Newspaper
Sur
Buenos Aires, August, 21st of 1990
Invasions of yesterday and invasions of today (view)
By Suhail Hani
Daher Akel
Representative
of the Palestine Liberation Organization-PLO
Analyzing the present situation of Middle East is very difficult, but it is not very different from the situation suffered by the Arab countries, especially the Palestine State, in this century.
The Palestinian people and their national leadership, the PLO, respect one of the fundamental principles of people: self-determination. In spite of the latest events which have emerged about Iraq and Kuwait – without forgetting that it was a territory divided by English colonialism - we believe that this is a solely Arab conflict, which belongs solely to the Arab countries, and it should be solved within the context of the League of Arab States or, in the latest case, within the international forum of the United Nations.
How can you condemn an invasion and accept another invasion?
The watchman of the world, as the United States likes to call itself, has no right to condemn an invasion while it invades every land it feels like in the world – Panama, Granada and today the Middle East -. In the last case, armed soldiers have flooded the Middle East as if it was about to eliminate the planet.
What seems a paradox is that mostly the watchman is not very fair in his actions; at least we do not remember he took a similar position as it does today when Great Britain attacked Argentina in 1982, invading the Malvinas Islands; neither did he bother when Israel invaded Lebanese territory in 1982 and even less when Israel, in 1967, occupied and invaded all Palestinian land, turning our people from inhabitant to refugee, before the distracted eyes of the watchman... a look which continuos while Israel passes thousands of Palestinians, mostly children, women and grownups through the blade of its sword during these last three years of Intifada.
The Palestinian people, who search for their freedom and a dignified peace, hopes that this conflict may end in peace, with a positive understanding among both brotherly parties; but they also request the international community, especially the United States, to demand Israel, just as they demand Iraq, to leave the occupied zone; to demand Israel, just as they demand Iraq, to stop its use of chemical weapons and to put Israel under the same kind of boycott imposed to Iraq by the European community.
The Palestinians are not outside of this issue, specially when we see that the militarist State of Israel has increased its was machinery, deploying its forces not only in its own territory but also in occupied Palestine. This the reason why we ask the International community to be alert, because Israel is using the excuse a possible invasion against its territory, preparing a justification for the unchaining of a future genocide to be unleashed against our people.
The PLO has made efforts to find a suitable way out of the conflict and unlike what is being shown in the West and, specially, in Argentina, it has not applauded the Kuwait occupation.