Uitspraak door woordvoerder van Hoge Vertegenwoordiger Catherine Ashton over de vloot naar Gaza:

Als reactie op de Gaza Bevrijdingsvloot heeft de woordvoerder van Hoge EU Vertegenwoordiger Catherine Ashton op 28 mei een oproep gedaan tot terughoudendheid en verantwoordelijkheid":

"We strongly urge that all involved act with a sense of restraint and responsibility and work for a constructive resolution. The EU remains gravely concerned by the humanitarian sitaution in Gaza. The continued policy of closure is unacceptable and politically counterproductive.

We would like to reiterate the EU's call for an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and people to and from Gaza".

De vloot heeft de afgelopen dagen vele perikelen ondervonden: technische, bureaucratische en vooral politieke.

Hieronder een persoonlijk verslag van Thomas Sommer-Houdeville CCIPPP

THE LAST SET.

Maybe one day or another, someone will write the full story of this adventure. There will be lot of laughs, some real shouting and few tears. But what I can tell now is that we never imagined that we would have made Israel freak out like that.

Well maybe in some of our best dreams. First, they created an emergency task force gathering the Israeli Foreign ministry, the Israeli Navy and Commando and the prisons authorities to handle with the existential threat that us and our few boats full of humanitarian aids represent. Then, Ehud Barak himself took the time
on his busy agenda to warn us trough Israel media. Now they are announcing that they will send us in the worst prison of Israel, in the desert near BeerSheva.

These are announcement to make us afraid. And somehow we are afraid. We are afraid of their warships, afraid of their Apaches and their black dress commando crew.

Who will not be? We are afraid that they will seize our cargo and all the medical aids, the construction materials, the prefab houses, the school kit, and destroy them. All this solidarity patiently gathered in so many countries during more than one year. All these efforts and this wave of love and hope send by normal people, humble citizen from Greece, Sweden, Turkey, Ireland, France, Italy, Algeria,
Malaysia All of these take as trophy by a state acting like a vulgar pirate island. Who will not feel some sense of responsibility and afraid of not being able to do our deed and deliver our cargo to the jailed people of Gaza?

But we now that fear is also in the other side. Because since the beginning of our coalition, Israel State is making whatever it can to avoid the confrontation with us. Since the beginning they tried to prevent us to sail, they tried to impeach us to gather our forces and sail all together to Gaza. They tried to divide us. Their ideal scenario was to having us split a part, the Irish on one side, the Greek- Swedish on another side, the Americans on another and the Turkish alone. Of course, they knew that they couldn`t put pressure on Turkey, neither they could directly act there. So they concentrate their attack on the Irish and Greek sides of our coalition. The first set began two weeks ago when they sabotaged the Irish cargo, obliging it to delay its departure for nearly a week. But, the Irish repaired as fast as they could and now they are about one or two days behind us.
Then, they put huge pressure on the Greek government, which is weakened by the economical crisis, to oblige him to not let the Greek Cargo and the Greek-Swedish passenger boat sail. Because of these pressures we had to delay our trip two times and ask the Turks, their 500 passengers and the American friends who were ready to
sail to wait for us. Which fortunately they did! Until the last minute before their departure from Greece we were not sure if the two boats will get the authorization from the Greek government, but finally the Greek government decided to take his responsibility and act as a sovereign state and let the cargo and the passenger boat leave the port of Piraeus in Athens.

The second set took place yesterday, in the Greek Cyprus, where we had arranged with the government there to pick up a VIP delegation of European and National parliamentarians from Sweden, England, Greece, and Cyprus. As the two boats from Greece, the American boat coming from Crete and the 4 Turkish boats were already
all in the meeting point waiting for the VIP delegation to arrive and embark in our boats, we received the news that our delegation was surrounded by the Cyprus police in the Port of Larnaka and forbidden to move anywhere. Cyprus, a European country was forbidding European MP`s to move freely on its soil in complete break of all legality and European regulations! As we began to negotiate with the Cyprus government we understood clearly that this sudden change in the attitude toward us was dictated directly by Israel. From seven in the morning until down, Cyprus government was lying to us, saying that it was misunderstanding that the VIP were allowed to embark to any direction they like to go, that it was just a bureaucratic question that has to be solved. But nothing happen and our parliamentarians were trapped. The Cyprus government was acting as a proxy of Israel and made us losing crucial time. This morning the VIP delegation decided that the only choice that remained was to go to the port of Formogossa in the
North of Cyprus under Turkish control and from there take a speed boat to reach us in the meeting point. Of course, because our coalition is formed with Turks and Greeks and Cypriotes, the North Cyprus which is under Turkish occupation, is a very big political question. And sending our delegation to take a boat in the port of Formogossa still under UN embargo is even a biggest political question. This could have break the back of our Greek and Cypriote friends in the coalition. It nearly did. But the opposite happened to be true. Our coalition holds still. This is the Cypriote leading governing party which is about to split, and the 7 Greek and Cypriote MP`s who were part of the delegation and could not go to the North of Cyprus are furious against the Cypriote government. A huge debate is going on now
in Greece and Cyprus about what happened and about our Flotilla to Gaza. In one hour or two, 80% of our VIP delegation will embark on our boats and we will sail to Gaza as we planned. So we can say that Israel lost the two set it played.

In few hours, the last and crucial set will begin as we will enter the Gaza waters. Of course, materially it would be very easy for Israel to stop and arrest us, but the political cost they will have to pay will be huge. Very huge, as all the tricks and traps they tried put on our road succeed to do only one thing, raising more and more the awareness of the people all over the world about our flotilla and the situation of Gaza. And from all of this, we learn something, the fear is not on our side, but from Israel. They fear us because we represent the wrath of the people all around the globe. People who are upset with what the
criminal state of Israel is doing to the Palestinians and to every peace lover who dare to take the side of the oppressed. They fear us, because they know that in the near future there will be more boats coming to Gaza as there are more and more people who are deciding to boycott Israel every day.

Thomas Sommer-Houdeville CCIPPP