Right affirmed

Thousands gathered in Damascus in support of Palestinian refugees, underlining that no peace with Israel is possible absent their right of return, Bassel Oudat reports

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Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine spit on and burn Israeli and US flags during a rally in support of the Palestinian right of return in the Ain Al-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon

Damascus hosted the first Arab Forum for the Right of Return for Palestinian Refugees last week. The event was attended by 4,500 representatives of Arab parties and organisations. Among the public figures that came for the forum were former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamed, former Sudanese president Abdel-Rahman Siwar Al-Dhahab, Jerusalem Bishop Ilarion Kabouji, and the secretary- general of the Algerian National Liberation Front.

A document called the Damascus Declaration for the Right of Return, issued from the meeting. It stated, among other things, that the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and be compensated for their suffering is not going to lapse with time and that it is a top priority for Palestinians and Arabs. The forum called on international organisations and the UN to take action to bring back the refugees to their homes. Nearly five million Palestinians are now living outside historic Palestine.

The forum was timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the 1948 war and UN Resolution 194 granting the Palestinians the right to return, as well as the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A few days after the Damascus forum was held, a rival conference, also dedicated to the right to return, was held in Al-Birah in the West Bank. In a rebuff to Damascus, participants in Al-Birah meeting said that conferences dealing with the Palestinian right of return must be held under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Officials from the Ramallah-based government accused Syria and Iran of exploiting the Palestinian cause for their own purposes.

Sources close to Fatah, which runs the PA, deplored the apparent fact that Syria and Iran "are using Palestinian rights... to assert their regional influence and pose as main players in the region". In Syria, opposition groups called on the Syrian authorities to allow "Syrian refugees" to return home. The right to return applies to all Arabs who have been forced into exile by their governments, not to the Palestinians alone, opposition figures said. The Syrian Committee for Human Rights said that the Syrian authorities, which drove tens of thousands of Syrians into exile, were acting cynically.

Organisers of the forum, led by Maan Bashour, chairman of the forum's preparatory committee, said that the forum continued the work of the Jerusalem Conference held in Istanbul last year. The forum was not held under Syrian or Iranian auspices, Bashour said, noting that several Fatah and Palestine Liberation Organisation officials, including Farouk Al-Qaddumi and Hani Al-Hassan, were among the participants. Anwar Ragaa, media officer of the pro-Syrian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), said that the conference mattered because it was held at a time when the right to return was all but forgotten due to American pressure.

Nasser Al-Ghazali, director of the Damascus Centre for Theoretical Studies and Civil Rights, and who now lives in Sweden, called for "effective and continual mechanisms" to remind the world of the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Violet Dagher, head of the Paris-based Arab Committee for Human Rights, said that the "right of return is the sum total of the balance of power". She said that international pressure groups that apologise for Israeli occupiers are the ones responsible for the continued Palestinian tragedy.

"There is an army of volunteers who provide all types of justification to an Israeli law that gives all Jews the right to become Israeli citizens while depriving the Palestinians from going back to the homes taken from them in 1948 and 1967," Dagher said.

Hamas was instrumental in organising the forum and had a clear influence on its resolutions. But Hamas Political Bureau chief Khaled Meshaal refrained from attacking the PA in his keynote speech. Instead, he called for national unity and hailed "the steadfastness of the Palestinian people at home and abroad".