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Caribbean NGO to commemorate Palestinians killed since the Nakba

May 17, 2018 at 1:27 pm

The ‘Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine’ hold a protest calling for the end of Israel’s Apartheid [Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine/Facebook]

Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine [CAAP] and the Cuban Embassy will take part in a joint ceremony marking 70 years since the Palestinian Nakba today.

A flower laying ceremony will be held at the Cuban Monument in Paynes Bay later this evening, to “remember the victims of Zionism over the past seventy years and indeed beyond”, the group said in a statement.

“For over seventy years Palestinians have been daily murdered by the forces of Zionism while courageously standing up for their rights to be free from racism, colonialism, occupation, and oppression. All people committed to human rights need to stand with them. We must show solidarity with them, just as we did against apartheid in South Africa,” it concluded.

The ceremony’s venue commemorates the terrorist bombing of a Cuban civilian airline in Barbadian air space.

Lalu Hanuman, attorney-at-law and secretary of CAAP, said: “It is apt that this monument is the venue, as Zionism is a supremacist terrorist ideology.”

Read: Caribbean island pressured to act against Palestine mission

Last month, following the deaths of 32 Gazans protesting in the Great March of Return, CAAP called upon 15 Caribbean nations to urge the UN to hold an urgent investigation into the killings.

“They [Gazans] have a right to protest against their appalling conditions and the continuing blockade and occupation of Palestinian land, and in support of their right to return to their homes and their right to self-determination. Firing live ammunition into crowds of unarmed civilians is a crime against humanity,” the group said at the time.

Cuba is also one of the 17 UN member states that has called for an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council to take place tomorrow to discuss the killings of Gaza protesters.

In a statement yesterday, the Revolutionary Government condemned what it called “the criminal attack on the defenceless Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip”, emphasising that Israel’s actions violated international law.

“Cuba reiterates its rejection of the unilateral steps taken by the United States to establish its diplomatic representation in the city of Jerusalem, in utter contempt of international law and the United Nations resolutions, and further aggravating tensions in the region,” it concluded.

The government also restated its commitment to a free, sovereign Palestinian state according to the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Read: Palestinian outrage as US embassy opens in Jerusalem, 70 years since Nakba