"People like traveling in the Mavi Marmara is changing history," Manuel Mud and Laura Arau, members of the NGO Culture and Peace, were in the Mavi Marmara, the ship of the Freedom Flotilla Gaza in which Israel killed nine Turkish activists. This interview took place in Valladolid, in the context of the First Meeting of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, organized by the Platform for Solidarity with Palestine in Valladolid, just a day after they filed a complaint with the National Court against Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and other members of the Hebrew government for crimes against humanity. May next seek chartered two ships to go back to try to break the blockade of Gaza.
.
What is the ultimate goal of the complaint that you brought in the High Court?
Manuel Tapial: do justice but not just for ourselves but also for the nine dead and over 50 wounded were in the boat. We maintain that we were protected by international law at all times. Israel we boarded in international waters, with the results that everyone knows. We want to bring those responsible to court for trial. And they have the option of defending themselves, yes, but in court.
.
In your statements, responsabilizáis Western governments for what happened.
MT: Israel could not behave as do if their actions will have consequences. All criminal actions carried out from 62 years ago have had no result. In fact, it seems that he is rewarded. The European Union has a preferential agreement with Israel and treats him like a State of the Union with full rights. There is a high degree of complicity. Israel is the western edge in the Middle East.
.
What has been the performance of the English government after the attack on the Fleet? MT
: The defining phrase would be 'non-performance'. There has been no action.
.
face of government complicity, Is the only support for the Palestinian people comes and civil society?
Laura Arau: What we have shown with the Flotilla is that the force for the changes is the union of peoples. It's something that goes from civil society civil society, where governments care less because you do not represent.
MT: All historical moments had a stalemate where civil society seemed to be asleep by delegating too much and losing the quality of the exercise of citizenship. Fleet has been a great shock for that great social mass is the people engaged in some form, of citizens. All who were on that ship are more people than we were before boarding and certainly we place ahead of any government.
.
How have the Palestinians received the idea of \u200b\u200bfleets?
LA: They appreciate very much that someone other than Palestine to give their lives for their cause. They also thank a thousand times and believe that only thus can reach a solution. They ask us to keep fighting, to continue informing people and we do more and more people join because they know they can only rely on civil society.
MT: When the Palestinians see that we are normal people, workers, grassroots people, they feel some hope that the solution does not depend on governments, but the people who started to walk.
.
are already preparing more fleets. Have you opened a new avenue in the fight for the liberation of the Palestinian people?
MT: The Flotilla for Free Gaza has become a poverty reduction strategy example for other causes that deserve support. In October will get a new fleet and from Culture and Peace are launching the campaign Road to Gaza (www.rumboagaza.org) to charter two ships in May or June. It will be essential preventive diplomatic action of our governments not reoccur deaths, this action was not in May, as Israel interpreted that was free.
.
Before embark on the Flotilla, you were in refugee camps in Lebanon. The refugees, including four and six million according to estimates by various international organizations, are the forgotten of the Palestinian conflict.
MT: In any solution that wants to take the refugees are excluded. Not one considers the right of return, recognized by several United Nations resolutions. There is even behind countries negotiating of the refugees to see how they could be removed to Europe or the United States. But nobody has them. They are in limbo. And yet, until the refugee problem is not solved and that solution is accepted by them, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will last. It will create two states, one or three, but if those people are not part of the solution, the conflict will be eternal.
LA: Refugees need our support because they are third-class citizens. I would not say they have lost the will to live, but the twinkle in his eye. There are elderly people who have left their homes thinking that it was for 10 days and take 62 years. Or young people spent their entire life in a camp where 100,000 people are crammed into two square miles fences.
MT: who have any doubt about the legitimacy of Palestinian armed resistance, which go to the refugee camps of Lebanon and see how people live.
.
What do you think of the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel, which this year celebrates its fifth anniversary?
MT: You understand that is still useful when you see the Israeli reactions. When the State of Israel enacted laws to punish their citizens who support the campaign because it hurts. It is a very important tool, but can not be alone. Must be accompanied by another type of direct and forceful, as the Flotilla.
.
Lastly, it was worth paying a high price?
MT: I dare not answer that. Time will tell.
LA: of all, dying is not worth it. When I boarded the boat was well aware that he did not return. But being at home doing nothing does not change the status quo.
MT: People like traveling on the ship is changing history.
LA: fear must be drawn off, which is what paralyzes you. The first thing we do is lose the fear.
MT: And start saying enough is enough.
