Durban | Sunday
SOUTH AFRICAN Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Saturday that the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) had to voice strong support and solidarity for the people of Palestine amid increasing conflict in the volatile Middle East region.
Speaking after the meeting of the Committee on Palestine at the International Convention Centre in Durban on Saturday afternoon, Dlamini-Zuma said the movement should use every means at its disposal including its influence in the United Nations General Assembly to support Palestine in its hour of need.”
Dlamini-Zuma spoke in her capacity as chair of the ministerial meeting of the co-ordinating bureau of NAM, which is also meeting in Durban.
She said NAM had to express solidarity with the young people of Palestine as well as its leader, Yasser Arafat, who was under Israeli siege and ”all the people of Palestine who are being humiliated and living under difficult conditions”.
Dlamini-Zuma did not want to elaborate on the decisions reached by the committee during its three-hour meeting, saying the committee first had to brief the ministerial meeting of the coordinating bureau of NAM.
She said the decisions taken by the 15 member countries making up the Committee on Palestine would be released on Monday at the closing session of the ministerial meeting.
The committee did, however, express outrage over the situation and the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East.
”It is almost as if the whole region (is) being brought to a precipice,” she said.
The committee outlined a number of steps to be taken to try and address the situation in the Middle East. These will also be divulged on Monday after the ministerial meeting had been briefed.
”We are not a military block and therefore we cannot take military steps, but we are a solidarity organisation of which the founding principle is the support of liberation struggles.
”The Palestinian struggle is for self determination and NAM has to voice strong solidarity with Palestine in its hour of need,” Dlamini-Zuma said.
The committee has also resolved to use their voice in the UN General Assembly, because it did not have a real voice in the Security Council.
The co-ordinating bureau in New York has called for a meeting of the committee on Palestine at ministerial level. This committee will meet in Durban on Saturday afternoon and will give detailed attention to the current situation in the Middle East.
It will report to the entire membership of the NAM on Sunday.
Members of the NAM security council caucus have also been invited to participate in the meeting along with Egypt and Jordan in their capacity as co-sponsors of the peace process.
In addition, the meeting will be attended by Lebanon in its capacity as the chair of the League of Arab States, as well as the Secretary General of the League of Arab States.
The committee on Palestine was set up during the VII Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government of the NAM, held in New Delhi in 1983.
The committee was set up to work with the various forces influential in the Middle East conflict to achieve comprehensive peace in the region.
Dlamini-Zuma is expected to address a plenary session of the ministerial meeting on Sunday morning.
President Thabo Mbeki will officially open the meeting on Sunday afternoon.
Foreign ministers and senior officials from 115 NAM member states started its three-day meeting in Durban on Saturday.
The meeting aims to discuss a number of critical issues facing the member states such as the violence in the Middle East. It will also finalise the agenda for the 8th NAM summit of heads of state and governments and look at progress made in implementing resolutions taken during the previous meeting. – Sapa