Cairo – The Foreign Minister of Brazil, Celso Amorim, participated yesterday (02), in the coastal city of Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt, in the Donors Conference for Gaza Recovery. He announced that Brazil should turn US$ 10 million to help in the reconstruction of the territory.
"President Lula asked the Brazilian congress to authorize the donation urgently," he said. Apart from the individual contribution, Brazil is also participating in a joint donation of US$ 1 million by the IBAS group, which includes India, Brazil and South Africa.
Yesterday’s event was the first great meeting of the international community to support normalisation of the humanitarian situation in Gaza after the conflict with Israel that lasted 22 days and ended on January 18th, causing losses evaluated at US$ 2.7 billion.
The prime minister of Palestine, Salam Fayad, presented a plan for reconstruction and added that it is now, more than ever, necessary to cause the economy to prosper in Gaza for the population to live with dignity.
To the joint secretary general of the League of Arab States for Palestinian Affairs, Mohamed Sobeih, apart from human loses, 1,300 dead and 5,000 injured, the conflict caused the demolition of at least 4,000 houses, destruction of 20 mosques, 1,500 commercial properties and 16 buildings of the Palestinian National Authority.
"We are now trying to establish priorities to try to face the humanitarian catastrophes in Gaza. Apart from urgencies presented in the sectors of health, education and construction, we must concern ourselves with the disastrous consequences on the environment and on agriculture due to the use of phosphorus," said Sobeih, who is Palestinian. "A large part of the population of Gaza, which depends on agriculture, cannot farm their land, which should suffer a long and difficult process of rehabilitation before being appropriate for normal use," he added.
Amorim, in turn, reaffirmed the Brazilian solidarity with the Palestinian people and the concern with the need for better quality of life of the common people in Gaza. "In this respect, I believe that the greater respect, the dignity of the Palestinians, is as important as the improvement of material conditions," he said. "It is imperative that resolution 1,860 [of the Security Council of the United Nations] be implemented and that the humanitarian health and legitimate trade may freely travel in the direction of Gaza," he declared.
In his address, Amorim recalled the several times that Brazil was concerned with humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. "In my last visit to the region, in January, I accompanied the arrival of 10 tonnes of food and medication sent by Brazil aimed at alleviating the humanitarian situation in Gaza," he said, pointing out that Brazil also participated in previous donor conferences in Stockholm and Paris, where contributions of US$ 10.5 million were made. "I recall that the Paris contribution was the highest that Brazil had ever made up to that moment and also the largest by a non-Islamic developing nations," he said.
The minister was accompanied by a delegation of eight members, among them ambassadors Afonso de Ouro Preto (special representative for the Middle East), Cesário Melantonio Neto (ambassador to Cairo), Ligia Scherer (ambassador to Ramallah) and Maria Laura da Rocha, head of the ministerial cabinet.
The Conference was co-presided by Egypt and Norway. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak opened it among delegations from 75 countries. Among those present, apart from heads of state were the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, the high representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Serguei Lavrov. Brazil was the only Latin American country to send a ministerial level representative.
*Translated by Mark Ament
