Business, family ties rule on Syria-Lebanon border
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
DEIR AL-ASHAYER FARMS (Syria): Syrian farmer Mostafa Hamoud uses dirt roads cutting through orchards to reach the land he has owned for decades across the border in Lebanon.
“Syrian authorities have been blocking roads, but they’re still many ways to get across,” Hamoud said as he unloaded boxes of red apples, aubergines and cauliflowers at Deir al-Ashayer Farms, a hilltop village on the Syrian side of the border.
“We sometimes bump into Lebanese security but they don’t say anything. Many Lebanese have abandoned agriculture and their land would become barren if Syrians did not take care of it,” Hamoud said.
Several Syrian soldiers stood guard nearby in front of recently erected sand barriers on a fertile plain separating Deir al-Ashayer Farms from Deir Al-Ashayer, its sister village in Lebanon.
Syria says it increased security on the 250-km border in response to Western pressure after Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon earlier this year. It is aimed at preventing alleged smuggling of arms to Hezbollah guerrillas, whom Syria supports.
“I have been moving through the border since I was a kid and I have never seen weapon smuggling,” Hamoud, 70, said.
Damascus, however, has refused to demarcate the border as urged by the United Nations after last year’s Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon.
Syria opposes demarcation partly because of the difficulty in determining where the border is and it does not want to open a Pandora’s box of land ownership disputes between Lebanese and Syrians, who have been living side by side for decades without demarcation.
Syria was the dominant player in Lebanon for three decades. Anti-Syrian politicians say the Baathist government in Damascus still interferes in Lebanon’s affairs and ignores its territorial integrity by refusing to establish diplomatic ties and agree to demarcation.
The border, which straddles the Lebanon mountain range, has had a reputation for lawlessness throughout its history. Syria’s closed economy made it a haven for smuggling imported goods and currency, while subsidised Syrian petrol and sheep flowed to Lebanon.
Maps that could help draw a border are disputed. Plots of Syrian and Lebanese land are usually fragmented, zigzagging and surrounding each other.
Visitors to the Deir al-Ashayer border area could become easily confused as to where they are. One expert said separating the territories along exact border lines could be a nightmare.
Thousands of Syrian workers, who form the backbone of Lebanon’s construction and farming sectors, walk across the border every day. Lebanon also depends on Syria as its only accessible land outlet to the world.
Syrian officials say enforcing border controls is difficult because of the erratic border and intermingling of populations. Western powers carved out Lebanon from what was known as Greater Syria only in 1920. They say demarcation and restricting movement to five existing border crossings would disrupt commerce, as well as the lives of thousands of farmers and daily wage earners.
A further complication is the occupation by Israel of a 25 sq km area to the south known as Shebaa Farms, which the United Nations considers Syrian territory. Damascus and Beirut regard the area as occupied Lebanese land.
“We are doing our best, but these smugglers are very smart. The other day we discovered a pipeline siphoning diesel into Lebanon,” a Syrian official said.—-Reuters
