle criticism of the PLC. For the last four years Palestinians' only elected legislature has been "debating", "unifying" and "revising" a labour law for the autonomous areas. According to the Ramallah-based Democracy and Workers Rights Centre, the draft law is barely an improvement on the Jordanian "feudal codes" that preceded it. It is vague about workers' right to strike and sets down no basic health and safety regulations. But in making employers responsible for the safety of their plants it would at least give workers some legal leverage in cases like the Hebron fire. But -- as of now -- workers cannot use this leverage because the law has still to be ratified by the PA executive.
The executive member most responsible for that obstruction paid a visit to Hebron on 23 October. "I am here to investigate," said Yasser Arafat. And investigate he did. He met with Natshe and leaders of his Fatah movement in Hebron. He gave condolences and a $3,000 hand out to each family of the victims. He also set up a ministerial committee to ascertain the causes of the fire. But it is wholly unlikely it will produce any meaningful results, if the experience of previous PA ministerial committees is anything to go by. The most Hebronites expect is a show punishment of the owner of the factory, Mohamed Al-Asali. He is presently abroad. Given the mood in Hebron, he would be wise to stay there.
So who ultimately is responsible? "Everybody," answers Said Al-Krunz, who, as PA minister of industry, has his own reasons for not wanting to probe too closely into the official parties responsible for Hebron's "Black Thursday". But "everybody" is another way of saying the government, and in this sense Al-Krunz's response is accurate. Everybody with official responsibility for the welfare of the 16 young people who perished is to blame. The municipality for not inspecting the factory, the unions for not striving to represent workers in such factories and the PLC for allowing the executive to run roughshod over its elected right to legislate a labour law for its people. But in an essentially authoritarian regime like the PA, the buck must eventually stop with the president who runs and pays it -- that, and his autocratic, paternal and utterly unaccountable form of government.
