JAN HENNOP, Pretoria | Thursday
PALESTINIAN leader Yasser Arafat declared on Wednesday that “we are trying our best” to find peace in the Middle East as he arrived in South Africa for a meeting with ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
Arafat met later with President Thabo Mbeki, the current chairman of the pro-Palestinian movement, but no details were released of those discussions ahead of Thursday’s meeting of the NAM committee on Palestine.
The Palestinian leader, who flew into Waterkloof Air Force Base near the capital, was asked whether he was confident of a resolution of the crisis.
“It is not easy, but we are trying our best,” he replied.
Arafat, who spoke in English, said he thought Israel, especially its top officials and chief of staff (Shaul Mofaz), would be “continuing their military escalation to finish what they have called the battle of the field of thorns against our people”.
He was due to talk in Johannesburg this morning with former president Nelson Mandela, who produced the outline of a Middle East peace plan in October 1999 after visiting the region.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saib Areqaat, speaking on Arafat’s behalf at a gathering of some 200 diplomats at the Pretoria residence of Palestinian ambassador Salman al-Herfi, after Arafat excused himself from speaking, claiming his English was poor, said: “We are a people of peace, on a mission of peace, and we need your help.”
He added: “We have no Palestinian tanks that surrounds Israeli villages, we have no Palestinian guns shelling Israeli towns.
“What were doing, we are trying to reach out for the Israelis, to tell you we want to strip you of your title as the last occupying power.”
South African Education Minister Kader Asmal, speaking at the same function, which journalists also attended, said that although South Africa wanted to see a compromise and a peaceful solution to the conflict in the Middle East, it could not be neutral.
“While we help to achieve some kind of peace in the interim, we can not be neutral about the enormous suffering of the people of Palestine, of the fact that their water, their capital and their livelihood had been destroyed in the last six or seven months,” he said.
“We want to convey our solidarity. Your people are our people.”
South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad, who met Arafat, told reporters: “The Palestinian situation is a complex problem. We don’t think this meeting will bring about a resolution, but we hope that we can contribute to finding a resolution.”
Pahad said Israel had not been invited to the meeting as it was not a NAM member.
“But we have been in touch with the Israeli government about the crises there,” he said.
Arafat visited South Africa in August last year and urged Mandela then to act as a mediator in the conflict.
Mandela replied in November that he saw no need to become involved in the talks.
Under the ignored Mandela plan, Israel would withdraw from Arab land it has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War; Arab states would recognise Israel’s sovereignty; and an international commission would be set up to resolve contested issues such as the status of Jerusalem and the future of Jewish settlers on the West Bank.
The NAM committee on Palestine was set up in 1983.
Apart from South African and the Palestinian Authority, ministers have been invited from countries on the committee or the UN Security Council: Algeria, Bangladesh, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Mali, Mauritius, Senegal, Singapore, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
NAM has publicly aligned itself with the Palestinian struggle for an independent state and criticised the United Nations for failing to implement resolutions to promote peace in the Middle East. – AFP