PARTICIPANTS AT ASIAN MEETING ON QUESTION OF PALESTINE EXAMINE ROLE OF PARLIAMENTS IN ACHIEVING PALESTINIAN RIGHTS
Press Release
GA/PAL/824*
PARTICIPANTS AT ASIAN MEETING ON QUESTION OF PALESTINE EXAMINE ROLE OF PARLIAMENTS IN ACHIEVING PALESTINIAN RIGHTS
20000303HANOI, 3 March (Division for Palestinian Rights) -- At the morning session of the final day of the Asian Meeting on the Question of Palestine, held in Hanoi from 1 to 3 March, Bold Luvsanvandan, Member of the State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia and Member of the Executive Committee, Inter- Parliamentary Union (IPU), said the IPU was a focal point for worldwide parliamentary dialogue. It worked for peace and cooperation among peoples and for the firm establishment of representative democracy. It supported the efforts of the United Nations and shared its objectives. As a political organization whose principal goal was peace, the elimination of conflict situations through political negotiations and other peaceful means was a special priority of the Union. The present conditions of democratization, liberalization, and globalization, which constituted a new turn in world history, had reinforced significantly the IPU's role in international politics.
The Middle East had been on the IPU's agenda for several decades. In 1987 a six-member Committee on the Middle East had been set up to promote direct contacts and parliamentary action in support of the peace process. At the ninety-seventh Inter-Parliamentary Conference, which was held in Seoul in April 1997, the IPU had adopted, without a vote, a resolution on the status of Jerusalem which had called for the revocation of all measures and actions designed to alter the legal status, demographic composition or geographical structure of the city. It also had recommended that the situation in Jerusalem be monitored through the IPU's Committee on Middle East Questions.
The Union's Middle East Committee on the Question of the Affiliation of Palestine had examined Palestine's observer status at the Union and recommended that it be entitled to the same number of participants as other delegations and partake in the debates. His organization believed the work of parliamentarians was essential to the success of the peace process in the Middle East. As opinion makers, he said, parliamentarians could play a crucial role in keeping the public informed about the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
Humayun Rasheed Choudhury, Speaker of the Bangladesh Parliament, told the Meeting that the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People had enlarged the traditional vision of intergovernmental conferences and had made it possible to add "parliamentary actors of the new diplomacy" to that effort. Parliaments represented the voice of the people and
* Reissued to correct symbol of press release. It had been previously issued as PAL/1883.
- 2 - Press Release GA/PAL/824 3 March 2000
the respect for law was their first responsibility. It was the specific duty of parliamentarians as lawmakers to repeat in every international form that it was a universal principle of international law that military conquest did not grant territorial rights. It was a bitter lesson learnt from history that, on the contrary, it ensured the suffering of thousands of civilians and the exodus of refugees.
It was important that the economic future of the Palestinians not be overlooked. He suggested that parliamentarians and Asian peoples should work towards committing their governments' support to economic cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. Specifically, this could include orientating parliamentary business towards the establishment of trade links and business partnerships by enacting measures that would facilitate the development of Palestine, in a South-South cooperative perspective.
His own country Bangladesh knew that its future would be found in economic growth and democracy. Both were needed to assure a better life for future generations. Peace, democracy and prosperity were three objectives broadly shared by Asia, the Arab countries and Palestine. Suffering, cruelty, warfare and violence had marked half of the last century, where the name of the victim was Palestine. An historic opportunity existed to bring this conflict to an end.
The question of Palestine had always engendered great interest within the international community, said Phan Quang, Vice Chairman of the Committee for Foreign Relations of the National Assembly of Viet Nam. Many difficulties remained and these deserved special attention. Nevertheless, the Palestinian people, after their own considerable effort and with the support of the international community, had achieved some success. Progress had been made in the search for a just and satisfactory solution to the Middle East-Palestine question.
Any lasting solution would have to ensure respect for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return and the establishment of a State in their territory. The United Nations had declared itself responsible for the question of Palestine until the issue was resolved in a complete and satisfactory manner. It also had called for increased assistance and support for the Palestinian people.
The Palestine question was always a matter of great interest at conferences of the IPU. Many delegations, including Viet Nam's, had expressed their support for the struggle for the noble cause of the Palestinian people. He hoped that the United Nations and the international community would be able, as soon as possible, to put an end to the climate of insecurity in the region. He looked forward to the day when Palestine would set up its own assembly empowered to take part as a full-fledge member in the activities of the IPU and other parliamentary organizations.
In Israel, parliamentarians were elected on the basis of their social and political programmes, said Tamar Gozansky, Member of the Israeli Knesset. She agreed with other speakers that parliamentarians were influential in shaping public opinion about issues and could play a very useful role in creating a better atmosphere for peace. However, parliamentarians did not sign peace agreements; governments did. She gave a detailed picture of the parliamentary system in Israel, which, in her opinion, had led to the current impasse in several of the tracks of the Middle East peace process.
She supported the idea of cooperation among parliamentarians in the Middle East. Unfortunately, due to the prevailing circumstances in the region, such dialogue was limited. That was the case between the Israeli and Palestinian parliaments. There was no dialogue between the Knesset and parliaments in neighbouring Arab States. She was not placing blame, but pointing out a collective failure of parliamentarians in the region to find a common language of mutual understanding and study of problems in the Middle East together. She hoped that the IPU and other bodies could assist parliamentarians in her region to find ways to communicate with each other and form a better understanding of various points of view in the region.
She cautioned that even if a peace accord were signed it would not mean that all the region's problems would be solved. There was a long history, more than 100 years, of war, bloodshed, occupation, and absence of rights for the Palestinian people. She called on all lovers of peace, especially those in the non-governmental community, for solidarity with the men and women in Israel fighting for peace.
The Vietnamese people had keenly followed the development and persistent struggle of the Palestinian people and were heartened by their achievements, Hoang Thinh, Vice-Chairman of the Viet Nam Committee for Afro-Asian-Latin American Solidarity and Cooperation, told participants. Viet Nam had always supported the Middle East peace process and efforts to reach a fair and durable solution to problems in the region based on United Nations Security Council resolutions 242, 338 and 425 and the "land for peace" principle.
The unflinching support of Vietnamese non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the Palestinian cause was the basis for traditional friendship and bilateral cooperation between Viet Nam and Palestine. The Viet Nam Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian People had been founded in 1982. Over the past years, it had organized solidarity meetings, held talks and film shows on the Middle East peace process, and issued statements in support of the Palestinian Authority. Viet Nam was proud to have donated 1,000 tons of rice worth $314,000 to Palestine in 1995.
The Viet Nam Union of Peace, Solidarity and Friendship Organizations believed that NGOs around the world and in Asia should intensify their solidarity activities morally, as well as materially, in support of the Palestinian people through the following plan of action:
-- Organize national and regional meetings to promote the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and the signing of a framework agreement;
-- Work to pass resolutions in representative bodies, including parliaments, in support of the Palestinian people;
-- Focus media spotlight on the issue; and
-- Raise funds and materials needed by the Palestinian people, such as medicine, food, educational materials, and so forth.
Non-governmental organizations could not remain indifferent to the injustice being perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinians, said Mohideen Abdul Kader, Legal and Research Consultant, Third World Network. An end must be brought to the crime of silence on the part of the international community and pressure brought to uphold and protect the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
There were hundreds of NGOs in Asia and other parts of the world working on human rights issues. In the case of East Timor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, they had successfully persuaded the international community, in particular the "Big Powers", to take effective steps to put an end to human rights violations and uphold international law. In the case of Palestine, similar efforts should be undertaken. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict should be at the heart of activities undertaken by NGOs to mobilize public support and lobby national governments and international organizations to resolve that conflict based on international law and justice.
He agreed with activities suggested by the previous speaker and suggested the following as additional actions for NGOs to undertake:
-- Exposing the illegal pressure exerted by influential Israeli lobbies in the United States and United Kingdom;
-- Persuading governments to make diplomatic relations with Israel conditioned upon Israeli compliance with United Nations resolutions on the occupied territories; and
-- Setting up volunteer corps to help Palestine in developing its economic, social and cultural facilities.
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