Right of the Palestinian people to self-determination – Third Cttee debate – Summary record (excerpts)

Third Committee

Summary record of the 30th meeting

Held at Headquarters, New York, on Monday, 5 November 2001, at 3 p.m.

Chairman:   Mr. Al-Hinai ………………………………………  (Oman)

Contents

Agenda item 116: Programme of activities of the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People (continued)

Agenda item 118: Right of peoples to self-determination (continued)

The meeting was called to order at 3.10 p.m.

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Agenda item 118: Right of peoples to self-determination (continued ) (A/56/224, 295 and A/56/462-S/2001/962)

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5.  Mr. Ahmad (Pakistan) said that …

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7.   Kashmir and Palestine offered two outstanding instances of the violation of the inalienable right to self-determination. In Palestine, the spiralling cycle of violence and the coercive measures against the Palestinian people underlined the need for the international community to facilitate an early resolution of the matter. His delegation hoped that the peace process would soon be resumed and lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

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13.  Ms. Al Haj Ali (Syrian Arab Republic) said that her country had actively supported the struggle for the liberation of peoples subjected to colonial domination and foreign occupation and their exercise of the right of self-determination, a sacred right guaranteed by the Charter of the United Nations and reaffirmed by the Declaration on decolonization and the International Covenants on Human Rights.

14.   The United Nations, despite its considerable achievements in that area and the volumes of resolutions on the Arab-Israeli struggle adopted by its various organs, had not managed to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their legitimate right of self-determination, owing to Israel’s expansionist policies, its constant and flagrant violations of the Charter and international law, its rejection of the relevant United Nations resolutions and the absence of sufficient international pressure to ensure Israeli compliance. Israel still continued its oppressive settlement policies aimed at changing the demographic structure of the occupied Arab lands by summoning Jewish settlers from various parts of the world to take the place of the Palestinians. Yet the United Nations still stood helpless in the face of those abusive practices. 

15.   Security and stability in the Middle East, a region that served as a yardstick for measuring international peace and security, would not be achieved so long as the Palestinian people were deprived of their right of self-determination and prevented from creating an independent State on their national soil, with Jerusalem as its capital. Peoples must persist in their struggle for their fundamental rights, including the right of self-determination and the right to resist occupation, until they obtained them.

16.   Ms. Samah (Algeria) said it was to be hoped that the launching of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2001-2010) would achieve its aim of removing the intolerable stigma of colonialism.

17.   Referring to the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people for the right to establish a national State, she stressed that the new wave of repression against that people must be condemned and that the occupying Power must be required to conform to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

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The meeting rose at 4.15 p.m. 

This record is subject to correction. Corrections should be sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned within one week of the date of publication to the Chief of the Official Records Editing Section, room DC2-750, 2 United Nations Plaza, and incorporated in a copy of the record. Corrections will be issued after the end of the session, in a separate corrigendum for each Committee.