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| Friday, 5 December 2003 |
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Another Berlin Wall? Statement by Mahinda Rajapaksa MP, President of the Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine With scant respect for peace and security in the West Asian region and with contempt for the human rights of the Palestinian people, Israel unashamedly continues the construction of the hated wall, widely known as the 'Second Berlin Wall', totally impervious to world opinion. This shameless wall will be 650 kilometres in length, 8 meters in height and 30 to 150 meters in width when completed and will protrude six to seven miles into the West Rank territory of Palestine. It is intended to protect the growing number of illegal jewish settlements forcibly established in palestinian territory since 1967 and at an accelerated pace since the beginning of the second Intifada in September 2000. It dwarfs, by comparison, the much condemned Berlin Wall which was only 155 kilometres long and 3.6 meters in height. By this monstrous act Israel will be isolating that part of Palestine in which Jewish settlements have been forcibly established from the rest of the Palestinian territory. The severe restriction of the movement of people across the wall will seriously disrupt the social and economic life of the Palestinian people. Family life will be adversely affected. Kinsmen will be separated from one another. Access to sources of livelihood will be jeopardized. The Palestinians now living between the Israeli border and the Wall will effectively become refugees. Thus violating the basic human rights of the Palestinian people, Israel makes a mockery of he Human Rights Charter of the United Nations. The wall that is being constructed within the territory of Palestine arises out of the same forces that produced the Berlin Wall within German territory, namely the forces of the Cold War. During that period Israel functioned as a Proxy State of the US in West Asia. Today, while the Cold War is relegated to history, the United States finds it difficult to divest itself of its responsibilities as perceived by its cold war, Client State of Israel. nevertheless, it is significant that the United States has recently marked its strong disapproval of the construction of the Wall, through a symbolic statement of protest couched in a financial idiom. Furthermore, it is most unfortunate that at a time when the United States is trying its best to make a distinction between the Islamic peoples in general and their terrorist fringes, Israel's action will only serve to blur that distinction and thereby further confound and exacerbate the conflict in West Asia. And above all, at a time when initiatives are being taken to bring peace and stability to West Asia, the construction of the hated wall gives - both symbolically as well as substantially - a permanent form to the West Asian conflict. It brings into question the validity of the Road Map and makes a further mockery of the Oslo Accord of 1993 which envisages a free and sovereign State of Palestine. The UN Resolution 242 prohibits the acquisition of territory by force, while the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the annexation of occupied territory. Furthermore, the Oslo Accord clearly states that "the status of the West Bank and Gaza shall not be changed pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiation. While appealing to the government of Sri Lanka as well as to civil society institutions concerned with issues of Peace, Conflict Resolution, Security and Human Rights to mark their disapproval of the Second Berlin Wall, we are confident that this wall too - like the Berlin Wall itself - will crumble in smithereens under the force of justice and the pressure of world opinion. |
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