خبر صحفي
نرفق لكم البيان الذي أصدره عمال جنوب أفريقيا في ميناء (ديربن), بشأن مقاطعتهم لتفريغ حمولة السفينة الإسرائيلية تصل إلى الميناء المذكور يوم الأحد 8/2/2009م
ملاحظة: يرجى التكرم بنشره وبثه,
Media Release: Cosatu workers refuse to offload Israeli goods
Issued by the Palestine Solidarity Committee
3 February 2009
The following is a statement that was read out and presented to media representatives that attended a media conference this morning, convened by Cosatu, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, and the Young Communist League.
FREE PALESTINE! ISOLATE APARTHEID ISRAEL!
COSATU and PSC launch Week of Action for Palestine
supported by YCL and other progressive organisations
Media Conference, COSATU House, 3 February 2009
In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by COSATU to strengthen the campaign in South Africa for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid Israel.
The pledge by SATAWU members in Durban reflects the commitment by South African workers to refuse to support oppression and exploitation across the globe. Last year, Durban dock workers had refused to offload a shipment of arms that had arrived from China and was destined for Zimbabwe to prop up the Mugabe regime and to intensify the repression against the Zimbabwean people. Now, says SATAWU’s General Secretary Randall Howard, the union’s members are committing themselves to not handling Israeli goods.
SATAWU’s action on Sunday will be part of a proud history of worker resistance against apartheid. In 1963, just four years after the Anti-Apartheid Movement was formed, Danish dock workers refused to offload a ship with South African goods. When the ship docked in Sweden, Swedish workers followed suit. Dock workers in Liverpool and, later, in the San Francisco Bay Area also refused to offload South African goods. South Africans, and the South African working class in particular, will remain forever grateful to those workers who determinedly opposed apartheid and decided that they would support the anti-apartheid struggle with their actions.
Last week, Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia resolved to support the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and have called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel.
This is the legacy and the tradition that South African dock workers have inherited, and it is a legacy they are determined to honour, by ensuring that South African ports of entry will not be used as transit points for goods bound for or emanating from certain dictatorial and oppressive states such as Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Israel.
المزيد
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