2012 marks the fifth anniversary of one of Lebanon’s bloodiest battles since the end of the civil war: the deadly, three-month war pitting a jihadi group against the army in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. Since then, the camp’s displaced and resident population has suffered from slow reconstruction of their residences, a heavy security presence that restricts their movement and livelihood as well as the absence of a legitimate Palestinian body to represent their interests. Today, there are bigger and more urgent fish to fry, none more so than dealing with the ripple effects of Syria’s raging internal conflict on inter-sectarian relations in Lebanon and the risk that the country once again could plunge into civil war. But it would be wrong to toss the refugee camp question aside, for here too resides a potential future flare-up.

In Lebanon, attention typically shifts seamlessly from one crisis to another. What may look like a sign of stability should be a source of concern. It is the manifestation of a political system almost entirely focused on managing symptoms of conflict without genuinely tackling their causes. Instead, the state, refugee population and UN agency should work together to speed up the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared by freeing up as much land as possible for residential use; minimising the presence of Lebanese security forces in the camp; removing discriminatory laws in the camps; and introducing a Palestinian body to represent the refugees’ interests in decision-making.

The conflict that erupted in May 2007 brought face-to-face the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and a previously unknown Islamist fundamentalist group, Fatah al-Islam, based inside Nahr al-Bared. A bank robbery swiftly snowballed into an armed confrontation against the militants who killed several soldiers at an LAF checkpoint on the camp’s perimeter. Backed by a public incensed by pictures of the soldiers’ corpses, the army entered the camp, from which state security forces traditionally had been barred since 1969. Lebanese forces prevailed, but in the process much of the camp was devastated and 27,000 residents were displaced.

From all this destruction and loss, something good was supposed to come out: a model of coexistence between the state and Palestinian camps. The government appears to have taken the task seriously, developing a new vision, the so-called Vienna Document. It has yet to live up to expectations.

Camp reconstruction, led by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and funded by international donors, has lagged. Responsibility for this falls on inefficient contractors and a tug-of-war between on the one hand the army and the Internal Security Forces (ISF), which want more space in the camp and, on the other, UNRWA, which needs more land to build residential buildings. Living conditions likewise are unsatisfactory. The LAF has imposed a strict permit system that restricts access to the camp by both Lebanese and non-resident Palestinians, isolating Nahr al-Bared economically and socially. Because the ISF gradually is expanding its presence in the camp, the refugees fear that the discriminatory employment and property laws they face in Lebanon will be imposed for the first time in a camp, thereby severely affecting their livelihood. The Vienna Document does not allocate a meaningful governance role to Palestinian entities, thus marginalising the local population when it comes to key decisions regarding camp management and security.

The Palestinian refugees – and Lebanon – deserve better. The typical model of camp governance has serious flaws and is in need of repair. Power traditionally lies in the hands of Popular Committees comprising unelected faction leaders who derive most of their legitimacy from their weapons. With state security forces essentially banned from interfering, residents often complain of chaos and inter-factional strife in large, armed, and unregulated pockets immune to Lebanese law and order. Nahr al-Bared offered a real opportunity to build something different insofar as faction leaders had lost out – because they no longer possessed weapons and because they no longer enjoyed the trust of refugees who largely blamed them for failing to protect the camp.

But the new model that is taking form is not the answer. It is failing the basic task of restoring refugees to a normal life – at least as normal a life as refugeehood can allow. The relationship between camp residents and the state has not improved; rather, given the overwhelming security presence, refugees tend to see the authorities in the least appealing light: not protecting them, but rather protecting the country from them. They fear enforcement of discriminatory laws. Rigid permit requirements and rough treatment at camp checkpoints hurt intercommunal relations, already significantly damaged by the conflict which many Lebanese blamed on Palestinian refugees for harbouring jihadi militants and during which some Palestinians felt their Lebanese neighbours had been either complicit in their displacement or unwelcoming in the crisis’s aftermath. Most importantly, lacking an effective representative, Palestinians in Nahr al-Bared feel more disenfranchised than before.

There is still time to get things right. Should that be the case, the experience of Nahr al-Bared – after all the death and destruction it has endured – could help put relations between Palestinian refugees on the one hand, and the Lebanese and their state on the other, on firmer and sounder footing.

Beirut/Brussels, 1 March 2012