Occupied Palestine, August 14, 2010
Dear comrades gathered at the Social Movement Assembly,
Dear participants at the IV Americas Social Forum,
Unfortunately, none of us was able to be with you at the Americas Social Forum. However, as the organizing committee of the World Social Forum in Palestine we wish to express our solidarity with the struggles of the people in Latin America for social and political justice. We are inspired by your struggles and hope this Forum has given a new impetus to your movements.
We hope that in your calls, plans and deliberations you strengthen once again the solidarity with Palestine based on the Palestinian united call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel. It is the way people, organizations and governments can hold Israel accountable for its crimes due to the international community’s inability to do so.
The United Nations has shown once again that it is powerless to fulfil its mandate to maintain peace in the world. Only two weeks ago, the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon appointed a Panel of Inquiry into the assault of the Gaza Flotilla and the killing of nine activists in international waters by the Israeli navy in order to sideline other international attempts to establish truth and justice. The vice-chair of this Panel is nobody but the former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.
The appointment of Alvaro Uribe to lead a probe into Israel’s human rights abuses is grotesque. Colombia has just experienced eight of the most terrible years of her sad story under his presidency. At least 2,000 civilians were murdered by government troops. Massacres, enforced disappearances, forced displacement and other grave international crimes have been documented by the United Nations in Colombia under Uribe’s presidency. In addition, Uribe has waged a vicious attack against human rights defenders and others who have sought to bring accountability to his government for its involvement in human rights violations. Uribe and armed forces have learned many of these techniques directly from their Israeli counterparts. Colombia employs former Israeli intelligence experts as mercenaries to fight against its people and is one of the largest recipients of Israeli arms. In 2007, the American Jewish Committee presented Uribe with its “Light unto the Nations” Award.
The United Nations’ appointment of the ex-president of Colombia – the ‘Israel of Latin America’, the US stronghold in the region – to hold Israel accountable for its crimes, further erodes its credibility: it undermines the struggles in Palestine as well as in Colombia.
We call on the social movements gathered in the Social Movements Assembly of the IV Americas Social Forum:
* to denounce the formation of this Panel of Inquiry and in particular the appointments Alvaro Uribe
* to struggle together with us for an end to Israeli crimes and apartheid policies
* to build a movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) to stop Israel’s the economic, military and political encroachment in Latin America, a regime which has historically sided with and aided dictatorships, military coups and crimes against the people in the region.
Palestinian organizing committee of the World Social Forum in Palestine