Palestinian Peace Activist Mustafa Barghouthi Campaigns for a New Government through Open Elections By Genevieve Cora Fraser

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Palestinian Peace Activist Mustafa Barghouthi Campaigns for a New Government through Open Elections

Peace negotiations are being robbed of any legitimacy by the Palestinian “old guard” which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is conveniently using to excuse Israel’s continued violations of the US-backed Road Map, according to Dr. Mustafa Bargouthi, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI).

Sharon is also using the intransigence of the Palestinian Authority to justify a “systematic exacerbation of the illegal occupation, combined with the creation of a horrific apartheid system,” he said.

In a recently released statement to the Daily Star in Beirut, Bargouthi said that the five successive governments in the space of a year was proof that Palestine’s political system is in a state of crisis.

“Meanwhile, it seems that those Palestinians in positions of authority can barely see beyond an escalating internal competition over who can take what to the Israelis first. They initiate new agreements constructed on nothing more than virtual realities, while Sharon continues to construct de facto realities of annexation and apartheid on the ground,” the PNI’s secretary-general stated.

In June 2002, an ailing Edward Said and Dr. Barghouthi organized the Palestinian National Initiative a.k.a. Al Mubadara as a democratic opposition movement. Edward Said, a Columbia University literary scholar who was considered to be the foremost advocate of the Palestinian cause in the United States died on September 25 after a long battle with leukemia.

According to Barghouthi, though elections are planned for June 2004, the Fatah dominated Palestinian administration and Legislative Council consistently find ways to overstay their terms in office, which should have ended with a new round of elections in 1999. Bargouthi explained that since its inauguration in 1994, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has appointed approximately 6,000 municipal representatives, rather than have them elected by the people. “Municipal elections have not taken place since 1976,” he said.

“The ongoing occupation serves to further justify the PA’s suspension of elections as the situation on the ground - principally the siege and fragmentation of Palestinian territory, the lack of freedom of movement and constant Israeli military escalations and incursions - renders the mere possibility of conducting free and fair elections entirely unfeasible,” Bargouthi stated. “Palestinian democrats and the community at large are desperate for change, yet find themselves in an impasse.”

According to Bargouthi, the June 2004 elections are bound to fail “unless the international community provides an international presence to ensure an easing of the political and territorial conditions that today make voting impossible. While the world community must demand and ensure free and fair elections from the PA, these will require freedom of movement that can only be achieved through a withdrawal of Israeli military forces and the removal of all checkpoints.”

During a recent tour of college campuses and Arab organizations in the US, Barghouthi outlined the vision he shared with Edward Said for a just peace through the establishment of a sovereign, independent, viable, and democratic Palestinian state on all of the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital. It would also be the first Arab democracy in the Middle East,

Such a state would be built upon the institutional framework of the Palestinian Civil Society, a non-violent, self-reliant, self-determined network of NGOs or non-government organizations that include educational, medical, cultural, and charitable organizations as well as research institutes, plus environmental and legal organizations to name a few.

“The Palestinian Civil Society was developed after the failure of the Camp David peace talks in 1978. It was then Palestinians came to realize that help would not be found from outside their borders, but from within,” Dr. Barghouthi stated.

In addition to serving as secretary-general to the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Bargouthi is the President of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, one of the largest and the leading Palestinian non-governmental organizations providing health and community services to more than 1 million people (1/3 of total population) yearly, throughout 435 Palestinian communities. He is also the Director of the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute in Ramallah, Palestine.