On the Occasion of the
International Day of Peasants’ Struggle[1]:
PARC Urges Immediate Support for the Palestinian Farmers
17 April 2005
The
Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) issues
this statement on the farmers’ grave conditions in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories in order to call
international attention to the insecurity, lawlessness and
flagrant aggression inflicted on Palestinian defenseless
farmers by Israeli army and settlers. PARC wishes to implore
the international farmers’ and social movements to take an
immediate action in support of the Palestinian farmers.
Since
the new Hamas-led Cabinet of the Palestinian Authority has
sworn in on March 30, 2006 following the landslide victory
of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the
legislative (parliamentary) elections last January, Israel,
the United States, Canada and the European Union declared a
politically motivated war against the poverty-stricken
Palestinian people; Israel by freezing the transfer of the
tax revenues ($50 million monthly) and ceasing all kinds of
contacts with the Palestinian new government including
security coordination, and the rest countries by curtailing
aid to the Palestinian Authority who employs approximately
140,000 people. This hasty and unjustified action against
the vulnerable Palestinians will deepen the already-existing
economic crisis and people’s distress. It will lead to an
inevitable humanitarian catastrophe and widespread food
shortages that will drastically hit the Palestinian
population (approximately 3.2 million) including destitute
farmers.
Palestinian farmers, men and women, have suffered for
four consecutive decades from an Israeli deep-rooted and
systematic policy of land expropriation, destruction of
agricultural land and trees, closing pastures and
fishing harbor, bloody attacks and intimidation by
Israeli army and settlers, additional to strict closure
and restriction of farmers’ movement into farms and
markets.
Israel’s
escalation of oppressive measures and hostilities
against Palestinian farmers during the last four years
culminated by the construction of the Wall commenced in
2002. The Wall has created further economic hardships to
farmers due to expropriation of arable land and
restriction of access to the agricultural land from
which farmers earn a living. The State Information
Service stated in their report of March 14, 2006 that
244,494 dunums of West Bank land have been confiscated
by the Israeli occupation authorities since 29 March
2003
A total of 49.400
West Bank Palestinians predominantly farmers living in
38 villages will be residing in closed areas i.e.
between the Wall and the Green Line once the Wall is
completed
[3].
This means that
farmers will need a special permit to access to their
farms in order to cultivate, harvest and graze their
animals. Palestinian farmers will have to present
documents to prove their legal ownership of the land to
the Israeli military authority so as the latter will
issue a special permission that will enable farmers to
reach their land through tens of agricultural gates
existing in the Wall that are manned and controlled by
Israeli soldiers.
Since the outbreak of
the second Intifada in September 2000 and up till
February 2006 during which Israel escalated its air
strikes, shelling and bombardment against Palestinian
civilian population and property, 16,195 farmers have
lost their income and livelihood due to the destruction
of their farmed land
[4].
76,867 dunums of agricultural land were bulldozed
rendering thousands of farmers landless[5].
Approximately 13% of Gaza’s agricultural land has been
leveled[6].
1,355,290 trees were uprooted, 756 poultry farms were
destroyed, 14,749 goats and 12,132 cows died due to the
destruction of animals barns and pasture land, 403 wells
were destroyed and 207 farmers’ houses were demolished[7].
At the
onset of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
in 1967, Israel intensified its on the ground operations
to destroy the Palestinian agricultural sector and
economy in order to subjugate the Palestinians to the
Israeli economy. Palestinian farmers on the other hand,
have courageously fought against land confiscation. They
resisted the construction of Israeli colonies (200
settlements housing 400,000 settlers with a built-up
area of 181 square km) on their land. Palestinian
unarmed and peaceful farmers clashed with armed settlers
who occasionally attacked their farms, burned or stole
their crops. Many Palestinian farmers were shot killed
or got injured during harvesting crops by Israeli army’s
fire. 42 Palestinians were killed by Israeli settlers
during the period 2000- 2005
[8].
Thousands of dunums of olive groves were burned down by
the ardent settlers depriving hundreds of Palestinian
families of subsistence income.
Despite of
the Israeli persistent atrocities and systematic
policies, agriculture continues to play an important
role in the economies of the Occupied Palestinian
Territories. It ensures the minimal food production
required to prevent mass starvation and total
devastation considering the indispensable importance of
food security in enhancing the Palestinian people’s
existence. The importance of agriculture stems from its
input to the labor market. The contribution of
agriculture to employment has risen from 12.7% in 1995
to about 16% in 200
5[9].
In
addition, it provided work for more than 39% of those
who work in informal sectors[10].
Palestinian farmers and rural households have been using
self coping mechanisms to survive the economic hardship
caused by the Israeli occupation. Rural women who are
actively engaged in agriculture (65% of the agriculture
labor is done by women) have been of great help in
ensuring subsistence living through cultivating their
house gardens and establishing small- scale poultry and
rabbit farms as well as other modest agro-industry and
food- processing projects. Though these coping
mechanisms assisted rural families during curfews and
closures, yet, they are unstable and at constant risk of
destruction by the Israeli military troops and fanatic
settlers who pay no heed to the international
humanitarian law and to the Palestinian humanitarian
requirements for food supplies.
Taking into consideration the aforementioned appalling
facts, we wish to express our deep concern about the
uncontrolled and devastating social and economic
consequences that will be caused by freezing the foreign
aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Seizing the opportunity of April 17th
momentum, we wish to stress the urgent need of the
Palestinian farmers for a vast movement of human
solidarity. We are confident that international farmers’
movements will not fail us down. We urge you to use your
influence across the world to stop the imposition of the
collective sanctions against the Palestinian people
through writing to concerned parties; the UN, USA, EU,
and Canada inviting them to carry out a drastic review
of their positions toward suspending foreign aid.
Furthermore, we highly appreciate your efforts to bring
to light the disastrous situations of the Palestinian
farmers in the OPT through the vigils you are organizing
across the world in commemoration of April 17.
We demand
a pressure campaign on Israel, the occupying power, to
immediately stop its flagrant violation of Palestinian
human rights particularly farmers’ rights to life and
livelihood.
Key
Contacts:
Kofi Anan
UN Secretary-General
Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General United Nations,
S-378 New York, NY
100178 Fax. 212-963-7055
George W. Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington DC 20500
Fax: 001-202-4562461
Condoleezza Rice
US Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520
Tel: 001-202-6476575
Javier Solana
High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security
Policy
Council of the European Union
Rue de la Loi, 175 B-1048 Bruxelles
Tel: 0032-2-2856111
Fax 0032-2-2857397
Ursula Plassnik
Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs
Tel: 0043-(0)5-01150-0
Fax: 0043-(0)5-01159-0
E-mail:
ursula.plassnik@bmaa.gv.at
Elmar Brok
Chairman
European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs
60, rue Wiertz
B-1047 Bruxelles
Fax: 0032-(0)2-2849323
E-mail:
ebrok@europarl.eu.int
/
ebrok@t-online.de
Jack Straw MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Tel: 0044-020-72701500
E-mail:
jack.straw@fco.gov.uk
Dr.
Kim Howells
Minister of State for the Middle East
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH
Tel: 0044-020-72701500
Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
KIA OA2
Fax: 613 914 6900
Peter Mckay
Minister of Foreign Affairs & Minister of the
Atlantic
125 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, ON. Canada
K1A OG2
Fax: 613 996 9709
Ehud Olmert
Designate
Prime Minister of Israel
Tel: 00972-(0)2-6753286/6753740
We highly appreciate your immediate action. Kindly
cc PARC contact person:
Ghada Zughayar,
Assistant to the
General Director for External Relations
PARC- Beit Hanina
P.O. Box 25128, Shu'fat/ Jerusalem
Tel. 00972 2 5833818
Fax: 00972 2 5831 898
Mobile: (+972) (0) 52 2 327 644
E-mail: ghada @pal-arc.org
http://www.parc.ps
[1]
On April 17, 1996, the Brazilian
military police opened fire on a group of landless
demonstrators, killing 19 immediately and wounding many
others. All but two of the 149 police were acquitted and
those who were found guilty were not detained (http://www.mstbrazil.org/?q=node/308).
Since then, the International Peasant Movement “La Via
Campesina” as well as farmers’ groups and organizations
across the world commemorate the 17th of April
each year to bring farmers’ struggle for their legitimate
rights to the international attention. This year marks the
ten-year commemoration of this massacre.
