Will Syria push through a split in the PLO?

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Tel al-Zaatar: a Palestinian camp destroyed with the support of the Syrians BOTH PLO leader Yassir Arafat and Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi are visiting various Middle East capitals to win support for their respective sides in the dispute that has broken out within the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

The internal dispute, which has already led to a few armed clashes, burst into the open some weeks ago. The PLO troops in Lebanon's Beka'a valley, where they are protected by the Syrian army, refused to serve under two new commanders appointed by Arafat.

The newly appointed commanders, said the objectors, had fled the field of battle when the Israelis launched their invasion exactly a year before. Arafat refused to back down, though he did try to create a compromise by appointing the popular General Ahmed Afani as Commander-in-Chief.

Predictably this gesture made no difference, for the appointment of the two commanders was merely the last straw. Ihe crucial issues related to the withdrawal of the PLO troops from Beirut and their dispersal in several Arab countries and the attitude of the PLO to the Fahd and Reagan plans.

The "rebel" group, led by Abu Mussa, sees Arafat's support for the plan put forward by Saudi Arabia's Prince Fahd as tantamount to recognition of the legitimacy of the state of Israel. It was pressure from this quarter too that forced Arafat after a long session of the PLO Executive to withdraw his support from a joint Jordanian-Palestinian agreement in line with the Reagan plan.

And even before the appointment of the two commanders to whom the rebels object, Arafat recalled 40 Fatah officers he considered unreliable from Lebanon to Tunis. His statement several weeks ago that only war could now win the Palestinians their rights can now be seen as attempt to assuage more militant elements within Fatah.

The fact that the Abu Mussa group is right in a good many of its criticisms of the Fatah leadership cannot be taken in itself of evidence of a progressive trend. It is clear that while the group may not be simply a creation of the Syrians, it is very much is £6 (adult), £9 (couple), £3 (student) and £1 for Youth CND (under 21).

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CN ng THE REBELS' demands are:

•Bring back to Lebanon all the PLO groups that last summer after the evacuation were split up between eight different Arab states.

•Creation of a military central leadership with fair participation for the other PLO organisations.

•Establishment of a committee of investigation into the financial activities of the PLO leadership.

• Working out of a long-term strategy for the prosecution of the armed struggle against Israel - an end to all negotiations.

Arafat need an active and sizeable military group, ready to launch attacks on the Israelis.

Syria's motives - Like Libya's - have nothing to do with the Palestinian cause. They are a temporary posture taken up until it is inconvenient - until, perhaps, the possibility of an agreement with imperialism offers itself ... even over the dead bodies of thousands of Palestinians.

In an interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel, Abu Mussa claims to be completely independent of Syria -merely in an alliance.

Yet he insists - rightly -on referring to King Hussein of Jordan as "the butcher of the Palestinians" without insisting on a similar designation for the Syrian leader Hafez el-Assad whose intervention on the side of the Phalangists in the Lebanese civil war was the prelude to the Palestinians' terrible defeat there.

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