[News] Fidel Castro, Alice Walker, Bolivian president condemn Israel, join Latin American boycott call

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Fidel Castro, Alice Walker, Bolivian president condemn Israel, join
  Latin American boycott call

Submitted by Jimmy Johnson on Sun, 08/10/2014
*http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/jimmy-johnson/fidel-castro-alice-walker-bolivian-president-condemn-israel-join-latin-american*

A group of high-profile political figures predominantly from Central 
America, South America and the Caribbean including Bolivian 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bolivia> President Evo Morales 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/evo-morales>, US author Alice Walker 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/alice-walker>, deposed Honduran 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/honduras> President Manuel Zelaya 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/manuel-zelaya> (signed with his 
common name "Mel Zelaya"), former Cuban 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/cuba> president Fidel Castro 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/fidel-castro> (who signed 
<http://cubaendefensadelahumanidad.blogspot.com/2014/08/firma-fidel-castro-manifiesto-en.html> 
shortly after the statement's initial release), Cuban musician Silvio 
Rodrígiuez <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/silvio-rodriguez>, 
Ecuadoran <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ecuador> author Eduardo 
Galeano <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/eduardo-galeano> and others 
have signed onto a strongly worded statement of solidarity with the 
Palestinian people under the banner of the Network for the Defense of 
Humanity.

The statement titled "In Defense of Palestine" condemns Israeli colonial 
occupation of Palestine, the ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/#gazaunderattack>, and US 
imperialism and European complicity in Israel's actions while calling 
for support for global boycott, divestment and sanctions 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bds> campaigns.

It takes as its starting point Bolivian President Evo Morales' 30 July 
declaration of Israel as a "terrorist state 
<http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2014/07/30/evo-morales-ubica-a-israel-en-lista-de-paises-terroristas-por-ofensiva-en-gaza-9490.html>," 
a statment made upon revoking a 1972 Israeli-Bolivian visa agreement in 
reponse to Israel's ongoing attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip 
and West Bank.

The full "In Defense of Palestine" statement is reproduced below along 
with the list of original signatories. It is available on the /América 
Latina en Movimiento/ website in both Spanish 
<http://alainet.org/active/75935> and English 
<http://alainet.org/active/75950>.

    We take up as our own the words of compañero Evo Morales, a founder
    of the Network in Defense of Humanity and President of the
    Plurinational State of Bolivia, who has declared Israel to be a
    terrorist state.

    We express our absolute repulsion at the genocide being carried out
    against the Palestinian people by a state founded on dispossession
    and the colonial occupation of Palestinian territories.

    We pay recognition to, and express our solidarity with the
    Palestinian people and its resistance organizations, especially in
    Gaza, in their heroic struggle against Israeli attempts to
    exterminate them and seize the small pieces that remain of what was
    once their homeland.

    We condemn the imperialist role of the United States that
    politically, financially and militarily sponsors and backs Israel,
    in the face of the extraordinary inaction of the UN Security Council
    whose resolutions on the question of Palestine are systematically
    violated with complete impunity by Washington. The United States is
    once again demonstrating the hypocrisy and cynicism with which it
    has acted throughout history, threatening sanctions and
    interventions against the peoples of Latin America, Africa and
    Eurasia who defend their sovereignty at the same time as its backs
    the actions of Israel.

    We denounce the complicity in what is occurring, by default in some
    cases, of the governments that make up the European Union, as well
    as the unconditional subordination of the media oligarchs to
    Washington's dictates. Enough of calling it a war when in fact it is
    a genocide being perpetrated by one of the best equipped armies in
    the world against a people whose defensive resources are infinitely
    inferior in quantity and quality!

    We encourage you to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
    campaign against the terrorist state of Israel, as it is time for
    active and creative solidarity that goes beyond statements of
    condemnation. We have failed the more than 1600 people killed in
    Palestine over the last few weeks, as well as the more than 9000
    injured since the start of the terrorist operation hypocritically
    named "Protective Edge."

    We demand an end to apartheid and genocide, as well as to the walls
    and illegal settlements. We call on the governments of the world to
    demand that Israel complies with UN Security Council resolutions
    that oblige it to withdraw from Gaza, the West Bank and East
    Jerusalem, return to the borders that existed prior to the "Six Day
    War" (1967) and guarantee the right of return for Palestinian
    refugees, as per Security Council Resolution No. 242, November 22,
    1967, a resolution that has been consistently ignored by the state
    of Israel.

    We call for a real political solution to the conflict in Palestine
    on the basis of dialogue, negotiation and the existence of two
    states with equal rights and delineated borders that are
    internationally recognized. We believe this solution must begin with
    the immediate lifting of the blockade on Gaza and the liberation of
    all Palestinian political prisoners. We congratulate the governments
    of ALBA [Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas],
    Mercosur [Common Market of the South] and other governments of the
    South for their position of solidarity against the barbaric actions
    of Israel in Gaza.

    We adopt as our own the words of the revolutionary, Nelson Mandela:
    "We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom
    of the Palestinians." We affirm that Israel has morally and
    politically lost this battle in the face of the brave Palestinian
    people and the growing condemnation by the peoples of the world of a
    "criminal" state that violates international law. The unbreakable
    Palestinian resistance will be rewarded, sooner rather than later,
    with the smiles of their children in a free homeland.

    Against Israeli terrorism and US imperialism, in defense of the
    right to self-determination for Palestine and all the peoples of the
    world!(Translation: Fred Fuentes)

    Sign on: endefensadepalestina at gmail.com
    <mailto:endefensadepalestina at gmail.com>

    La Paz, Bolivia
    August 4 2014

    Initial signatories:

    Evo Morales, Bolivia; Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentina; Pablo
    González Casanova, México; Eduardo Galeano, Uruguay; Roberto
    Fernández Retamar, Cuba; Federico Mayor Zaragoza, España; Silvio
    Rodríguez, Cuba; Luis Arce Catacora, Bolivia; Gianni Vattimo,
    Italia; Gabriela Rivadeneira, Ecuador; Alice Walker, Estados Unidos;
    István Meszáros, Hungría/Reino Unido; Samir Amin, Egipto; Alfonso
    Sastre, País Vasco; Nardi Suxo, Bolivia; Enrique Dussel, México;
    Marta Harnecker, Chile; Carmen Bohorquez, Venezuela; Cesar Navarro,
    Bolivia; Miguel Barnet , Cuba; Franz Hinkelammert, Alemania/ Costa
    Rica; Héctor Arce Zaconeta, Bolivia; Piedad Córdoba, Colombia;
    Reverendo Raúl Suárez, Cuba; Martín Almada, Paraguay; Fernando
    Rendón, Colombia; Graziella Pogolloti, Cuba; Sacha Llorenti,
    Bolivia; Ana Esther Ceceña, México; Luis Britto, Venezuela; Rafael
    Cancel Miranda, Puerto Rico; Atilio Boron, Argentina; Theotonio Dos
    Santos, Brasil; Alfredo Rada, Bolivia; Farruco Sesto, Venezuela;
    Obispo Pedro Casaldaliga; Catalunya-Brasil; Ángel Guerra Cabrera,
    Cuba/ México; Juan Carlos Trujillo, Bolivia; Mel Zelaya, Honduras;
    Hildebrando Pérez Grande, Perú; Patricia Villegas,
    Colombia/Venezuela; María Nela Prada, Bolivia; Stella Calloni,
    Argentina; José Steinsleger, Argentina/México; Omar González, Cuba;
    Hugo Moldiz, Bolivia; Pascual Serrano, España; Raúl Pérez Torres,
    Ecuador; Obispo Raúl Vera, México; Joao Pedro Stedile, Brasil;
    Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Portugal; Rodrigo Álvarez Cambras, Cuba;
    Socorro Gomes, Brasil; Katu Arkonada, País Vasco/Bolivia

-- 
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863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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