BATROUN, Lebanon: There is little to disturb the quiet peace of Ebrin during the day. The majority-Christian, leafy village near Batroun is home to some 2,000 Lebanese and about 550 Syrians. There is an 8 p.m. curfew for the village’s Syrians and at night some 25 to 30 residents will help enforce that curfew.
Residents who take part in guarding the town say they primarily consist of patrols and observation posts manned by three or four of the residents at key areas in the town and near concentrations of Syrian residents.
They say the watchmen belong to different political parties, although the district of Batroun primarily votes for March 14.
Volunteers are sanctioned by the local municipality, giving the patrols legal legitimacy, and they say they are not armed – usually only the municipality police carry weapons, though if the watchmen do have arms they say they conceal them.
The municipality informs volunteers of the schedule for the guards, one of whom said it has also provided them with walkie-talkies.
The watchmen also say the patrols are motivated by “fear of Syrians,” saying their numbers have increased in recent months, raising their fears of potential theft and gang activities, and even terrorist “sleeper cells” that could be mobilized to conduct attacks in Lebanon.
And they say if they do not enforce the curfew the town “will surely unravel.”
One Ebrin resident who takes part in the patrols said townspeople do not know many of the refugees there, adding that they often work outside the village or rent out their own spaces to other Syrians. They also said some were increasingly belligerent toward local law enforcement.
But with the new patrols, “they became quiet,” the watchman said.
“If every Syrian gets a slingshot and they decided to march on the town they could take it over,” one volunteer said. “There are a lot who are decent but there is fear because of what’s going on.”
“We must watch the Syrians, and the youth want to protect the village,” he added.
Patrol shifts last about three hours, and he said when the Army passes through the village they do not object to the watchmen’s presence.
A local official said the townsmen were implementing the municipality’s decision to enforce the curfew in order to prevent thefts and sleeper cells by subjecting anyone who breaks the curfew to searches.
The official said the rule was not intended as discriminatory.
“We have no enmity with Syrians, but we want to protect ourselves,” he said. “Many employ Syrian workers and offer them help, but there are limits.”
But some Syrians in the village say the measures are racist and arbitrary, and complain of abuse and harassment at the hands of some watchmen, who they say bar them from even going to the local pharmacy past the curfew if they need essentials like medicine.
And not all local officials in Batroun are on board, with one decrying the measures of the individual municipalities like Ebrin’s as discriminatory.
“Our problems in this country are from discrimination,” said Marcellino al-Hark, the head of Batroun’s municipality. “I am against barring a human being’s freedom. You can’t take a decision like this based on where a person comes from, his identity, race or sect.”
Hark said many municipalities took the decision of imposing the curfew on Syrians despite his opposition, and said he refuses to implement such a measure in Batroun itself.
“I don’t believe in it, I believe in human rights,” he said.
There are about 8,000 Syrians in Batroun and the surrounding countryside, to about 50,000 Lebanese. Hark said the main concern as a result of the Syrian presence is “job loss.”
“Security-wise, we haven’t experienced any crime, we used to have problems with robberies here and there but nothing that counts, which with the situation all over the country, we’re doing pretty well,” he said.
Hark said the Lebanese government had failed in taking responsibility for the refugee crisis by building camps and organizing the Syrian refugee presence, and instead left municipalities to carry the burden.
He dismissed concerns that the camps could become permanent in the same way the Palestinian camps are, saying there was a huge difference between Palestinians, whose lands were robbed by Israel, and Syrians, who are going to return home when the war is over.
“In the end it’s their land, and we know they are returning to it, we cannot make such comparisons,” he said.
The curfew itself is not a new measure, though the calls of local municipalities on Lebanese residents to enforce it is – in Ebrin it was instated less than two weeks ago.
The measures come at a particularly tense time in relations between the Lebanese and refugees from Syria, some of whom have been blamed for acts of violence perpetrated by extremist Syrian rebels in Lebanon, including the brief takeover of the border town of Arsal by militants pledging allegiance to ISIS and the Nusra Front, as well as the subsequent beheading of two Lebanese soldiers.
The killings were followed by reprisals against Syrians, with some communities asking them to leave areas where they set up camp and others burning tented settlements.
In addition, some Christian border villages have also set up self-defense units to guard against potential ISIS incursions amid a lack of sufficient manpower among the Army and Internal Security Forces, who are spread too thin and cannot set up permanent protective measures in areas around the country.
Residents have increasingly sought to defend themselves against threats they see as potentially existential, particularly in Christian areas where residents believe they will be slaughtered by militants if they ever hold sway near their homes.
But a Syrian resident who has lived with his family and relatives in the town for the last three years after fleeing the country near the beginning of the rebellion against President Bashar Assad complained of harassment by the watchmen in Ebrin, saying he occasionally saw one of the men camped out right beneath his window and said some chose to fire hunting rifles close to his home, despite the presence of children.
He said he was not allowed to seek a doctor or buy medicine after the curfew began, even if a child was very ill, adding that there was increasing discrimination toward Syrians, particularly in the last few months.
“You know, the camps are better than staying here,” he said. “Every time something happens, it must be the Syrians.”
Hark, the head of Batroun’s municipality, criticized such measures. “If you deal like this with a refugee, someone who is homeless, hungry, needs help, and you dealt with him this way, what will be his reaction?” Hark asked.
“You can’t bar him, because he is Syrian, from going to buy milk for his children if they run out or get medicine for your child. That’s wrong. It’s shameful.”
