Declaration of Solidarity with Palestine – Second Continental Assembly CLOC/LVC
(Colombia, May 4, 2017) From the organizations of the Coordinadora Latinoamerica de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC-La Vía Campesina), we express our solidarity with the Palestinian men and women prisoners who are in the third week of their courageous and dignified hunger strike within Israeli prisons.
The Palestinian people have resisted over 100 years of colonialism and over 50 years of occupation. This continuing occupation has denied land access rights to Palestinian women and men, as Israeli occupation forces have promoted the progressive dispossession of Palestinian peasants, burned their crops and restricted their ability to use roads to transport food and farm inputs.
We reject the systematic violation by the State of Israel of the human rights of the Palestinian population, which is taking place with total immunity before the eyes of the world. Right now, as more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners are on hunger strike, we denounce the fact that Israel maintains child prisoners and continues using “administrative detention” as a punishment against those who struggle for freedom, dignity and justice, holding detainees for years
without charges in clear violation of international law.
As social organizations of peasant women and men, workers, indigenous peoples and African diaspora in Latin America, many of us have also been the object of repression by our governments. Palestinian hunger strikers, we are brothers and sisters with you in struggle! We are conscious of the need to make alliances of solidarity among the oppressed of the world.
For these reasons, the Coordinadora Latinoamerica de Organizaciones del Campo deeply feels solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners. We call on the Israeli government to hear their demands and respect their lives.
Although the governments of the world continue to ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people and defend the occupation force, we will struggle together to end this injustice.
No to capitalism, yes to the sovereignty of our peoples!
America, united, continues in struggle!
