The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), said Saturday that he will be extremely happy and proud "when practical results are achieved in gradually reducing the number of Syrian refugees from our region until making Batroun completely free of Syrian refugees."
Bassil's remarks came in a speech during a municipalities conference in Batroun, northern Lebanon, at which the FPM leader contended that "Batroun presents a new practical and pragmatic model for solving the problem of Syrian refugees by placing them under the authority of municipalities and enforcing Lebanese laws." Bassil, however, gave no specifics about what the model he referenced would entail.
Syrians in Lebanon have faced increasing verbal and physical abuse in recent weeks, following the murder of a Lebanese Forces official for which Syrian nationals were arrested.
Last week, FPM MPs questioned caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati about a billion-euro aid program promised to Lebanon last week by the European Union (EU) and suspected by some, including the FPM, of acting as a "bribe" to Lebanon to keep 1.5 million Syrians (according to official figures) on its territory and not allow them to migrate to Europe via the country.
Bassil said that when the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, "visited us … there was applause and praise for the billion-dollar initiative, which practically aims to prolong the stay of refugees in Lebanon for an additional four years, in exchange for opening the door for Lebanese to migrate seasonally to EU countries to work there temporarily."
Bassil pointed out that “when the security forces, specifically the Lebanese Army, are urged to tighten control over the land borders to prevent the entry of illegal Syrians, just as they tighten control over the maritime borders to prevent the migration of refugees to Europe, some saw the issue as a personal problem with the army commander [Joseph Aoun.]”
Aoun and Bassil have regularly been at odds with one another, specifically when the FPM, and Bassil in particular, rejected the extension of Aoun’s mandate as the army’s head of command, calling it illegal and describing Aoun as corrupt.
In an interview on Wednesday with the Russian channel Russia Today, Bassil said that "the solution [to the migration crisis] is not to support the Lebanese Army in the fight against emigration to Europe, but to help send migrants back to Syria."
‘We do not want to be racist’
Bassil said that his speech does not address "Syrians but refugees, because Syrians are a neighboring, friendly and dear people, and some of them work with us in our lives and they are part of our productive society that we want to preserve, but within our needs, capabilities and resources — not more than what the land and resources can bear."
Bassil clarified: "We do not want to spoil the human relationship with the Syrian people, nor do we want to spoil the special relationship with their country, nor do we want to lose our human feeling of sympathy with a people who have been tortured and displaced from their land, and we do not want to be racists. We just want to be nationalists, and this necessitates that we prioritize our people and our country over any other people and country.”
Bassil said that since 2011, he has been outspoken both within the Lebanese cabinet and outside it, demanding border control and allowing entry only for humanitarian and health cases in line with decisions from the ministers of Health and Interior.
He added, "On this basis, we held conferences for municipalities in several districts, especially in Jbeil, Keseroun, and Koura, and a few months ago we held a large central conference for municipalities with the participation of more than 200 municipalities. We issued recommendations and published a booklet and a platform to follow up on the work and procedures of municipalities, and the truth is that a large number of municipalities succeeded in reducing or removing refugees from their areas."
Bassil concluded that "Lebanon is not for sale, Batroun is not for sale, Lebanon is for the Lebanese, Batroun is for the Batrounians and the Lebanese, Lebanon and Batroun are for their people and not for anyone else to take them from us."
Lebanese politicians of all stripes regularly call for Syrians immediate repatriation. They claim that current conditions in Syria allow for such a return, while the UN and other human rights groups maintain the opposite.
Around 1.5 million Syrians live in Lebanon, making it the country with the highest refugee population per capita in the world. Some 800,000 of these Syrian nationals are registered with the UN; however, the UN halted registrations for Syrian refugees in Lebanon in 2015 at the direction of the Lebanese government.
The conflict that broke out in Syria in 2011 continues today, with more than 4,000 civilians and combatants killed in the country in 2023, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.