12 Feb 2009

HIS EXCELLENCY BARLAS OZENER
AMBASSADOR OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
118 Jalan U Thant
55000 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

Dear Sir,

LETTER OF APPRECIATION AND APPEAL FOR CONCRETE AND SINCERE MEASURES LEADING TO THE SPEEDY CREATION OF A FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATE OF PALESTINE

On behalf of COMPLETE, we wish to congratulate, applaud and thank your prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his courageous and commendable stand in his criticism of Israel over its invasion of Gaza recently. It takes exceptional courage to make frank criticism of Israel and its leaders on the world stage. Your prime minister’s action sets an example for other leaders to follow in showing their disgust at Israel’s invasion of Gaza and creates additional pressure on the international community to resolve the Palestinian tragedy. Turkey’s chairmanship of the OIC is timely. We trust that your government would have the resolve and determination to rally OIC members to push for a just and comprehensive resolution of the plight of the Palestinian people.

COMPLETE stands for COALITION OF MALAYSIAN NGOs AGAINST PERSECUTION OF PALESTINIANS, a coalition of more than 100 NGOs that cuts across racial, religious and political lines in Malaysia. We are not aligned with any Palestinian political faction preferring to deal with the Palestinians as a united people. We intend to work closely with foreign NGOs with similar objectives, and together as a worldwide united front of NGOs, act as an effective pressure group to governments, pushing for a speedy creation of a free and independent state of Palestine.

The current Gaza crisis is the latest in the history of the Palestinian tragedy which started 60 years ago with the forced creation of the state of Israel. The Palestinians have since been displaced, made stateless, humiliated, dehumanized, terrorized and massacred. This gross injustice to the Palestinian people, the majority of whom are Muslims, is probably the single most important reason for the Middle East Crisis, and the rise of ‘Islamic’ terrorism around the world.

The Palestinian tragedy is a humanitarian tragedy of monstrous proportions in terms of the scale of human suffering and duration. The international community must make a highly concerted effort to ensure a just and comprehensive resolution in the near future or face even greater violence and instability in the Middle East in particular and the world in general.
Israel’s recent barbaric invasion of Gaza with the deaths of more than 1300 Palestinians, 40% of whom were innocent children and women, and the intentional destruction of the infrastructure including hospitals, schools, police stations, mosques and even UN centres, is unbelievable, unacceptable, immoral and without any sense of human decency. Its continued arrogance and intransigence in not abiding with numerous UN Security Council resolutions and in ignoring numerous UN General Assembly resolutions since 1948 is an affront to the international community.

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LETTER OF APPRECIATION AND APPEAL FOR CONCRETE AND SINCERE MEASURES LEADING TO THE SPEEDY CREATION OF A FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATE OF PALESTINE

We believe that turkey with its dynamic and popular leadership, ascendant diplomatic and strategic influence and its chairmanship of the OIC is well poised to play a pivotal role in rallying the international community towards a just resolution of the conflict. We, therefore, strongly urge your esteemed government to:
1. cut off diplomatic, economic and cultural ties with Israel
2. request the UN Security Council to impose an immediate arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel
3. request world leaders and eminent persons to seriously consider bringing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity to political and military leaders of Israel.

We believe the above measures will isolate and compel Israel to seriously negotiate to end the tragedy leading to the creation of a free and independent state of Palestine. We strongly urge your government to seriously and sincerely consider our proposals with an open and clear conscience and compassion for the sake of world humanity and peace.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

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Adnan Mohd Tahir, Chairman
On behalf of COMPLETE

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Dr Mazeni Alwi, Chairman
Government Relations Committee