Roger Waters narrates UN film on West Bank separation fence

Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, an outspoken critic of Israel's policy in the West Bank, is now the voice behind a United Nations film documenting Palestinian life behind Israel's controversial separation fence, the AFP reported on Wednesday.

The UN premiered its 15-minute documentary "Walled Horizons" this week, to mark five years since the International Court of Justice ruled that the route of the fence through Palestinian land was illegal.

The film features Palestinians who had lost a part of their lives to the wall, said the AFP. Interviewees include a farmer whose land was severed in half and a family caught in the "seam line" between the wall and the Green Line.

Waters, who wrote Pink Floyd's 1979 hit album "The Wall", is featured in the opening shot of the film walking beside a concrete section of the barrier, on which is painted a giant laying on its back.

"The reason for walls is always fear, whether the personal walls that we build around ourselves or walls like this that frightened governments build around themselves," Waters says. "They are always expressions of a deep-seated insecurity."

A shot of Palestinians cramming en masse into a fenced-in corridor awaiting a safe passage through an Israeli checkpoint wraps up the film on a dramatic note.

"It fills me with horror, the thought of living in a giant prison," Waters says, as the camera catches him spray-painting "We don't need no thought control" on the separation wall, in reference to the title song of the album.

The film's Finnish director Yohan Eriksson told AFP that the film was intended as reminder to the international community of the fence's affect on Palestinian daily life.

"It is first and foremost a reminder that the world's highest court has essentially said you cannot build a fence on your neighbor's yard," Eriksson told the French agency.

When Waters played in Israel in 2006, he was criticized by Palestinian activists trying to organize a cultural boycott of Israel. Waters said he now feels ambivalent about having performed in Israel.

Just before that end of the concert, Waters told his audience again: "I believe we need this generation of Israelis to tear down the walls and make peace with their neighbors."