Palestine Report

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Thursday July 10, 2003 17:49 by Mags - Working Class Action workingclassaction at eircom dot net C/o PO Box 3355, Dublin 7

Farmers against the Apartheid Wall!

Colm Walsh is a Dublin based activist with Working Class Action and is in Palestine for two months working with the International Solidarity Movement. He is sending back regular reports on the situation there.

************************************************** Deir el-Ghussun: Farmers against the Apartheid Wall! (9th July 2003)
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Hi everyone,
I'm afraid time and location constraints don't really allow for individual emails as I only get into Tulkarm every few days.

Things are really getting together out here right now as far as the farmers getting organised in opposition to the Apartheid Wall goes. We are inundated with visitors every day as word of our presence here spreads from village to village. With many of these bringing food and drink every day, we feel a bit like VIP's right now!! Really the reception we have been getting can't be described.

Our first night here we had a visit from the army who asked us to move but didn't order us to. Since then no visits, but now that the campaign in the area is starting proper, we're expecting them back at any time...fingers crossed. That is why we keep a minimum of three activists at the camp at any one time. It would be a real shame after the trust we have built up in the area with the locals if we were forced to evacuate the camp. ISM training for internationals in Palestine continues every week and we are one of five areas to which they are sending people so our numbers are growing every week.

So for the past week I've been staying at a camp set up outside the village of Deir el-Ghussun at the invitation of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee and with the support of local farmers.

The camp is located just inside a section of the Apartheid Wall which pretty much surrounds the Tulkarm region and which is in the process of being completed. The wall has completely separated whole villages and has taken upwards of one fifth of the farmland in the Deir el-Ghussun region, or the food supply of over two thousand people. The farmers whose land is now located in Israel have not had access for months now, and some not since the end of last year.

Just now the ISM in the region are holding a series of meetings with farmer and party reps to explore what combined actions we could take to bring attention to the wall and what practical steps we can take to try to get farmers on to their land to do necessary maintenance work.

With this in mind it was decided yesterday to accompany the farmers to the gate at Deir el-Ghussun this morning to try to force our way through to the lands on the other side. On arrival at the gate, our presence there set off the motion sensors positioned along the gate and an army jeep pulled up. The soldiers re-closed the gate before we could push through to the other side. We then, with the farmers, staged a sit-down protest at the gate. Gradually, more police and army jeeps showed up.

After about an hour of a tense stand-off with the army, a television cameraman turned up from a local station. Rather strangely, this was the cue for the forces to get back into their vans and drive away. It was quickly decided by the farmers that they would make a second attempt on the gate. We quickly made it onto the main road and were heading towards the land on the other side when the army jeeps raced back to the scene.

Some minor exchanges occurred at first but then an attempt at detention of one of the farmers was made. The internationals quickly surrounded the detained farmer and managed to take him away from danger. After further heated verbal exchanges everybody was pushed back through the gate. The farmers hadn't made it through to farm their land but left vowing to return tomorrow and every other day until they can again gain access to their land.

Despite the massive hardships being endured, not just with the construction of the wall but for the past fifty years, the spirit of resistance still endures.

Colm