Mideast situation/Lebanon – LAS resolution – LAS letter

Letter dated 23 September 2002 from the Permanent Observer

of the League of Arab States to the United Nations

addressed to the President of the Security Council

In accordance with Article 54 of the Charter of the United Nations, I have the honour to transmit herewith resolution No. 6214, dated 5 September 2002, entitled “Solidarity with the Republic of Lebanon” (see annex). The above-mentioned resolution was adopted at the one hundred and eighteenth regular session of the Council of the League of Arab States, at the level of Ministers for Foreign Affairs, held on 4 and 5 September 2002, at the League of Arab States headquarters in Cairo.

I should be grateful if you would draw the attention of the members of the Security Council to the present letter and its annex, and have them circulated as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Yahya Mahmassani 
Ambassador

    Annex to the letter dated 23 September 2002 from the

Permanent Observer of the League of Arab States to the

United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council

[Original: Arabic]

Solidarity with the Lebanese Republic

The Ministerial-level Council of the League of Arab States,

Having considered:

 Decides:

 1.   To condemn Israel in the strongest terms for its continued occupation of Lebanese territory and of positions along Lebanon’s borders, for its continued detention of Lebanese citizens in its prisons, for its failure to hand over to the United Nations all of the maps showing the locations of the landmines laid by its occupying forces and for its ongoing violations of Lebanese sovereignty on land, at sea and in the air; and to denounce Israeli outrages and threats directed against Lebanon and Syria and regard any aggression against them as aggression against all the Arab States; 

 2.  To affirm support for Lebanon:

 (a)   In completing the liberation of its territory from Israeli occupation, including the Shab`a farmlands, up to the internationally recognized boundaries in accordance with Security Council resolution 425 (1978), while retaining its right to resist such occupation by all legitimate means;

 (b)   In its demand for the release of the Lebanese prisoners and detainees held in Israeli prisons as hostages in violation of the norms of international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and The Hague Convention of 1907 and in exercising its right to liberate these prisoners using all legitimate means;

 (c)   In its appeal to the Security Council to meet its responsibilities, to take immediate action to require Israel to desist from its threats and from its violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and of its territory, airspace and territorial waters and to hold Israel responsible for the attitude it maintains and the dire consequences it may have for the security and stability of the region;

 (d)   In its demand for the removal of the hundreds of thousands of landmines the Israeli occupation has left behind, on the understanding that Israel must bear responsibility for their placement and for the civilian deaths and injuries that they cause;

 (e)   In asserting its right to its territorial waters in accordance with international law and in opposition to Israeli ambitions;

 3.   To call upon the international community and international judicial and political entities:

 (a)   To bring pressure to bear on Israel to compensate Lebanon for the losses and damage caused by its repeated incursions into Lebanese territory before, during and since the time of the occupation;

 (b)   To enable delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross and representatives of other humanitarian organizations to visit all of the Lebanese detainees on an ongoing basis and to assess their condition and provide them with medical care;

 (c)   To endeavour to have the United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopt a resolution that will make it possible to investigate cases where detainees have died in Israeli detention camps so that compensation can be paid to injured parties in accordance with international law and the relevant international conventions;

 4.   To affirm the right of return of the Palestine refugees to their homes; and to caution that any failure to resolve the case of those residing in Lebanon on the basis of their return to their homes in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions and the principles of international law and any attempt at their resettlement will undermine security and stability in the region and impede the achievement of a just and comprehensive peace;

 5.   To thank the member States and Arab funds that have provided aid and financial assistance to the Lebanese Government; to request all States to meet the commitments given at the Arab summit conferences for support to Lebanon and for the steadfastness of its people and its reconstruction; to reactivate the Lebanon support fund in accordance with its founding statute; to assist the Lebanese Government in rebuilding and in reconstruction and development, especially in the areas liberated from Israeli occupation; and to support Lebanon’s call to member States to sponsor specific projects and fund bilateral development projects;

 6.   To monitor the implementation of paragraph 7 of resolution 6115, adopted by the Ministerial-level Council of the League of Arab States on 10 September 2001 at its one hundred and sixteenth regular session, on the financing of development projects in southern Lebanon and the Western Bekaa;

 7.   To condemn international terrorism, which the Arab States are actively combating, and reject attempts to include resistance in terrorism statutes, on the grounds that a distinction must be drawn between terrorism and legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation; and to affirm the need for an international conference to be convened under the auspices of the United Nations to consider terrorism and elaborate an international counter-terrorism convention that incorporates a precise definition of the phenomenon that differentiates between it and the legitimate right of peoples to resist foreign occupation. 

(Resolution 118/6214, adopted by the Ministerial-level Council of the League of Arab States on 5 September 2002 at the third meeting of its one hundred and eighteenth regular session)