U.N. body backs Palestinians

Press, 16 February 1978, Page 8

U.N. body backs Palestinians

NZPA-Reuter Geneva The United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva has accused Israel of war crimes, backed Palestinian military action, and affirmed the right of Palestinians to establish “a fully independent and sovereign Slate in Palestine.” The Palestine Liberation Organisation representative, Chawki Armali, said he hoped that the resolutions, approved by majorities of the 32-State commission, would provide a precedent for the work of United Nations bodies. The United States and Canada voted against both resolutions. Other Western States, including Australia, France, and Sweden, abstained.

Britain abstained on the war-crimes resolution and

voted against the resolution on Palestinian rights. The Australian delegate,

Owen Lennox Davis, said he abstained in the vote because the resolutions dealt with issues more appropriate to other bodies than the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Mr Armali told a press conference the resolutions were a complete answer to the peace plan under discussion between Israel and Egypt, going far beybnd the rights the Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) wanted to give the Palestinians. He accused the United States of going back on President Jimmy Carter’s earlier declared policy towards the Palestinians, by now promising them only a voice in their future. The main resolution declared “The inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination without external interference and the establishment of a fully independent and sovereign State in Palestine.”