Arafat rebels stick out for concessions

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 6

Arafat rebels stick out for concessions

NZPA-Reuter Damascus P.L.O. mediators have secured a cease-fire pledge from mutineers in Yasser Arafat’s Fatah guerrilla group, apparently in return for concessions, but rebel leaders indicate that their demands have not yet been satisfied. Six senior officials of the Palestine Liberation Organisation have been in Damascus meeting leaders of the two-month mutiny against Mr Arafat, the P.L.O. chairman. The Staterun Beirut radio reported sniping between mutineers and loyalists in the Syriancontrolled Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon on Monday, and said that one mutineer was killed. But the cease-fire seemed to be generally holding and the radio said that the Beirut-Damascus highway, around which the guerrilla fighting has occurred, stayed open and safe all day. Spokesmen for the mediators and the dissidents also announced agreement on “the need for collective leadership and not adopting

any unilateral decision before consulting the institutions of the P.L.0.”

But a prominent dissident leader, Abu Saleh, made it plain that further demands had yet to be met.

. “We are optimistic about the achievement of our demands and insist on the need for meeting these demands while we are scrupulously committed to the cease-fire,” he said.

The need for collective leadership was a reference to a main dissident grievance — that Mr Arafat has tended to act on his own initiative. The Syrian news media has echoed the complaint.

But there was no indication that Mr Arafat was prepared to let a proposed interim emergency committee run Fatah, the core of the P.L.0., pending a Fatah convention to debate his role.

The mutineers also accuse Mr Arafat of neglecting the armed struggle against Israel and becoming too involved in pursuing American peace proposals in talks with King Hussein

of Jordan. The Reagan Administration has proposed Palestinian autonomy on the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan, not a Palestinian State as the P.L.O. and the Arab League demand. Meanwhile, the American Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz, was due yesterday to fly from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and Damascus for talks on a complete foreign troop withdrawal from Lebanon.

Mr Shultz, who arrived in Jeddah from Pakistan yesterday, met King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. Earlier he had talks with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal. No details were available on the meetings, which were also attended by the American special envoy, Philip Habib.

Syria has about 40,000 soldiers in east and north Lebanon, alongside about 7000 Palestinian fighters, and there can be no complete troop withdrawal from Lebanon without its agreement.