Region’s activists to discuss launch of Asia Pacific Social Forum - By Iggy Kim

Following the success of the second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, activists from throughout the Asia Pacific region will meet at the second Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference in Sydney (Sydney Boys High School, March 29-April 1) to discuss the formation of a regional Social Forum.

Held against the backdrop of a new world political climate since September 11, the 50,000-strong international gathering in Brazil demonstrated a defiant stance against Washington’s renewed militarism. It resolutely identified the struggle against neoliberal globalisation as also a struggle against war.

The Sydney conference will seek to coordinate a similar front of international resistance.

“In the face of escalating military and economic assaults throughout the Asia Pacific region, this is crucial”, said Peter Boyle, a member of the conference organising committee.

“In Aceh, the Indonesian military is unleashing an East Timor-style terror campaign. In East Timor itself, Australia’s bid to recolonise has brought hardship to workers and poor. In Papua New Guinea and several other Pacific neighbours, Australia adds the insult of turning them into penal colonies for refugees. Australia, in turn, has become a ‘rogue state’, defying UN requests to inspect the refugee concentration camps.

“In the Philippines, US forces are sent in under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism’. In Korea, Bush’s ‘evil axis’ speech has shattered hopes for peace on the divided peninsula,” continued Boyle.

However, in the face of this, there is also increased and reviving mass struggles throughout the region: the peace movement in Pakistan, the intensifying struggle for democracy in Malaysia, the budding workers’ movement in East Timor, the continuing resistance in the Indonesian archipelago, the reprise of Philippines people’s power and struggle against US imperialism, the development of South Korean labour militancy into political organisation.

“What’s needed is to galvanise them into a regional front of resistance against the combined offensive of war and corporate globalisation,” continued Boyle.

The second Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference will build on the dialogue successfully begun at the first conference in Sydney in 1998, which attracted 750 participants, including 67 international representatives.

This second conference will feature activists from Aceh, Burma, Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Nepal, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, as well as those from North America, Africa, Europe and Latin America.

To find out more about the conference phone (02) 9690 1230, 1800 634 206 or visit the conference website at .

-----------
What's new?

[ Asia Pacific Social Forum - see above ]

Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference action at Villawood refugee prison:

Sunday, March 31, Meet 8.30am, Villawood train station or
7.20am at Central station, for the 7.33 train to Villawood
on the platform for the Inner-West line (City to Liverpool)


Latest addition to speakers:

Michael Albert, founder of Z Magazine (ZNet online), and author of Looking Forward: Participatory Economics in the 21st Century (South End Press, 1991)

Luis E. Pelayo, founder and President, Hispanic Council, an organisation working for the advancement of Hispanic immigrant workers