COLOMBO ; Members of the Free Palestinian Movement gathered in front of South African High Commission on Monday Jan 8 to express their solidarity and support with the South African’s effort to take Israel to International Court of Justice .
Palestinian ambassador Dr.Zuhair Hamdallah Zaid also took part in the event.
Copy of the letter handed to the South African embassy is appended here ;
The People and Government of South Africa
Plaint of “Genocide” by South Africa to the International Court of Justice
against the State of Israel
We, the “Free Palestine Movement of Sri Lanka”, wish to express the deep appreciation of all peace and justice-loving Sri Lankans for the decisive step South Africa has taken to challenge Israel in the International Court of Justice. We acknowledge the critical value of your plaint to the ICJ, against the deliberate slaughter of the Palestinian people and the destruction of their social infrastructure, living environment, history, culture, economic resources and future, by the Israeli State, supported by the US, the UK and states of the European Union.
The cold-blooded persistence of this genocide, not just for days or weeks, but for a fourth month now, with full knowledge, complete impunity, and in full view of the entire world, is among the worst ever moral and civilisational depredations in human history.
The hypocrisy of powerful Western countries has been exposed by this continuing criminal, barbaric action. Their obstinate refusal to apply international norms and principles to which they notionally subscribe, to hold Israel accountable, even as they provide financial, military and diplomatic support for this genocide, nakedly demonstrates their own domination over the world community and their true disregard for world social order and legality. It exposes the degree to which the Western powers dominate and control the international peace and justice mechanisms of the world. Their active complicity in this atrocity emasculates these institutional mechanisms. Indeed, in the grip of these powers, the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions, the international judicial system, are all being used to obstruct justice and peace.
By this action in the ICJ, South Africa is first among the very few nations that have, so far, successfully unified their citizens and exerted their diplomacy to decisively oppose these heinous crimes and to push an international mechanism into action.
In doing so, South Africa has provided the world with a clear beacon of political and moral integrity. Yours is an act of global leadership and assures humanity that all is not lost. Your initiative will demonstrate that governing global institutions are not fully corrupted or compromised beyond repair.
We, the Free Palestine Movement of Sri Lanka, join the people of the world, to mobilise our own governments, unify our own nations into similar action or in support of collective global actions to express humanity’s outrage and strident resistance to this barbarity. Even as we declare our support for your courageous initiative, we are aware of the covert and overt pressures being exerted politically and economically to deter resistance by weaker states and, to obtain complicity by regimes beholden to these same Western powers.
It is greatly encouraging to see a country uniting its political leaders and its citizens around a moral compass in a crisis. We hope that, following South Africa’s example, more governments will honour the call of their people and add their political strength to oppose this terrible wrong.
South Africa’s own bravery and sacrifice in successfully overthrowing its own unjust, foreign-imposed, apartheid system, through both armed resistance as well as an inspiring process of humane reconciliation is your heroic foundation on which you exert this new world initiative. It is a heroism arising from a national suffering that paralleled the current suffering of the Palestinian people, for so long under its own form of Apartheid, namely Zionist Israel.
Likewise, we look forward to a similar process of reconciliation between peoples of the land, both Israeli and Palestinian, in the long term, for a co-existence free of the shackles of Colonialism and great power manipulation.
Many other countries have experienced violent and terrible pasts – being perpetrators or victims of genocide, colonization, occupation and apartheid. It is tragic that some of these perpetrator or victim communities fail to channel these terrible experiences into anything constructive as they now unleash violence and genocide upon another group of persons.
We anticipate that this leadership shown by South Africa will herald the beginning of a new world order, in which there is no place for hypocrisy and hegemony; that it will inspire a new generation of political leaders who will be free to act with the highest standards of integrity for the true benefit of humanity and this earth. We assure you that we will make every effort to morally, politically, and diplomatically support your endeavour.
We join South Africa in the hope that this terrible tragedy can be quickly brought to an end and justice served, before even more lives are lost, more destruction is caused.
Very Sincerely,
The Free Palestine Movement,
For the peace-loving people of Sri Lanka
