****For Immediate Release****

The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine, together with dozens of Latin American and Caribbean organizations and movements, urges CELAC states to take strong measures to end the genocide and denounces Zionist interference in Latin America

In the context of the simultaneous CELAC Social and São Paulo Forum conferences taking place in Tegucigalpa from June 27 to 29, dozens of organizations from CELAC member countries, including many convening organizations, have signed a letter from the International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine (ICSGP) in which they urge their governments to take concrete actions against Israel to stop the genocide.

The ICSGP letter underlines the importance and value of solidarity between the Latin American and Caribbean peoples and the Palestinian people:

We…recognize the well-documented harm that Israel has done to our Latin American and Caribbean communities, through, e.g., its material support for genocide and military coups in our region, its training of militarized police and counterinsurgency forces operating death squads in many of our countries, the sale of repressive military technologies that are "battle-tested" on Palestinians for use against our people fighting to protect our lands, rights, and sovereignty in our own countries, and through the sale of additional repressive military technologies to the United States for use at the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond, against our brothers and sisters who are forced to migrate north.

Israel has also consistently supported the U.S.-led implementation of unilateral coercive measures that have caused so much harm to the peoples of CELAC member nations, and has been the only country in the world to always vote with the U.S. against the nearly-unanimous UN resolution to end the blockade on Cuba, every year since 1992. The struggle for the liberation of the Palestinian people is inseparable from our peoples' struggles for liberation.

Fernando Mendez Terrazas, president of Casa del ALBA-Bolivia (one of the organizations that signed the ICSGP letter), says:

“It is no coincidence that the Bolivian right affiliated with Zionism carried out the coup d’état in 2019 in Bolivia and the Bolivian people, who have shown their solidarity with the Palestinian people and have categorically condemned the genocide by breaking relations with the Zionist state of Israel. All coups that have been carried out in this country, including the most recent one, have been supported by the state of Israel, which has also provided weapons, ammunition and aircraft to the resulting dictatorships, in exchange for its strong support for the Israel's colonial project in the international sphere. In this context, the defeat of the coup is a victory for the Bolivian people that also contributes to the struggles of our brother Palestinian people, as it allows the Bolivian government to continue defending at the international level the need to stop the ongoing genocide."

Apart from being the first country in Latin America since October last year to cut diplomatic relations with Israel in protest of the Zionist genocide in Palestine, Bolivia (along with Chile and Cuba) has declared its intention to intervene on behalf of South Africa in its case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, as Nicaragua, Colombia and Mexico have already done.

The ICSGP charter is a project based on the initiative of the Palestinian Community of Honduras, which last week published a statement asking the organizations and movements participating in the CELAC Social conference and the São Paulo Forum to demand that their governments actively show solidarity with the Palestinian people. The demands that the signatory organizations have presented to their governments are the following:

1. Intervene at the International Court of Justice on behalf of South Africa in its case accusing Israel of genocide, and on behalf of Nicaragua in its case accusing Germany for complicity in Genocide for selling weapons to Israel. 

2. Sever all diplomatic relations with Israel.

3. Sanction Israel and take the following economic measures and to prevent complicity with genocide: a) Terminate all trade with Israel, especially all trade of dual use supplies and materials that can be used for military purposes of any nature and that can be used to build or fortify settlements and prisons; b) Enact Legislation to prohibit investment in any Israeli institution; c) Implement policies of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, including the termination of all official economic ties with Israel, the cancellation of treaties and commercial contracts, a ban on private trade with the State of Israel or Israeli companies, and the promotion of multilateral efforts to expel Israel from political, cultural, scientific and other international bodies and organizations.

4. Enact legislative measures that make it a crime for dual citizens to travel to Israel to join the Israeli army, to colonize Palestine and/or to live in stolen Palestinian homes and lands.

Robert Jaar, treasurer of the Tegucigalpa chapter of the Palestinian Community of Honduras, states:

The genocide ongoing since October 7, 2023 in Gaza is the continuation of the Zionist project that began long before the creation of the state of Israel and whose purpose is the ethnic cleansing of the entire Palestinian people. Honduras has the largest Palestinian community in Latin America after Chile, and from here we are watching live on social media the daily massacre of our brothers and sisters in Palestine. It is time to take more concrete actions from the region and stop Israel. Because if we do not save Palestine, humanity and international law will die with it.