For the self-determination and sovereignty of peoples. Internationalist solidarity with the peoples of Palestine and Western Sahara.
For many years, we have denounced wars around the world and their impact on the lives of men and women, and we express our internationalist solidarity with the Palestinian and Sahrawi peoples. For us, the self-determination and sovereignty of peoples is an organizing principle that guides us in all forms of political positioning and self-organization.
Gathered at the 60th Congress of the UNE, held from July 16 to 20, 2025, in the city of Goiânia, we express our deepest solidarity with the Palestinian people, victims of a brutal genocide perpetrated by the State of Israel. Since October 2023, thousands of lives have been lost in Gaza and the West Bank, and the war crimes continue to worsen. The wars ravaging the world are a direct expression of the structural crisis of capitalism, which, in its relentless drive for accumulation and control, generates geopolitical and economic conflicts that lead to the destruction of human lives. The struggle for resources, territories, and hegemony is fueled by the interests of major corporations and imperialist powers, which sacrifice the working class to maintain their privileges. It is therefore the people—especially working men and women—who pay the highest price in these cruel disputes.
We denounce the forced disappearances, systematic torture, and execution of prisoners—including women, children, and the sick—by an apartheid regime led by war criminals such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir. In prisons, more than 10,500 people endure inhumane conditions, paying with their lives the price of defending their people, their land, and their dignity.
The current Israeli offensive in Gaza has displaced more than 120,000 Palestinians and already claimed thousands of lives in both territories. Peace in this region is not possible without justice and without recognition of all the treaties that Israel has never signed.
We do not believe in a militarized solution, but we understand the armed response of a people who have endured a historic process of massacre and oppression.
The people of Western Sahara face a similar situation, having lived under the occupation of the colonial kingdom of Morocco for 49 years. The Sahrawi cause is also an anti-colonial struggle. Western Sahara is recognized as the last colony in Africa—a territory forcibly occupied by the Kingdom of Morocco since 1975, when the process of occupation began with the Green March.
UN Security Council Resolution 380/1975 urges Morocco to immediately withdraw from all territories of Western Sahara. Morocco was described by UN General Assembly Resolution 35/19 of 1975 as an occupying power. The Sahrawi people, under the leadership of the POLISARIO Front, have engaged in armed resistance since the beginning of the occupation and proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic on February 27, 1976.
Amid war, Sahrawi women play a fundamental role in material survival, in the administration and management of much of the territory, in peaceful protests, and in denouncing persecution, secret imprisonment, and all forms of violence imposed on activists who fight for the evacuation of the territory. Sahrawi women are symbols of resistance—not only for their people but for women around the world.
Our pain and our struggle are the struggle of Sahrawi women for freedom, because we, Brazilian women, know well the strength we need and have to survive. We have developed tactics and strategies since birth to live our lives while minimizing the violence we suffer and fighting so that other women can survive the violence they face.
The defense of the self-determination of peoples, internationalist solidarity, and feminist struggle are inseparable in building a political project that confronts the crisis of capitalism and its destructive effects. May the voices of women, workers, and oppressed peoples resonate in every act of resistance, every protest, and every victory—for in them lies the hope of a world free from war and oppression.
The historic struggle in defense of the Palestinian people and Western Sahara for justice and self-determination—as well as in defense of Sahrawi women—must be a central and historical element in all Student Movement and Social Movement organizations. Therefore, we call on all movements and organizations to intensify mobilizations for self-determination and against war, in solidarity with the Palestinian and Sahrawi peoples.
Free Palestine, from the river to the sea!
Recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic now!
National Union of Students (UNE)
