Democratic Palestine : 40 (ص 18)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 40 (ص 18)
- المحتوى
-
Palestinian Women’s Committees
by Lina Al Aswad
On August 8th, in the Soviet Cul-
tural Center in Damascus, President
Laila Khaled opened the second gen-
eral congress of the Palestinian Popu-
lar Women’s Committees(formerly the
Palestinian Women’s Organization).
The opening session was attended
by Dr. George Habash, general secret-
ary of the PFLP, and a number of
other PFLP leaders. Also attending
were representatives of different Pales-
tinian, Arab and __ international
women’s organizations, including the
General Union of Palestinian Women,
the Jordanian Women’s League
(RAMA), the Lebanese Women’s
Rights Committee and the Interna-
tional Democratic Women’s Federa-
tion. Also present were Syrian MP
Ferial Mahayni; Dr. Shafiq Sallah, rep-
resenting UNICEF; Mahmoud Khaldi,
head of the PLO office in Damascus;
Lebanese nationalist MP Najah
Wakeem and prominent Palestinian
women militants, Samira Salah and
Widad Qumari.
In the opening speech, Laila
Khalid spoke about the significant role
played by Palestinian women in exile
in support of the uprising. She elabo-
rated on the achievements of the
Palestinian Women’s Committees in
the past four years, since its founding
congress. She also emphasized the role
of Palestinian women in the battle to
defend the camps in Lebanon. To illus-
trate this point, Laila gave the example
of the four members of the Palestinian
Women’s Committees who were mar-
tyred in defense of the camps.
In the next speech, Hind, who was
representing the women’s committees
in the occupied territories, emphasized
the distinguished role of Palestinian
women in the intifada. She called for
more support from outside for the sake
of escalating the intifada.
Comrade Nihaya Mohamed, who
was representing the General Union of
Palestinian Women, called upon all
Palestinian women to close ranks and
join the union in order to mobilize all
efforts for achieving the goals of free-
dom and independence.
Azza Mruweh, representing the
Lebanese Women’s Rights Committee,
pointed to the role of Lebanese
women in the battle for liberating the
occupied South. She emphasized that
their role complements that of Palesti-
nian women in the confrontation
against the US and Israeli schemes in
the area.
18
Congress
Zahia Safa spoke about the role of
the International Democratic Women’s
Federation in the struggle for realizing
the legitimate rights of the Palestinian
people. She mentioned several exam-
ples of the federation’s initiatives in
support of the uprising and Palestinian
women in the occupied territories.
Dr. Hanan Bouderi presented a
speech on behalf of RAMA, focusing
on the role of the Jordanian women’s
movement at this stage of consolidat-
ing democracy in Jordan; such consoli-
dation will ultimately contribute to
further support for the uprising.
The last speaker was Dr. George
Habash who began by reaffirming that
the uprising has provided Palestinian
women with a golden opportunity to
assume their rightful place in the
national liberation process which will
eventually lead to social liberation. Dr.
Habash devoted the major part of his
speech to talking about the achieve-
ments of the uprising, which thrust the
Palestinian cause into a new stage
whereby the Palestinian state became a
realistic possibility. He defined the
tasks of the new stage to be carried out
by the Palestinian masses in the 1948
and 1967 occupied territories and in
exile, as well as the responsibilities of
the Arab masses and governments. He
also focused on the issue of democratic
reform in the PLO, urging the speedy
convening of a new PNC, so that the
Palestinian leadership could seriously
review its policies.
Regarding the Gulf crisis, Dr.
Habash asserted that the Arab masses
are experiencing a new imperialist
attack targeting the whole area. He
called on them to confront the
imperialist military intervention.
The opening session concluded
with a performance by the Haneen
musical group.
Workshop discussions
The congress continued the next
day with workshops in which there
were lengthy discussions of the organi-
zation’s activities, evaluating its prog-
ress in all fields since its formation in
1986. The discussions focused on the
role of the Palestinian Women’s Com-
mittees in developing the political con-
sciousness of Palestinian women, and
evaluated where the organization had
excelled and where it had failed.
The participants unanimously con-
firmed the necessity of founding pro-
ductive, rehabilitative and educational
institutions _—_ for women. They
emphasized the need to expand the
Palestinian Women’s Committees
geographically and numerically, in
order to mobilize all strata of Palesti-
nian women in the national struggle.
The Palestinian Women’s Com-
mittee’s policy regarding the General - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 40
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