Dear Editor,
For almost 2 years we have been witness to the unspeakable in Gaza. Even food and water have been weaponized to induce a famine to increase, by any means available, the number of Palestinians killed in this ongoing genocide. We are forced to watch as people whose families are facing starvation, are mercilessly gunned down as they line up to collect a bag of flour at US/Israeli operated food distribution stations.
Operating for less than 2 months, 900 Palestinians, many of them children, have been shot dead trying to collect aid at these so-called humanitarian stations, and over 100 people have died of starvation. These food distribution points have been renamed ‘the killing fields’, a term borrowed from the infamous genocide carried out in Cambodia by the fascist Khmer Rouge Regime led by Pol Pot, which lasted for four years (1975 -1979) and wiped out more than 2.5 million people.
The only response from the Government of Guyana and Caricom are loads of empty words. Anyone can express horror at what is happening in Gaza, and indeed the only people on the earth who fail to do so are fascists and the genociders themselves. What we need is action.
In the midst of this nightmare, it is inconceivable that our government is entering into a 15.7 million USD agricultural project with Israeli company, KARLICO INC., despite international and local pleas to BOYCOTT, DIVEST and SANCTION (BDS) the Apartheid Israeli State.
BDS Guyana has called on President Ali to cut all economic, cultural, diplomatic and sporting ties with Netanyahu’s murderous regime, and with all companies that are based in or who have ties to Israel. Despite this, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha proudly announced that the new agricultural project will make progress soon. Maintaining ties with Apartheid Israel and those who do their bidding is something that Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham would never have entertained.
The holocaust that is taking place in Gaza will leave an indelible stain on human history, and all those who continue to maintain ties with the Genocidal Apartheid State of Israel will be recorded as having been complicit in this horror.
BDS Guyana is once again calling on DDL to end its partnership with the LR Group, an Israeli company with close ties to the Israeli Government. Until DDL cuts ties with this company, we are calling on all Guyanese to continue boycotting DDL products. People tell us every day that they feel sick about what is happening in Palestine but that it is very hard to boycott all DDL products. We say not as hard as having the blood of Palestinian women and children on your hands.
Find alternative products – there are plenty on the market, competitively priced. You may think this is an extreme position, however, any human being on this planet who knowingly purchases goods that are directly generating income that supports and enables the current Israeli State, is in fact playing a part in enabling the genocide to continue. As long as Guyana continues to do business with Israeli companies, we are complicit.
In addition to cutting ties with KARLICO INC., we call on the PPP Government to cut all ties with Chevron, which is now a major player in Guyana’s oil and gas industry. Chevron is the largest producer of natural gas for Israel, and the largest multinational corporation with a significant stake in Israel’s energy sector. Israel collects hundreds of millions of dollars annually in royalties and fees from Chevron.
Chevron’s Tamar gas field is the main supplier to the state-owned Israel Electric Corporation which supplies electricity to all branches of the Israeli Government and majority of Israeli households. All Israeli military bases, prisons, and police stations, as well as the illegal settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank, are powered by Chevron.
The Israel Electric Corporation took over the Palestinian power grid after Israel’s 1967 occupation. The supply of electricity is used as a form of subjugation and collective punishment. Many Palestinian communities are banned from connection to the grid; others receive substandard services; some are charged higher prices than neighbouring Jewish-Israeli towns; and Palestinian communities experience constant punitive power cuts. Additionally, since 2007, Israel has tightened its air, land, and naval blockade of Gaza to enable Chevron’s exploration operations off the coast of Gaza.
As we write this letter, we can’t help thinking that these demands may be seen by some as unrealistic from an economic standpoint. However, the question “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36 and Matthew 16:26) can equally be asked of a nation. We are asking the Government and by extension Caricom to get on the right side of history now. The global BDS campaign was an important factor in ending apartheid in South Africa and if adhered to and intensified, there can be no doubt it will help bring an end to the occupation of Palestine.
Yours truly,
BDS Guyana
