Manipur (Kangleipak) People Stand In Solidarity With The Palestinian People In Exercising Their Inalienable Right Of National Self-Determination

Press Release | Ref/No/PC-PR65/22/11/2023

The Coordination Committee (CorCom) of four revolutionary organisations of Manipur (Kangleipak) namely PREPAK, PREPAK (Pro), RPF, and UNLF   condemns the inhuman Israeli aggression, relentless airstrikes, and the violation of international humanitarian laws against Palestinians. Continued encroachment upon the Palestinian land and Israeli occupation of Palestinians for the last 75 years has resulted in the enormous loss of lives on the Palestinian side. The time has come for the global community to adhere to the call of the International Court of Justice to end the occupation of Palestine by Israel. The plight of the Palestinians has been duly acknowledged by the United Nations as all the 193 UN members have accorded Palestine the status of a non-member observer state at the United Nations since 2012.

Historic Palestine includes the present-day Israel and the State of Palestine with a native population in 1859 comprising 86% Muslims, 10% Christians, and 4% Jews. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 favouring a Jewish National Homeland paved the way for the birth of Israel on 14 May 1948 after World War II and upon ceasing of the British mandate on Palestine undermining in whole the independence and sovereignty of Palestine. The non-restoration of the Palestinian right to self-determination has led to an escalation of conflict and violence leading to the displacement of 7,00,000 Palestinian population. While the Palestinians have not been allowed to return home, about 8,50,000 Jews from the Arab World have been systematically either immigrating to or implanted in Israel since the late 1940s. The failure the implement the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine led to the present conflict between Israel and Palestine which cannot be reasoned without denouncing Israel’s ever-increasing occupation of Palestine as Israel occupies 80% of the original Palestine land mass after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the Six –Day War of 1967 that resulted into the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, known as the Palestinian territories. 

With the support of its Western allies, the Israeli repression of Palestinians continues till today without much regard to the wishes of the native Palestinians for exercising their inalienable right to self-determination with the main ally, the US vetoing every UN Security Council resolution on the self-determination of Palestine.

The CorCom sees a similar situation in today’s Manipur (Kangleipak) where India has been grafting population decimation and weaponising unnatural population growth to wipe out the indigenous peoples of Manipur (Kangleipak) and its national liberation struggle. The cruelty of the Israeli occupation of Palestine is performed in collusion with the world’s capitalist powers such as America, Britain, and France, among others.  It highly unbecoming on the part of right-wing Hindutva Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to stand in support of Israel. Modi, who took months to open his mouth on the violence in Manipur (Kangleipak), did not take any time to shower his blessings for the imperial Israel. Modi’s outright support of Israel is in contravention of India’s obligation to adhere to the international humanitarian laws and the right to self – self-determination of Palestine as India opposed the partition of Palestine in 1948.

Since 7 October 2023 more than 11,000 civilian Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed, over 30,000 injured and about 3000 missing due to the incessant Israeli airstrikes and military operations in Gaza. There is a blatant violation of international mandates as Israel continues to target civilians, residential buildings, hospitals, mosques, water and sanitation facilities, and relief and refugee camps. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 43 per cent of housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged due to Israeli air offensives. A similar condition of India-sponsored violence has been witnessed by the people of Manipur (Kangleipak) since May 3, 2023, as the indigenous people are driven out of their place of settlements. The robust military infrastructure of India brought into Manipur (Kangleipak) in the name of containing the ongoing ethnic violence is to consolidate India’s counter-revolutionary proxy war against the people of Indian-occupied territories of Assam, Manipur (Kangleipak), Nagaland, and Tripura in Western South-East Asia (WESEA).

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Manipur (Kangleipak) draws a corollary of gross violation of International Humanitarian Laws under the Fourth Geneva Convention, 1949 relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. The State parties including Israel and India are in complete transgression of the ‘individual-compliance’ and the ‘state-compliance’ enshrined under Common Article 1 of the Four Geneva Conventions. The Israeli onslaught on the Palestinian settlements that rendered unprecedented loss of civilian lives and properties, taking hostages, degrading human treatment, execution of combatants and non-combatants without prior judgment, uncared for wounded and the sick has completely derogated the Common Article 3 of the Four Geneva Conventions and the ICC’s Rome Statute. The Israeli military’s repeated, unlawful attacks on medical facilities including Gaza’s largest al-Shifa Hospital, personnel, and transport tantamount to war crimes in clear violation of Article 18 and Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which mandates the protection of civilian hospitals, children, access to road, food, water, medicine, and electricity, which in no circumstances be the object of attack. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) holds that the establishment of Israeli settlements and displacement of Palestinians in the occupied territories violates the Fourth Geneva Convention. The ICRC mandated that the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, is applicable to all the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967 including Jerusalem.

In solidarity to the people of Palestine, the CorCOM condemns Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians, particularly in the aftermath of recent Hamas attacks. CorCom upholds the findings of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel which noted that there was ‘clear evidence’ of war crimes in Israel and Gaza.

CorCom in solidarity with the cause of all oppressed nations calls upon the International Criminal Court to investigate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for committing war crimes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem for speedy justice, freedom, and self-determination of the oppressed Palestinians.

Publicity Committee (Corcom)

Kangla, 22 November, 2023

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Official File