Participants included representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and various other Palestinian committees from the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon.

Also taking part were members of the World Federation of Trade Unions, World Peace Council, International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions, the MPLA of Angola, the Communist Party of Cuba, Socialist Party of Cyprus, the Coalition of the Left and Progress and the Communist Party in Greece, and the Front for Peace and Equality in Israel.

The call for the conference issued by OSPAAL secretary general Ramón Pez Ferro said, "The fundamental objective of the conference is to contribute to the mobilization of public opinion in defense of the just cause of the Palestinian people, and to adopt an International Action Plan that will actively and effectively support the creation of an Independent Palestinian State."

Abdallah Abdallah, PLO Ambassador to Greece, prepared the discussion on a final declaration by stating, "The purpose of the conference must be to call on the international community to pressure the government of Israel to implement the agreed upon resolutions and agreements. We have to be in line with what is going on the ground."

Naim Ashhab of the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment in Jerusalem had said in the panel on the implementation of the agreements, "The Palestinians have accepted the borders of 1967, this is our historic concession in order to make peace."

Ilan Pappe of the Front for Peace and Equality in Israel argued against the framework of separate Palestinian and Israeli states that has been accepted in recent years by the leadership of the PLO and most other Palestinian organizations.

"At best they [the ruling Israeli Labor Party and opposition Likud] want to set up a Palestinian bantustan where Israeli and U.S. capitalists in collaboration with Palestinian capitalists can superexploit cheap Palestinian labor in industrial zones along the border," he stated. "Even with a truly two-state solution, the refugee problem will not be resolved. They should be allowed to return to their homes. This of course means the establishment of a unitary democratic state."

Ashhab responded, "Raising a unitary democratic Palestine confuses the immediate goal before us."

A debate also broke out on the final draft's inclusion of supporting the implementation of U.N. "Resolution 194 which gives the right to Palestinian Refugees to return to their homes or choose to require compensation." Thorayia El Ayiann of the Organization of Palestinian Working Women, from Lebanon, stressed the "inalienable right of 4.9 million refugees to return to their homeland." The compensation clause was kept.

The final declaration states "The participants agreed that a just, lasting and comprehensive solution to the conflict requires the implementation of all United Nations resolutions…which demand the Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian and Arab territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem and Golan heights, as well as Res. 425 referring to South Lebanon." The declaration also calls for the release of all Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails.

The Action Plan proposes "…to urge their governments to recognize the Palestinian state as soon as it is proclaimed and to grant diplomatic recognition to the offices of the PLO…" No proposals for mobilizations were introduced. The conference also passed resolutions demanding an immediate lifting of the U.S.-led sanctions on Iraq, and ending Washington's embargo on Cuba.

Natasha Terlexis contributed to this article.  
 
 
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