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Pan-american Arab Congress Meeting in Colombia Adopts Program Aimed at Advancing PLO Cause, Defaming

November 6, 1985
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Some 300 delegates from the Latin American continent and the Arab world met here in the Seventh Congress of FEARAB (Federation of American Arab Organizations), where they adopted a program aimed at advancing the cause of the PLO on the continent, the World Jewish Congress reported today.

The Colembian press reported that the meeting considered two main issues: the organization of joint Chambers of Commerce linking the Arab countries with those in Latin America where they do not yet exist, “for the economic cooperation between the Arab and American peoples”; and an aggressive pro-PLO and anti-Israel propaganda campaign including the defamation of Zionism.

The Latin American branch of the WJC quoted one of the delegates as saying that “the struggle against Zionism is not fought only in Palestine or any other Middle Eastern place, but everywhere. The battle is not only one with weapons, but a social, cultural and spiritual war.”

The president of FEARAB, Rams Chacra, called upon all the affiliates on the continent “to make a major effort in the struggle against the common enemy, so as to incite the Palestine Liberation Organization, sole representative of the Palestine people, to unite its forces towards the creation of a free and sovereign Palestinian state.”

Chacra added that the holding of this congress in Colombia is “not accidental” but the result of several factors, such as the importance of the Arab communities in the country and in Central America, according to the “El Espectador” newspaper.

Another daily, “EI Tiempo,” reports that during the meeting, Jose Name Teran, farmer president of the Colombian Parliament, “gave his most explicit support to the Arab cause, particularly the struggle of the heroic Palestinian people.”

PLO BECOMING ENTRENCHED

Elsewhere, in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Avenida Paulista, one of the major thoroughfares, representatives of the Arab-Palestinian-Brazilian organizations held a public protest against Israel, stopped traffic for some time and distributed pamphlets.

In a Brazilian daily, Fernando Moreira de Castro, a columnist, warns against the growing aggressiveness of the PLO in Latin America and its links with extreme leftwing terrorist movements. Castro states that “PLO is in full swing in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia through a revolutionary coordination junta,” and he concludes that “the penetration of PLO in Latin America is obvious and that may threaten the security of the Latin American countries.”

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