Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino
Zimpapers Politics Hub
Palestine Ambassador to Zimbabwe Tamer Almassri yesterday congratulated Zimbabwe ahead of its 46th Independence Day anniversary celebrations on 18 April, saying the celebrations to be held in Maphisa echo great symbolism to Palestine’s quest for independence.
Ambassador Almassri said Zimbabwe’s Independence Day was not a day of mere protocol, but a reminder that people who illegally occupy territories and homelands of other people will not stay in occupied territories forever.
“We do not look at the Zimbabwean National Day as one of the days that we have in our protocol diary. It is a day that comes with a lot of memories, and it is a symbolic day because it shows to us as Palestinians and also to all oppressed people in the world that with the struggle for a just cause, the people will defeat the oppressors.
“No foreigner will stay forever in any occupied territories. The people will get their dignity and they will get back their homelands,” Ambassador Almassri said.
He attributed the common story between Zimbabwe and Palestine to the first contacts in 1970 between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) led by the late Yasser Arafat and the nationalist movements in the then Southern Rhodesia.
Following Zimbabwe’s independence on April 18, 1980, the country hosted the PLO to contact and support the African National Congress (ANC) leader in fighting apartheid in South Africa, he added.
“We remember Zimbabwe was our base as PLO to contact or to support our comrades in the ANC and the South African national movement after 1980 and before the end of apartheid in South Africa.
“Zimbabwe, even after its independence, did not forget supporting its brothers and sisters in the other oppressed African countries. It did not say we have reached our goal, so we can new mentality, and abandon others. No! This is a lesson that we should remember nowadays because it will show us the solidarity and the sacrifice we will get at the end of the day, the result that the people are dreaming about.”
He called on the new generation to be more concerned about the history of Zimbabwe’s independence and Palestine’s liberation struggle against Israel, saying it was key to the continuance of ties between the two countries.
“Our history is talking about itself; however, our problem nowadays in Palestine and Zimbabwe is that the new generations do not know about these details. They are not aware that even after the independence in 1980, Palestinian experts were here to work shoulder to shoulder with the new governors of the country. And we are proud of that.”
