Caricom must stand with the Palestinian people

I am extremely disappointed to see the almost dead silence in our society on some of the worst human rights violations and the horrific killings that are taking place in the Gaza Strip as Palestinians, men, women and children are dying like flies. Yet, in some ways the dead Palestinians may be the lucky ones, for those that may survive this nakba (the catastrophe) will be physically maimed and condemned to live in sub-human conditions in open air prisons and must be prepared to accept daily humiliation – in a word, they will live a life that is worse than death.

My sadness was deepened when, on October 11, 2023, I saw the Israeli Ambassador to Guyana’s letter in our main newspapers – this propaganda is in addition to the daily ‘cool-aid’ our people are forced to drink from the overwhelmingly pro US media which we are exposed to. True, the most recent escalation occurred with Hamas fighters attacking Israel on October 7th. This surprise attack saw Israel suffer huge military casualties and tragically many civilians were killed.

In passing, it should be noted that after the initial reports of many Israeli soldiers being killed or captured, that is now not reported. This is so because reporting such would demonstrate that the main targets were the military.

The emphasis now is on the Israeli civilians who unfortunately suffered so much. As horrible as this was, the western media have chosen to embellish the suffering. High officials in the US are speaking of babies being beheaded without a shred of evidence.

All of this effort is to ignore the real reason for what is happening. The sad reality is that this is a continuation of what began in May 1948 when some 800,000 Palestinians were evicted from their homes and made into refugees. They have been living in the Gaza Strip and in several Arab countries ever since.

The inhuman apartheid-like conditions in which these people were and are forced to live for more than seventy years have given rise to several explosions in the past. The last being nine years ago in 2014.

The hopelessness of the Palestinian people has been compounded by the international situation. The Israeli regime’s diplomacy has paid much dividends establishing relations with countries that had in the past spoken out about the Israeli atrocities. Almost all those countries today have developed good relations with Israel which has served to mute their opposition to the atrocities committed.

Israel is carrying on its murderous attacks on Palestinians because of the support and encouragement it gets from the powerful United States – more than 25 percent of US aid goes to Israel. It has helped Israel to build the fourth largest army in the world. It has supplied it with the most modern military equipment. Now this army is unleashed on a practically unarmed people – a people without tanks, planes etc. What the Palestinians defend themselves with comes mostly from the ‘black market’ – knowing this, it is unconscionable for this war to be portrayed as a war between equals.

The bombing that the world is witnessing on the Gaza Strip is to continue the displacement which began in 1948. All attempts to resolve the issues have been frustrated. The Israelis have ignored all resolutions of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. They have been able to do so because of the staunch support that the United States has provided. At this moment the United States has sent an aircraft carrier and other military assets. It is very clear that the reason for this is to drive fear in Arab states that can muster the courage to do something about the terrorism that is taking place. At the same time, they are air-dashing bullets and other military hardware for Israel to execute its mass killings. In fact, because Iran is known to have great sympathy for the Palestinian people, the United States has even reneged on tis agreements with Iran to release 6 billion dollars which it had seized.

They clearly have no regards for the sanctity of contracts. The United States has used its power to cow may countries to stay quiet to the massacre that is occurring.

While I support Caricom’s statement I do not believe that it went far enough. After all, our region is on one of the last areas where colonialisation flourished. How can we take the position of blaming both sides with a greater bias for the Israeli regime?

I wish to urge Caricom leaders to show some backbone and denounce this genocide. I urge that the region breaks diplomatic relations with Israel. We must stand with the Palestinian people now!

Yours faithfully,

Donald Ramotar

Former President of Guyana