6 - 12 December 2001
Issue No.563
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 6 - 12 December 2001 Issue No.563 |
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Not to be bargained with
As peace talks in the region shudder to a halt, a Palestinian rights group is busy reminding the world that any settlement must also recognise the rights of five million refugees. Anayat Durrani writes from Washington
In recent weeks, US President George Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have declared their support for an independent, viable Palestinian state. And so another round of marathon peace talks may be on the horizon. But there is another issue not mentioned in public statements and it is one that Palestinian activists feel is "non-negotiable." That issue is the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland.
Al-Awda, a Palestinian rights organisation based in the US, is leading the quiet crusade. It emphasises the refugees' right to return to homes and lands from which they were expelled in 1948, and after. It seeks full restitution for all confiscated and destroyed property belonging to the refugees, as upheld by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international law and United Nations resolutions. "This is the largest grass-root network serving Palestinian human rights causes internationally," says Zahi Damuni, one of the founders of Al-Awda.
Al-Awda, which in Arabic means "the return," is a non- profit organisation committed to raising public awareness about the plight of the Palestinian refugees as well as the ongoing human rights abuses suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of their Zionist occupiers. The organisation was founded in April 2000 and incorporated in July 2000. Al- Awda's members from around the world communicate and mobilise through cyberspace and establish local, national and international action committees.
"This is a grass-root movement built around the central Palestinian issue of the right to return," argues Damuni, adding that the organisation enjoys "complete transparency and democracy." He explains that Al-Awda's way of operating "is analogous to what our people did in their uprising of the 1980s, the [first] Intifada, with autonomous local committees doing what they feel needs to be done, without an institutional hierarchy dictating to them."
The organisation's accomplishments include organising two major right-to-return rallies coordinated across major cities worldwide. The first march and rally in the US was held in Washington DC in September last year. The second was held in New York during April 2001; that date marked the 53rd anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre. The publicity generated by the first rally caught the attention of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who issued a statement the following day unconditionally supporting the right to return of the refugees.
Since September of last year, Al-Awda has been particularly active on behalf of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Over 800 demonstrations, vigils, teach-ins, exhibits and other functions have been planned, co-sponsored and run by Al-Awda activists.
"Al-Awda has been the voice of the millions of diaspora Palestinian refugees who demand that their right to return is not forsaken, traded away, or negotiated without them," says Jess Ghannam, who founded the San Francisco chapter of Al-Awda.
Palestinians make up the world's largest and most persistent refugee population. Over five million dispossessed Palestinians are scattered worldwide.
Apart from seeking redress for historic wrongs, Al-Awda also tries to ease the plight of refugees suffering now. A significant part of the organisation's work involves humanitarian efforts. After a mission to Lebanon, which included visits to several refugee camps, the Al-Awda Refugee Support Committee was born. That committee has made countless contributions to refugees. It also established the "Ali Abu Toq Humanitarian Fact-Finding Mission to Lebanon," which is named after Ali Abu Toq, an activist known as "the saint of Shatila" for his tireless humanitarian work. The committee has been gathering supplies that will be shipped to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon from New Jersey in a 20-foot container. A delegation of eight activists from North America and Europe will receive the container in Lebanon during the last week of December and distribute its contents to refugee camps. Those contents include over 100 computers, 40 boxes of toys, and over 50 boxes of microscopes, cameras, clothing, and school supplies.
"Our overall aim is to expose the oppression of our people with all the resources at our disposal. Through these humanitarian efforts, we aspire to be like the heroic children of Palestine who have, for years, valiantly defended their homes against Zionist incursions armed with nothing more than stones and determination," said Ribhi Huzien, who will head the mission. "We defiantly hurl the proverbial stone in the direction of the oppressor in a manner that parallels the actions of the heroic children of the Intifada," he said. For his humanitarian efforts, Huzien has been nominated for the Reebok Human Rights Award.
Despite such acclaim, Al-Awda has recently found itself at odds with the Palestinian Authority's newly appointed Jerusalem envoy. In a speech to a crowd of Israelis at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in October, envoy Sari Nusseibeh said that a peace agreement supporting a Palestinian state would be feasible if it abandoned the right of Palestinians to return to their homes. Nusseibeh's statements attracted a great deal of complaint from Palestinians.
"Mr. Nusseibeh does not have the right to speak on behalf of the five million refugees; only the refugees have that right," said Ghannam. "He cannot, nor can anyone else, negate basic inalienable human rights and international law in the service of being "pragmatic." We found his comments unfortunate because they do not reflect the current wishes of either the refugees or of Palestinians in general."
Al-Awda has called for Nusseibeh to be dismissed as a representative of the Palestinian people. But many cite this case as yet another example of the fractured relationship between the Palestinian populace and the Palestinian Authority. "There is growing concern that the PLO leadership and the national aspirations of the Palestinian people are growing disconnected," agreed Damuni.
This split shows the important role organisations like Al- Awda can play in broadening representation of Palestinian concerns. Al-Awda has been instrumental in bringing the tragedy of the refugees back to the forefront of the international conscience.
"Al-Awda must exist so as to carry, contain, and hold the collective inalienable right that all Palestinian refugees have to their homes and land. Otherwise, we become too fragmented and this leaves others with less commitment [a way] to negotiate away these rights, to forget about us, or negotiate this sacred right," says Ghannam.
"Al-Awda is the voice, collective memory and narrative for Palestinian refugees," Ghannam continues. He argues that "the burden we all have is never to forget, and to correct the wrongs of history by forging a deliberate path to justice for all Palestinians."
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