Refugees: Taif Accord

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Refugees: Taif Accord

Implementations

Refugees – 1989

During the Lebanese civil war of 1975—1990, almost a third of the country’s population was displaced. The Taif Accord did not stop violence and the displacement. The conflict ended when the South Lebanon Army (General Aoun) was defeated in 1990. According to UNDP report, hundreds of thousands of people who had found refuge abroad, about 450,000 persons remained internally displaced in Lebanon.[fn]”Profile of Internal Displacement: Lebanon,” UNDP, 1997, accessed April 4, 2011, http://www.idpproject.org.[/efn_note] No information available on settlement of refugees and IDPs in year 1989.

Refugees – 1990

No information available on settlement of IDPs and refugees.

Refugees – 1991

No information available on settlement of IDPs and refugees. However, the 1991 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report stated that ” the government was confronted with the problem of providing appropriate shelter to an estimated 800,000 Lebanese displaced during the years of civil unrest.”1

  1. “Lebanon Human Rights Practices, 1991” U.S. State Department Dispatch, February 1992.

Refugees – 1992

No further information available except that the government was confronted with the resources necessary to providing shelter to displaced persons.1

  1. “Lebanon Human Rights Practices, 1992,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, March 1993.

Refugees – 1993

According to State Department report, the Lebanese government started the process of encouraging those who emigrated to return to Lebanon. Similarly, the government started to encourage internally displaced persons to return to their homes. According to the report, “The process was slowed by financial constraints as well as lingering insecurity felt by the displaced. Hundreds of families, however, received keys to their homes and began to repair them. The Government concentrated its efforts on returning Christians to areas of the Shuf and ‘Alayh from which they had fled in the wake of Christian-Druze fighting in the mid-1980s.”1

To facilitate the process, the Lebanese government created two main structures in 1993 at the government-level to implement the return of the displaced. The first was the establishment of the Ministry of Displaced Persons to rehabilitate infrastructure and housing, improve the economic sector, as well as the education, health and social services, and to achieve national reconciliation. The second was the formation of the Central Fund of the Displaced to finance the return of the displaced.2

  1. “Lebanon Human Rights Practices, 1993,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, March 1994.
  2. “Profile of Internal Displacement: Lebanon.”

Refugees – 1994

There are no legal restrictions on the right of citizens to return to Lebanon. Some progress was made in terms of encouraging displaced individuals to return to their home. According to the State Department report, those displaced persons had begun to reclaim their homes abandoned during the war. However, a vast majority of them had yet to reclaim their property. “The resettlement process is slowed by tight budgetary constraints, destroyed infrastructure, the lack of schools and economic opportunities, and the fear that physical security is still lacking in some parts of the country.”1

  1. “Lebanon Human Rights Practices, 1994,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, March 1995.

Refugees – 1995

No further information available except that the resettlement process was slowed by tight budgetary constraints and difficulties in reconstruction of infrastructure. Physical security was also a concern.1

  1. “Lebanon Human Rights Practices, 1995,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, March 1996.

Refugees – 1996

Resettlement of IDPs was still a problem. According to the State Department report, there were still over 600,000 IDPs and vast majority of them had not reclaimed and rehabilitated their homes abandoned or damaged during the war. The resettlement process was slowed by tight budgetary constraints and difficulties in reconstruction of infrastructure. Physical security was also a concern.1

  1. “Lebanon Human Rights Practices, 1996,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, March 1997.

Refugees – 1997

IDP Global Database cites UNDP (1997) that the majority of the displaced population was from Mount Lebanon (about 62%) and 52.7% of those displaced arrived in that governate.1 But a vast majority of displaced persons still had yet to return and reclaim their property.

1998: Problems of resettlement of displaced remained. A vast majority of displaced persons had yet to return and reclaim their property.

1999: Problems of resettlement of displaced remained. A vast majority of displaced persons had yet to return and reclaim their property.

By establishing the Ministry of Displaced Persons and the Central Fund of the Displaced, the government tried to implement the provisions of the Taif accord but fell short of rehabilitating damaged infrastructure and providing security. Ten years after signing of the accord, its provisions had not been fully implemented. According to the IDP Global Database (2001), the Lebanese government estimated that $400m was needed to cover the return of all the displaced in Lebanon. However between 1991 and 1999, $800 million was spent and about 20 percent of the displaced were able to return to their villages. “Only nine percent of those who returned were fully reimbursed for their expenditure on house reconstruction, the great majority of returnees having to pay for reconstruction from private funds. Overt mismanagement and embezzlement of funds led to tension between the former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, the parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri and the Minister for the Displaced.”2

  1. “Profile of Internal Displacement: Lebanon,” 17.
  2. Ibid.