NAM ministerial meeting ends with concentration on Palestine

The 16th Ministerial Conference and Commemorative Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement ( NAM) came to an end in Bali, Indonesia on Friday, with a great concentration on Palestine.

On Friday morning, the meeting had a special segment on the Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli jails and detention centers. Several foreign ministers and delegates from NAM member states, including Egypt and Indonesia, condemned one by one Israel for detaining more than 6,000 Palestinian political prisoners and detainees.

Nabil Al-Araby, Egypt's Minister of Foreign Affairs, claimed that among the Palestinian political prisoners and detainees, there were hundreds of children under the age of 18 and women.

"NAM condemns in the strongest terms the inhumane practices against the Palestinian political prisoners and their systematic torture which resulted in the death of at least 200 Palestinian prisoners until now," said Nabil Al-Araby, the current NAM chair, adding that the detention clearly violated the Forth Geneva Convention, and the Israeli practices used against the prisoners constitute serious violation of human rights and international humanitarian law.

Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said at the same occasion that the issue of Palestinian political prisoners was a serious impediment to achieving a just, peaceful and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue, and the imprisonment hampered the process of peace negotiation between Israel and Palestine, as many of the prisoners were Palestinian officials and members of the legislative council, who in the mainstream of the Palestinian political process should work with Israel counterparts to negotiate the way forward.

The attitude of these speakers was well reflected in the two documents, the Bali Commemorative Declaration and the 127-page Final Document.

According to the Bali Commemorative Declaration, NAM would remain at the forefront of support for the historic march of the Palestinian people to realize freedom, peace and justice, in line with the long-standing international consensus recognizing the Palestinian People as a nation and recognizing their inalienable right to self-determination on the basis of the borders on June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The NAM member countries even listed this as part of their objectives in the next 50 years and beyond.

The Final Document included two other declarations related to Palestine, the Declaration on Palestine and the Declaration on Palestine Political Prisoners.

As Marty Natalegawa mentioned in his closing remarks to the meeting, NAM member countries in this document confirmed their solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people to establish a sovereign state in their own homeland. They also called for the release of Palestinian political prisoners and denounced the brutality that they are suffering in the hands of the Israeli Government, for these were the very people who are needed to expedite the Middle East peace process.

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