Mideast situation/Palestine question – LAS Ministerial Council emergency meeting resolutions – Letter from Sudan

Letter dated 27 August 2001 from the Permanent Representative of the Sudan

to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

In my capacity as Chairman of the Arab Group for the month of August 2001 and at the request of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, I have the honour to transmit to you herewith the texts of two resolutions that were adopted by the Council of the League at an emergency meeting held on 22 August 2001 at the level of ministers for foreign affairs. They are entitled “The recent Israeli aggression against the City of Jerusalem” and “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance”.

I should be grateful if you would have this letter and its annex circulated as a document of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly, under agenda item 5, and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Elfatih Mohamed Ahmed Erwa

Permanent Representative

Chairman of the Arab Group

Annex to the letter dated 27 August 2001 from the Permanent Representative of the Sudan

to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

The recent Israeli aggression against the City of Jerusalem

The Council of the League of Arab States, meeting in extraordinary session at the ministerial level,

Having considered the note from the State of Palestine, the note from the Syrian Arab Republic and the proposals made by heads of delegation,

Decides:

1. To affirm its support for the Palestinian people and its Intifadah using all available means, on the grounds that it constitutes legitimate national resistance to Israeli occupation; to reject its characterization as violence and terrorism; and to stress the need for the speedy implementation of the resolutions of the Cairo and Amman summits;

2. To accelerate the provision of financial and economic assistance to the Palestinian people so as to enable it to continue to hold its ground, especially with respect to the pledges made by member States to the Al-Aqsa Fund and the Intifadah Fund at the Cairo and Amman summits that have not been fully met;

3. To urge Arab non-governmental organizations to continue to provide material assistance for the relief of victims of Israeli assaults in accordance with the relevant resolution of the Arab Summit Conference;

4. To endeavour by all possible means to preserve the status of Jerusalem and to regard Israeli measures that seek to alter that status as null and void, illegal and lacking in effect, while stressing that it is essential: to bring about the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli forces occupying Orient House and other Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem; to end the occupation of the Palestinian villages around the city; to promote the Arab character of Jerusalem; to channel the capacities of the Arab nation into thwarting schemes to Judaize the city and into strengthening Palestinian institutions there; to enable the city’s people to stand its ground in the face of all such Israeli practices as the blockade and isolation of Jerusalem and the expropriation of its land; to halt all attempts to tamper with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and the Christian and Islamic Holy Places; to continue to expose Israel’s practices; and to prevent any attempt to hold international conferences in the city;

5. To affirm the importance of participation by all member States in the conference of the liaison officers at the regional offices to be held in Damascus from 7 to 11 October 2001 with a view to reactivating the Arab boycott of Israel;

6. To urge all the countries of the world to boycott the products of Israeli colonies in occupied Arab territory;

7. To refrain from initiating any contacts with Israel as long as it continues its assaults against the Palestinian people and its territory and against Syrian and Lebanese territory;

8. To endeavour to elaborate an appropriate mechanism for bringing Israeli war criminals before an international tribunal; and to entrust the secretariat with the task of exploring and monitoring this question;

9. To support Iraq’s request for the allocation of 1 billion euros of its resources; and to urge the United Nations to release this sum in order to bolster the perseverance of the Palestinian Arab people;

10. To stress in all international forums the restoration of Arab rights in Jerusalem, the occupied Palestinian territory, the Golan and southern Lebanon in implementation of the resolutions that embody international legitimacy; and to insist on the right of return of the Palestine refugees under the terms of General Assembly resolution 194 (III);

11. To urge the United States of America to desist from supplying Israel with offensive weapons; and to request the secretariat to explore the question of submitting an official complaint to the relevant United States authorities under the laws that restrict the sale of American arms and their use against third parties.

Resolution 6108

Extraordinary session

22 August 2001

World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance

The Council of the League of Arab States, meeting in extraordinary session at the ministerial level,

Having reviewed the ongoing preparations for the third World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, to be held in Durban, South Africa, from 31 August to 7 September 2001, and in the light of the discussions that have taken place,

Decides:

1. To strive for the success of the conference in the light of its importance for combating all racist practices in all their forms and directed against all races;

2. To affirm that the condemnation of racist practices is an indivisible whole and that the condemnation of past practices necessarily requires the condemnation of present Israeli practices;

3. To maintain the stance of the Arabs against the racist practices of the past; to protest in the strongest terms at Israeli racist practices against them in the present, and in particular those directed against the Palestinian people besieged in its territory by the force of a military occupation that is devastating to its life, its property and its resources; and to regard all these racist policies and practices as crimes against humanity and as grave violations of the norms of international humanitarian law;

4. To accept the invitation of the Secretary-General to convene a coordination meeting of the ministers for foreign affairs of the Arab States on 31 August 2001 on the margins of the conference.

Resolution 6109

Extraordinary session

22 August 2001