Investigate Malaysian Airlines MH-17 crash, bring about justice!
Stop Israel's massacre of Palestinians, end colonisation!
Monday, 21 July 2014
The South African Communist Party expresses its deepest condolences to the families, relatives and friends for the loss of loved ones when a Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17 Boeing 777 airliner crashed in Eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing 295 people on board. The victims are reported to include 193 Dutch including one dual Netherlands-US citizen, 43 Malaysians including 15 crew members and 2 children, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians including 1 infant, 10 Britons including 1 dual UK-South Africa citizen, 4 Germans, 4 Belgians, 3 Filipinos, 1 Canadian and 1 New Zealander, according to the full flight manifest reported in the media to have been released by Malaysia Airlines on Saturday.
The flight could apparently have been shot down in the war-torn Ukraine where fighting continued. If true, then this deadliest attack would constitute a war crime in violation of international law. The SACP condemns in the strongest terms such cold-hearted brutality, independently of all nationality. The Communist Party calls for an independent and scientific investigation to determine what exactly happened. Should it be confirmed that the flight was shot down, the perpetrators must be found and brought to book within the framework of international law.
Western imperialist hypocrisy and opportunism
The SACP notes and condemns in the strongest terms possible the hypocritical posturing by Western imperialist states. In the first instance, the war in Ukraine is a direct result of the support by the US and its Western European allies' funding and arming of neo-Nazis to overthrow the democratically elected government. The people in Eastern Ukraine and other parts of the country were forced into war against domination by the same forces that devastated their country in the Second World War.
Israel's brutalisation and murder of the Palestinian people
Meanwhile, the US and its imperialist allies continue to support apartheid Israel, which has killed over 420 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of this month. 80% of those killed are civilians and over 110 children, according to reputable institutions. The murders are all committed indiscriminately as collective punishment, carried out against unarmed civilians, children and women. In the deadliest attacks yesterday morning, 60 people were killed. President Barack Obama and his allies, are quick to condemn those involved in the Malaysian airline tragedy, masquerading as the world's human rights police, but they continue to justify decades of Zionist genocidal attacks against the Palestinian people as "the right to self-defence".
The SACP reiterates its condemnation of Israel's outrageous campaign of brutalisation and murder of the Palestinian people in strongest terms possible, and calls for the immediate evacuation of the occupied Palestinian territories by Israel as well as an end to Israel's colonisation of Palestine. The United Nations must intervene urgently to stop the extermination of the Palestinians, and ensure the implementation of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state co-existing with Israel based on the pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.
The SACP reiterates its call to the South African government to sever all ties with the Zionist Apartheid State: expel the Israeli ambassador Arthur Lenk and recall the South African ambassador in Tel Aviv, Sisa Ngombane.
Statement issued by SACP, July 21 2014
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