Barghouti Confident He Will Soon Be Free

Says 'My nomination was just a tactic'

Associated Press - Jerusalem Post - December 31, 2004

Jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti told The Associated Press he was never serious about his presidential bid and that he doubts the current front-runner, Mahmoud Abbas, will be able to end violence.

Barghouti's on-again, off-again candidacy had thrown Palestinian politics into turmoil, with polls indicating he would have posed a serious challenge to Abbas in a Jan. 9 election to replace Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority president.

Barghouti, who is serving multiple life terms for deadly attacks on Israelis, spoke in response to questions submitted by The Associated Press. In comments dictated to one of his lawyers and obtained Friday, Barghouti said he is confident he will be freed soon. He also complained about the conditions of his imprisonment, saying he is being kept in a small mice-and-insect infested cell.

Barghouti, a Palestinian legislator and former leader of the ruling Fatah movement in the West Bank, has been convicted of involvement in attacks that killed four Israelis and a Greek monk. During the trial, he maintained that Israel had no jurisdiction over him.

Although Fatah nominated Abbas as its presidential candidate, Barghouti announced his candidacy earlier this month. Barghouti is seen as a leader of Fatah's restless younger activists who had largely been kept out of power by Arafat.

Barghouti withdrew from the race after coming under stiff criticism from Fatah activists for splitting the party. At the time, polls showed that Barghouti, running as an independent, was virtually tied with Abbas.

But Barghouti told AP he never intended to follow through.

"My nomination for the election was just a tactic to send a political message," Barghouti said. "From the outset, I did not intent to continue the race until the end."

Barghouti said he wanted to highlight the plight of the some 7,000 Palestinians currently in Israeli jails and to call on the Palestinians to continue the uprising, which erupted in September 2000, after the collapse of peace talks.

Also, Barghouti said he knew that if he were elected it would block chances for peace talks. "I didn't wish to be used as an excuse by the United States and Israel to topple the peace process in the area," he said.

Barghouti, who learned Hebrew during seven years in Israeli prisons in the 1970s and 1980s, said he reads the three main Hebrew dailies, given to him by the officials at the prison in the southern Negev Desert town of Beersheba.

Asked whether he expected to play a role in Palestinian politics in the future, he said: "I'm exerting every effort to stay in the picture of the political developments and to express my position and opinions."

The wardens inspect him four times a day, he said, adding the food was so poor he is forced to "buy food from the canteen from my own money." Israeli Prisons' Service officials were not available for comment Friday.

Barghouti said that despite his initial challenge, he supports Abbas.

"He is a man with credibility and he is the appropriate successor for Yasser Arafat," Barghouti said.

However, Abbas, who has said the armed uprising was a mistake, would not be able to end the violence, Barghouti said.

"The intifada will not stop until we achieve freedom, return [of refugees], independence and democracy," Barghouti said.

The uprising forced Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to change his policy, Barghouti claimed. "Sharon would not have decided to withdraw from Gaza if there was no resistance," he said.

Barghouti, a fiery orator, was expelled from the West Bank by Israel in 1988 as an organizer of the first uprising, and returned in 1994, as part of interim peace deals. Barghouti advocates the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but says the Palestinians have the right to resort to violence to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.