UAWC will hold its agricultural committees conference to discuss the establishment of Palestinian Farmers movement
The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) will hold a conference for its agricultural and fishermen committees on Thursday 29th of September 2016 at the Red Crescent halls in Al-Bireh – Palestine, the conference will discuss establishing a Palestinian Peasant Movement as a part of the International Peasant Movement (La Via Campesina), whose membership includes 200 million peasants from around the world.
The secretariat of the International Peasant Movement, The French Peasant Union Secretary General, and fishermen committees will participate in the conference via Skype.
The participants will discuss the importance of establishing a Palestinian Peasant Movement as part of an international movement, for the role that it will have in exposing the occupation’s violations against Palestinian farmers, and lobbying and advocating for the cause on an international level; during the conference a committee of the farmers will be elected to follow up the establishment of the movement.
It is worth mentioning that UAWC has been intensively working since 2004 to join La Via Campesina under a very strict criteria, that included implementing activities on the local and international level, hosting delegations from the movement in Palestine, and visiting the movement’s offices internationally; in 2011, UAWC held an international conference in Al-Aroub University in Hebron under the title of “Towards Building La Via Campesina in Palestine”. Palestine was accepted as a full member in La Via Campesnia in July 2013 during the movement’s 6th international conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, noting that Palestine is the first Arab country which gets full membership, where UAWC was chosen as representative for the Arab world until establishing a peasant movement in the area.