APN | Tunis

7 - 8 June 2024

 

APN General Manager, Mariam Al Jaajaa, gave a candid disclosure about the colonial role of the West in land-related conflicts in the Arab region during the summer school organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation on "Commons". Al Jaajaa was invited to speak in two sessions about conflicts over natural resources in the Arab world. In her concluding recommendations, she emphasized the necessity of independently and locally analyzing conflicts, their root causes, and environmental impacts. She also stressed recognizing and protecting various forms of land tenure in national land management policies, addressing grievances from colonial or post-colonial eras, protecting rural livelihoods, agriculture, and food sovereignty, and respecting the sovereignty of nations and peoples by ending settler colonialism, occupation, and foreign military interventions.

Additionally, Al Jaajaa called on Western and German civil society organizations to be courageous and support the just Palestinian cause without equivocation and bias, while also combating colonialist thinking. She urged these organizations to pressure the German government and companies to halt military and diplomatic support for "Israel", which contributes to the genocide and ecocide in Gaza.