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JAKARTA/MANILA: Asian activists are preparing to set sail with the Global Sumud Flotilla, an international fleet from 44 countries aiming to reach Gaza by sea to break Israel’s blockade of food and medical aid. 

They have banded together under the Sumud Nusantara initiative, a coalition of activists from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Maldives, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan, to join the global flotilla movement that will begin launching convoys from Aug. 31. 

Sumud Nusantara is part of the GSF, a coordinated, nonviolent fleet comprising mostly small vessels carrying humanitarian aid, which will first leave Spanish ports for the Gaza strip, followed by more convoys from Tunisia and other countries in early September.

The international coalition is set to become the largest coordinated civilian maritime mission ever undertaken to Gaza. 

“This movement comes at a very crucial time, as we know how things are in Gaza with the lack of food entering the strip that they are not only suffering from the impacts of war but also from starvation,” Indonesian journalist Nurhadis told Arab News ahead of his trip. 

“Israel is using starvation as a weapon to wipe out Palestinians in Gaza. This is why we continue to state that what Israel is doing is genocide.” 

Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians and injured over 157,000 more. As Tel Aviv continued to systematically obstruct food and aid from entering the enclave, a UN-backed global hunger monitor — the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — declared famine in Gaza on Friday, estimating that more than 514,000 people are suffering from it. 

Nurhadis is part of a group of activists from across Indonesia joining the GSF, which aims to “break Israel’s illegal blockade and draw attention to international complicity in the face of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.” 

“We continue to try through this Global Sumud Flotilla action, hoping that the entire world, whether it’s governments or the people and other members of society, will pressure Israel to open its blockade in Palestine,” he said. 

“This is just beyond the threshold of humanity. Israel is not treating Palestinians in Gaza as human beings and the world must not keep silent. This is what we are trying to highlight with this global convoy.” 

The GSF is a people-powered movement that aims to help end the genocide in Gaza, said Rifa Berliana Arifin, Indonesia country director for the Sumud Nusantara initiative and executive committee member of Jakarta-based Aqsa Working Group.  

“Indonesia is participating because this is a huge movement. A movement that aspires to resolve and end the blockade through non-traditional means. We’ve seen how ineffective diplomatic, political approaches have been, because the genocide in Gaza has yet to end. This people-power movement is aimed at putting an end to that,” Arifin told Arab News. 

“This is a non-violent mission … Even though they are headed to Gaza, they are boarding boats that have no weapons … They are simply bringing themselves … for the world to see.” 

As the Sumud Nusantara initiative is led by Malaysia, activists are gathering this weekend in Kuala Lumpur, where a ceremonial send-off for the regional convoy is scheduled to take place on Sunday, led by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. 

One of them is Philippine activist Drieza Lininding, leader of civil society group Moro Consensus Group, who is hoping that the Global Sumud Flotilla will inspire others in the Catholic-majority nation to show their support for Palestine. 

“We are appealing to all our Filipino brothers and sisters, Muslims or Christians, to support the Palestinian cause because this issue is not only about religion, but also about humanity. Gaza has now become the moral compass of the world,” he told Arab News. 

“Everybody is seeing the genocide and the starvation happening in Gaza, and you don’t need to be a Muslim to side with the Palestinians. It is very clear: if you want to be on the right side of history, support all programs and activities to free Palestine … It is very important that as Filipinos we show our solidarity.” 

ROME: Pope Leo XIV strongly affirmed the rights of the weakest against the ambitions of the powerful during an audience Saturday with refugees from Chagos, a contested Indian Ocean archipelago that is home to a strategic US-UK military base.
History’s first American pope insisted on the right of the Chagossian people to return to their homes and hailed a recent UK-Mauritius treaty over the archipelago’s future as symbolically important on the international stage.
Leo met with a delegation of refugees from Chagos, some 2,000 of whom who were evicted from their homes by Britain in the 1960s and 1970s so the US could build a naval and bomber base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia.
Displaced islanders fought for years in UK courts for the right to go home. In May, Britain and Mauritius signed a treaty to hand sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius while still ensuring the future of the base.
Leo told the refugees he was “delighted” that the treaty had been reached, saying it represented a “significant victory” in their long battle to “repair a grave injustice. He praised in particular the role of the Chagossian women in peacefully asserting their rights to go home.
“The renewed prospect of your return to your native archipelago is an encouraging sign and a powerful symbol on the international stage: all peoples, even the smallest and weakest, must be respected by the powerful in their identity and rights, in particular the right to live on their land; and no one can force them into exile,” Leo said in French.
He said he hoped that Mauritian authorities will commit to ensuring their return, and pledged the help of the local Catholic Church.
Under the agreement, the UK will pay Mauritius an average of 101 million pounds ($136 million) a year to lease back the base for at least 99 years. It establishes a trust fund to benefit the Chagossians and says “Mauritius is free to implement a program of resettlement” on the islands other than Diego Garcia. But it does not require the residents to be resettled, and some displaced islanders fear it will be even harder to return to their place of birth after Mauritius takes control.
Mauritius had long contested Britain’s claim to the archipelago, and the United Nations and its top court had urged Britain to return the Chagos to Mauritius, around 2,100 kilometers (1,250 miles) southwest of the islands.
In a non-binding 2019 opinion, the International Court of Justice ruled that the UK had unlawfully carved up Mauritius when it agreed to end colonial rule in the late 1960s.
Pope Francis visited Mauritius in 2019 and met with a group of Chagossians in the Vatican in 2023. Francis told reporters en route home from Mauritius in 2019 that Britain should obey the UN and return the islands to Mauritius.