• Stop making claims that APEC reduces poverty in our countries. We see the reality of grinding poverty and misery every day: * Some 900 million people in this region live below a (problematic) poverty line of $2 day
• Over 46 million people are unemployed in the region, nearly double since 1993
• Tens of millions who have jobs are trapped in poverty wages, competing with each other, and denied the right to unionise
• Privatisations deny people the right to potable water, education, health care while corporations control people's right to life saving medicines
• Women and men work for pittances in foreign countries because there is no work at home to feed their families
• Indigenous peoples are forced from their lands
• Farmers can no longer work their land and the right to food sovereignty
• Corporations rape our natural resources, pollute our environments and destroy the ecosystem.

Why are you not prepared to see these realities?

Those who have prospered from APEC are the corporations that have a privileged seat at your table. It is no coincidence that the heads of government, trade ministers and the leaders of the transnational corporations in the region have to meet behind the tightest security cordon in Australia's history.

You claim to care about people, but all you really care about is the profits of big business. The most pressing issues for APEC in 2007 are all being converted into commercial opportunities through free trade agreements and foreign investment rights so the largest companied in the region can profit from climate change, renewable energies and human security.

The APEC agenda – the war on terror, increased militarization, peddling nuclear power, ecological exhaustion – means more poverty and misery for the mass of people in Asia and the Pacific Islands. Australians face these realities alongside the poorest people in all other APEC member countries.

We reject the APEC agenda and challenge you to hear the voices of those whose lives you condemn to poverty but whom you are determined to silence.

Signed in Sydney, Australia on 6 September 2007-09-06

Asia Pacific Research Network
Aid/Watch (Australia)
Action, Research and Education Network of Aotearoa (NZ)
Committee for Asian Women (CAW), Thailand
Institute for Global Justice (Indonesia)
IBON Foundation
Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG)
Ecumenical Institute for Labour Education and Research (EILER, Phils.)
Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (Australia)
Global Trade Watch (Australia)
Right To Water (NZ)
Development Resource Centre
Coastal Development Partnership, Bangladesh
Arab NGO Network for Development
Pacific Asia Resource Center (Japan)
Korea Alliance Against Korea-US FTA
Roots for Equity, Pakistan
Public Services International
Australian Services Union
Third World Network

It is difficult for APEC veterans to take the whole circus very seriously. It has always been a poor relation (in liberalization terms) to the regional initiatives in Europe and North America that its instigators (led by Australia) intended to match. It continues to limp along with old targets that are rarely met, new initiatives that are likely to go the same way. Member ‘economies’ will urge each other to breath life into the moribund Doha round and to ensure that bilaterals don’t undermine the multilateral system, and continue behaving the same.

APEC’s official free trade agenda has been problematic from the start. The 1994 Bogor goal of free trade and investment among the richer economies of the region by 2010 and the rest by 2020 was always ‘voluntary and non-binding’. The pillars of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and that of economic and technical cooperation reflected an intrinsic tension between the Anglo-American members (Australia, NZ, US, Canada, later Chile) who wanted access into the Asian economies and markets, and the Asian members, especially Japan and ASEAN, that were interested in strengthening their existing integration.

Each ‘economy’ was required to submit an Individual Action Plan (IAPs) setting out its steps towards this goal. Look for yourselves – the pro-liberalization countries like Australia and New Zealand assiduously did so. Others made promises they might or might not achieve.

The idea of IAPS soon lost its gloss and the free traders developed a new initiative. Early voluntary sectoral liberalization would kick start liberalization in specified areas – from forestry to fisheries to toys and jewelry. This was launched at the Vancouver meeting in 1997 as the Asian financial crisis lowered the boom on the globalization nirvana of the early 1990s. By 1998 EVSL has failed too. Clinton stayed away from the Malaysia meeting in 1998 hosted by the ‘recalcitrant’ Mahathir, whose ‘unorthodox’ currency controls had limited the impact of the crisis on Malaysia’s economy. By 1999 New Zealand needed to find a new to pull rabbit out of the hat. Two developments happened. The East Timor crisis saw foreign policy and security become the major purpose of the leaders’ meeting of APEC ‘economies’. And the pro-liberalization camp began pushing bilaterals free trade agreements (FTAs) to rebuild momentum for liberalization from below. The architects dubbed it a Trojan Horse strategy. That was the month before Seattle. APEC’s attempts to catalyse WTO negotiations speak for themselves.

The FTA strategy encountered the same internal divisions. Australia has led the push for ‘high quality’ liberalization and consistency through FTAs. Since 2003, policy dialogues at Senior Official level on FTAs have encouraged ‘sharing of experiences’ – New Zealand, Singapore and Chile have promoted the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (the P-4) as a model for integrating bilateral FTAs. Best Practice guidelines for FTAs were developed in 2004 and endorsed by the Ministers and Leaders meetings. The Australian government produced a handbook on FTAs for a workshop on FTA negotiations in late 2004, including a section on how to sell the agreements at home. This was part of the Australian government’s ‘capacity-building’ activities in APEC funded by AUSAID. Australia’s DFAT also published a negotiating guide to FTAs in 2005, which included the best practice principles and a stylized FTA. Training programmes have been organised to build micro-networks of officials, with several of the APEC Study Centres playing a key ideological role. Model chapters have been developed to encourage ‘high ambitions’. But governments continue to tailor their own approaches, driven by their own offensive and defensive interests and, increasingly, by their domestic opposition to these deals.

The objective of the neoliberal camp is to link together the tangle of FTAs that is emerging in the region into a grand Asia Pacific FTA. While the principle has been broadly endorsed it is euphemistically described as a very long term goal. Just like the Doha round, unrealistic ambitions followed by excuses failure that fail to address the real causes are deeply discrediting the globalization agenda and reflect a growing desperation of those who champion and increasingly unstable free trade agenda.

In one sense, APEC has lived up to its nickname of Aging Politicians Enjoying Cocktails. But it has also provided a place for officials to gather and for liberalization proselytizers in the APEC studies centres, Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, ABAC and government trade ministries to peddle ideas and promote guidelines and principles that do become incorporated into FTA texts. More importantly, the meetings provide diplomatic impetus for the brokering of deals as ministers and leaders need something to announce to justify the silly shirts and extravagant junkets.

But APEC is also being overtaken by activities between its Asian and Latin American members, respectively. Sometimes the former is visible, such as the ASEAN plus three and the post-ASEAN dialogue with other governments, including Australia and New Zealand. But there are also more subtle and driven by new geopolitical dynamics that have changed dramatically in the past few years.

Power is shifting. The US capacity to negotiate free trade agreements is likely to remain crippled without fast track negotiating authority, and it now treats trade agreements as instruments of foreign policy and security. It is looking internally for now with the Security and Prosperity Partnership among NAFTA members promoting deep integration and a commons security boundary (albeit divided by a wall between the US and Mexico). Canada is treated internationally rather like the Tasmania of the US. Australia has already negotiated its treaty of economic surrender with the US, and other easier targets like Singapore and Thailand. It has the advantage of energy but is also too aggressive for many governments. New Zealand sits irrelevant and increasingly desperate on the geographical and economic periphery. The two gang together to use their bullying power on the Pacific Islands. While the CER ASEAN agreement and agreements with China are the grand plan the public and private versions of the state of play are very different.

The real dynamics in Asia are now coming from the new hegemons of China, India and Japan. Recent developments suggest they will find agreements much easier to achieve. Japan’s EPAs with Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have largely slipped under the radar, although the Philippines agreement is stuck in their Senate. Equivalent agreements with the US would have been politically unachievable. There is a risk that these agreements will be treated as preferably pro-Asian or in the case of India and China some form of South/South solidarity. But they are all the same model; all have to be WTO compatible and hence WTO plus. They all involve the surrender of policy space and sovereign authority to the interests of major corporations and international capital and locking in a neoliberal model that is failing the mass of the people in the region.

At the same time the combination of economic crises, declining legitimacy of neoliberalism and popular resistance is having a major impact. The political contradictions are already being played out in many communities. Sometimes the national government has been the target. In the Philippines the battle has centred largely around the attempt of the pro-US Arroyo administration to rewrite the nationalist constitution. In Thailand, resistance ranged from local communities opposing new bylaws on supermarkets demanded by the Wal-Mart and others to the removal of the corrupt Prime Minister Thaksin as he negotiated a US free trade deal. In South Korea, cultural activists, students, farmers and workers joined together to oppose the US assault on national culture and livelihoods. Even the Pacific islands are baulking at the unconscionable pressure from the EU to sign crippling EPA agreements, despite (or maybe because of) recent threats to cut their aid. They have also begun to stand up to Australia and New Zealand demands under PACER.

The alternatives this generates will be localized, although strategies, pressures and examples can be developed collaboratively. Increasingly opposition and alternatives will need to confront the merging of militarization, security and war, energy crises and the unsustainability of a global economy that relies on oil, and economic instability.

The led is, at present, provided by Latin America, led by Venezuela, Cuba and now Bolivia and driven by social movements. None of these are APEC members, but their regional activities are impacting on those who are members – Chile, Peru, Mexico, US and Canada. A belligerent Venezuela is now taking the challenge to the imperial powers in the WTO. Oil wealth provides a platform to build alternative alliances, reduce the risk of political isolation and challenge neoliberal globalization. As the host of OPEC in 2002, Chávez pushed for production limits that increased world oil prices and returns to oil-producing countries. He visited both Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi beforehand. Chávez took over from Brazilian President ‘Lula’ da Silva as the spearhead of the strategy to sink the US’s grand hemispheric plan for the FTAA. When the US succeeded in dividing the Andean Community of Nations through bilateral deals, Venezuela cut its ties with the community. Chavez sought to join Mercosur instead, but as of August 2007 Brazil and Paraguay had delayed Venezuela’s entry. Their domestic constituencies fear that Chavez will oppose the Mercosur FTA with the EU and turn Mercosur into a political vehicle to promote his counter-hegemonic Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA). Mercusor is a neoliberal regional pact; Alba has been described as a socially-oriented trade block [sic] rather than one strictly based on the logic of deregulated profit maximization [that] appeals to the egalitarian principles of justice and equality that are innate in human beings, the well-being of the most dispossessed sectors of society, and a reinvigorated sense of solidarity toward the underdeveloped countries of the western hemisphere.

Chávez also developed creative ways to circumvent the OPEC prohibition on sales at below market value. Venezuela provided oil to crisis-ridden Argentina in 2003-4, and delivered subsidized oil through Sandanista politicians during Nicaragua’s election campaign in 2006. Chávez eased the economic blockade of Cuba through a deal that allowed deferred and in-kind payments, notably by health and literacy programmes. In a move calculated to humiliate George W. Bush, he even offered heavily discounted heating oil to flood victims, low-income families and first nations in the US. There were moves to consolidate petroleum organizations in Latin American and Caribbean, and establish a strong diplomatic and oil relationship with China, fast emerging as the US’s main energy competitor. China became a major investor in Venezuela’s oil industry. In a further threat to US hegemony, the government used its oil wealth to repay Venezuela’s IMF loans. In May 2007 announced it would withdraw from the IMF and World Bank in favour of a socially democratic alternative regional institution.

In this context the US needs APEC as a forum to maintain visible presence and inject its agenda in the changing Asian region, with assistance from its allies in Australia, Japan and the Philippines, among others. Next year’s meeting in Peru; that government apparently intends to invite Brazil’s Lula to attend. APEC’s already incoherent political and economic agenda seems destined to become even more complicated and ultimately unsustainable.

In a letter to Clark dated March 16, a copy of which was also sent to Arroyo, Professor Jane Kelsey, urged the prime minister to “talk directly to the Philippines President and insist there must be an end to the unlawful killings and detentions and free and fair democratic elections, and to issue a public statement to that effect so that further tragedy can be averted.”

A copy of the Kelsey’s latter was provided by the leftist party-list group Bayan Muna (People First).

Kelsey told Clark that the killings, the “continued unjust detention” of leftist Representative Crispin Beltran and the service of a warrant of arrest on Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo “are systematic attempts by those in power to impede the success of Bayan Muna and Anakpawis [party-list] candidates in the forthcoming [May] election.”

The letter was dated the same day Ocampo was arrested by police after he filed a petition before the Supreme Court questioning the warrant issued against him on multiple murder charges for his alleged role in the execution of at least 15 suspected government spies in a supposed communist rebel purge in the mid-1980s.

Ocampo remains in police custody pending oral arguments on a petition he filed with the Supreme Court questioning the arrest warrant and the charges against him.

This is the second time in recent months Kelsey, a professor of law at the University of Auckland and prominent critic of globalization, has written Clark on the human rights situation in the Philippines.

The first time was before the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cebu, which Clark attended. In response to Kelsey’s letter then, Clark and New Zealand’s ambassador to Manila raised these concerns over human rights, which the prime minister relayed in a March 12 letter to the law professor.

However, Kelsey said, “along with many others who are monitoring the worsening conditions in the Philippines I place no weight on the assurances you received from President Arroyo.”

She acknowledged that her request to Clark would be “diplomatically sensitive” for the prime minister.

“However, there is a point at which governments that repress their people, especially people who are democratically elected political representatives, need to be held publicly to account,” she stressed.

“Unless the voices of political leaders like yourself are raised strongly and publicly to condemn the current situation, there is a serious risk that the Philippines will return to a de facto, if not a formal, state of martial law. Some believe it has already done so,” Kelsey said.

“This is a matter of the utmost urgency,” she added.

Kelsey said the issuance of a warrant against Ocampo “has surely put President Arroyo's government across that line,” noting that the warrant “relates to murders that allegedly occurred in Leyte in 1984, yet Satur was a prisoner of the Marcos regime from 1976 to 1985.”

Kelsey described Ocampo as “a friend who has dedicated his life to securing justice for the ordinary people of the Philippines.”

The conference was organized by the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) together with its members, the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER), Asia Monitor Resource Center (AMRC), ARENA - New Zealand and the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM).

The conference discussed issues concerning neoliberal labor market restructuring and workers’ resistance. It highlighted various forms of trade union repression, suppression and curtailment of labor rights in the guise of labor market restructuring.

Distinguished speakers from various labor groups spoke of their experiences as well as their struggles confronting different forms of labor market restructuring. There were also testimonies from the workers themselves who shared their experiences on the continuous threats by the company management against organizing trade unions and fighting for the rights and wellbeing of their co-workers.

Policies of labor market restructuring in the national level as well as workers’ resistance were shared by those in Australia, New Zealand and Philippines among others.

Part of the conference program was the showing of a documentary film about the condition and campaign for the immediate release of KMU (May First Movement) honorary Chairperson and member of the Philippine House of Representatives, Cong. Crispin “Ka Bel” Beltran who was illegally arrested and detained by the Philippine military because of fabricated charges. Another documentary film was shown on the labor rights campaign held in New Zealand.

Conference participants also joined in a protest action against the ASEAN meeting scheduled to be held in Cebu City but was postponed in January 2007 because of the on-going political crisis faced by the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

First among these activities is the two-day, multi-event “Asserting Food Sovereignty” scheduled on January 21-22. This event will include public forums, speak out, simultaneous workshops and a  mobilization/People’s March for Food Sovereignty. Co-organizers include People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS), Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP), Kenyan Debt Relief Network (KENDREN), Asian Peasant Coalition (APC), Food Trade and Nutrition Coalition (FTN), Coalition of Agricultural Workers International (CAWI), Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM Kenya), PELUM Zambia, Kenya Small Scale Farmers Forum (KESSFF),  Sustainable Agriculture Community Development Programme (SACDEP Kenya), Kenya Organic Farmers Association (KOFA),  Kenya Institute of Organic Farming (KIOF), Network for Ecofarming in Africa (NECOFA), and Tanzanian Plantation and Agricultural Worker’s Union.

On January 22, APRN will also participate in the event “Illegitimate Debt and Global Trade”. This will take place at the Ecumenical Pavilion from 11am - 1pm. Co-organizers to the event are Norwegian Church Aid, AFRODAD, ROA, and African Council of Churches.

Lastly, APRN will join the event “Strategies for Campaign on Dictator and Illegitimate Debt: Sharings on Liberia, DRC, and the Philippines” in the afternoon of January 24. Event co-organizers are AFRODAD, Kendren, and Reality of Aid.

Teresa Gutierrez, a member of the US-based International Action Center, was with around 300 locals who marched from Fuente Osmeña towards the Malacañang sa Sugbo Sunday morning. The group was stopped near the Department of Foreign Affairs office by anti-riot police.

Gutierrez said the government’s plan to blacklist foreigners who participate in rallies was undemocratic.

“It’s a shame that the Arroyo government plans to do that. It is a violation of the basic democratic right of every people.” Gutierrez said. “If they are for freedom, then why can’t we travel to the Philippines?

“Why would we not be allowed to come in if thousands of people are inviting us,” she said.

Gutierrez said that if she was barred from the country, she would send others in her stead.

“If I can’t come in, I’ll send my friends. We’ll just keep coming one way or the other... They can’t stop our solidarity with their visa laws or immigration laws. If Brian Campbell can’t come we’ll find other attorneys,” she said, referring to a labor rights lawyer from the US who was deported shortly after he arrived in Manila last Wednesday.

Campbell was scheduled to attend a two-day Conference on Jobs and Justice at the St. Theresa's College late last week.

Australian Len Cooper, a member of the International League of Peoples'
Struggles (ILPS), said they could not do anything if the Philippine government sets up a black list.

“However, this action violates the country’s stance as a democratic nation,” Cooper said.

“What’s wrong with foreign delegates coming here to put views that may or may not be contrary to the Philippine government? If the Philippine government supports suppression rather than democracy then that’s their choice, not ours,” he said.

Gutierrez and Cooper attended the Conference on Jobs and Justice last week, and were scheduled to join other meetings set up by local militants and international civil groups.

The rallyists gathered at the Fuente Osmeña early Sunday and marched down Osmeña Boulevard even under heavy downpour, intending to go to the Malacañang sa Sugbo.

However, riot police from the Cebu City Police Office, led by Superintendent Mariano Natuel, blocked the activists’ way at the intersection of Osmeña Boulevard and P. Burgos Street.

Police later allowed the activists to march a little further, but stopped them from going beyond M.J. Cuenco Avenue, 100 meters from the Malacañang sa Sugbo.

The demonstrators, including foreigners, were chanting “People united will never be divided. Yes to international solidarity.” Their Cebuano counterparts interpreted their speeches by local protesters into English.

Vince Cinches of the Panaghiusa sa Gagmay'ng Mangingisda sa Sugbo said they appreciated the support they got from their foreign counterparts.

“It also shows that we have a common issue where we can work on. It shows that the question on democracy, jobs, wage, and justice is a global concern,” he said.

The office of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, host of the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, postponed Dec. 8 the event due to an impending typhoon, codenamed “Seniang.” Weather reports in Cebu said, however, the typhoon is expected to hit the northern part of Cebu island province but not the city where the summit is to be held Dec. 11-15.

Progressive groups are not buying the presidential office’s announcement.

In a press conference Dec. 9 at St. Theresa’s College here, Jaime Paglinawan, chair of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance)-Central Visayas, said that the postponement is due to the impending storm of protests here in Cebu and in Metro Manila.

“Even before the opening of the ASEAN summit,” Paglinawan said, “protests have been staged by different sectors. We have exposed the ill impacts of the ASEAN hosting. Corruption and overspending of local governments, demolition of urban poor communities, human rights abuses, among others, have been highlighted.”

Meanwhile, Elmer Labog, chair of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU or May 1st Movement), underscored the impact of what he called "brewing political storm in Manila" to the ASEAN summit.

“Jose de Venecia and other Malacanang lackeys in Congress are doing everything they can to shield Arroyo from the wave of criticisms and protests from all sectors,” he said.

Bayan and other anti-Arroyo forces have announced that they will hold big mass actions next week against the Con-Ass (short for constituent assembly). The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has also called on the faithful to oppose the Con-Ass.

Middle of last week, the administration-dominated House of Representatives passed House Resolution 1450 calling for the conversion of the bicameral Congress into a Constituent Assembly) that will amend the 1987 Constitution. Proponents of charter change have been batting for a shift for a unicameral parliamentary system but its opponents see otherwise – a strategy to perpetuate the power of the President and her political allies in the House.

Apparently taken aback by the spontaneous howls of protest against Con-Ass, De Venecia announced December 9 the postponement of ConAss and called for elections of members of Constitutional Convention (ConCon) on May 14.

Reacting to De Venecia, Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo said that the decision of the House speaker and the majority bloc to drop the Con-Ass temporarily is a “tactical victory for the Filipino people.” He added, however, that the people must remain vigilant.

Counter conferences continue

Rita Baua, vice chair of the International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS) Philippine chapter, said that they will push through with the conference on U.S. militarism and war on terror. Some 130 local and foreign delegates from 20 countries have arrived for the conference.

Baua said, foreign delegates have are in Cebu to discuss the implications of the U.S.’ global war of terror to the peoples of the world and unite on ways “to resist U.S. military intervention and aggression.”

The ILPS will launch a campaign in East Asia and Oceania against U.S. military bases. The U.S. has 850 bases in 138 countries.

In a statement, Antonio Tujan, chair of the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) and Ibon research director, said, “We will continue to oppose U.S. agenda in the ASEAN because agreements have already been made and continue to be negotiated.” The APRN co-sponsored the conference on militarism. Bulatlat

© 2006 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Media Center

Media head of Ibon Foundation Inc., Rhea Padilla, said the Asia Pacific Research Network is organizing this alternative conference, involving workers groups, trade unions, NGOs, and labor advocates.

Padilla said the participating labor leaders are from Pakistan, United States, India, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Nepal, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Fiji, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Taiwan, Europe, Korea and Africa.

The conference is expected to provide participants more tools in resisting policies against workers, defending workers' rights, and advancing the struggle for economic and social justice, said a press release from APRN.

The participants would also tackle about the effects of the agenda being discussed in the Asean business summit, which is participated by businessmen and corporate leaders in Southeast Asia.

The APRN has presently 37 member-organizations from 17 countries with the main purpose of exchanging information on international issues, as well as experiences, technologies, and methods in research.

IBON, on the other hand, is a research-education-information development institution that studies socio-economic issues confronting Philippine society and the world today. It explores alternatives and promotes new ideas for the Filipinos. - Jasmin R. Uy/RAE

"The lawyers will be assisting them in case there would be delays or problems," said Theresa Lauron, secretary general of the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN).

A team of lawyers is also standing by the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to assist foreign activists coming into the country for the ASEAN Summit.

APRN is allied with the Bayan Muna groups, which is planning to hold various forums and rallies during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit.

A second group of protesters from Akbayan and its allied organizations also plan to hold separate activities.

The two groups said some 100 foreign delegates would be joining their activities here.

Lauron said those who would be arriving on Wednesday will come from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the United States. Many others will come within the next few days, she added.

The government and the police have vowed to arrest foreigners who will join rallies during the ASEAN Summit.

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, militant group members and police officials agreed last Monday during a dinner meeting to avoid clashes in the streets during the protests.

The mayor, during the dinner meeting, said that while he is not opposed to the conduct of protest actions during the summit, he would not allow rallyists to disrupt the summit proceedings.

"I don't want to create fear, especially on the part of the VIPs," the mayor said during the dialogue.

Vince Cinches, the public information officer of Panaghiusa sa Gagmay'ng Mangingisda sa Sugbo (Pamana-Sugbo), assured the mayor that they would not cross restricted areas.

Arman Perez, Bayan Muna secretary general, said they planned to issue identification cards to their members for proper accounting and to prevent infiltrators from sneaking into their ranks.

On Tuesday, however, one group that met with the mayor last Monday punched through security forces to perform an exorcism ritual in front of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC).

Victor Lapaz of Pamana-Sugbo told Cebu Daily News that they performed the rite to express their opposition to supposed US intervention in ASEAN affairs and in political killings.

The group took a black chicken and slit its throat in front of the CICC gate.

Cinches said they succeeded in "outsmarting" the policemen in the vicinity because nobody had suspected them to be members of the militant groups.

"Nalutsan man gyud sila, nag-deploy sila og daghang mga police, nag-checkpoint pa sila, unya kami nagsakay ra mi og trak de karga, mura gani og we outsmarted them," Cinches proudly said.

Chief Superintendent Silverio Alarcio, Jr. director of Central Visayas police, said he would ask the Mandaue Police chief on why the militants were able to reach the CICC.

Alarcio, however, said, the move of the militants was a deception.

"I think the work of deception is not true anymore sa mga adhikain natin, mahirap iyong ganun," Alarcio said.

Alarcio asked militant groups not to go near summit venues and disrupt the summit.

"If they want to hold rallies, then do it in one place at kumuha ng media upang i-cover. There's no need to go there just to dramatize your cause,"
Alarcio said.

"They should do some activities in a certain place. Mas maganda, mas tahimik. Ang pangit iyong you want to dramatize your point by disturbing what should be a peaceful activity," Alarcio said.

Perez, however, said they want to do their protests as close to the CICC as possible.

Perez refused to say which part of the CICC they would hold their protest action.

"Basta dili lang sab layo kaayo, dili sab duol kaayo," he said. /Chief of Reporters of Suzanne Salva-Alueta, Reporters Wilfredo Rodolfo III and Doris C. Bongcac, and Correspondent Jhunnex Napallacan

The APRN, which will hold its annual international conference in Cebu City, is also co-sponsoring two other conferences, such as the International Jobs and Justice Conference on December 7-8 to coincide with the ASEAN Business Advisory Council's Business and Investment Summit. The activities will bring together over a hundred members, non-member international delegates, and local participants.

Tujan said that such moves were clearly intended to block foreign delegates from attending legitimate conferences that are critical of issues to be taken up at the ASEAN summit. He added that such moves were discriminatory, given that Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez had ordered the creation of special lanes manned by immigration officials who are tasked only to process the papers of ASEAN summit delegates.

The APRN is a network of 37 leading research NGOs from 17 Asia-Pacific nations which exchanges information on international issues, and shares capacity-building support, technologies, and methods in research since 1998.

Foreigners who work with the network and attend its conferences should not be characterized as "threats to national peace and security" just because they discuss issues on neoliberal globalization and the US economic agenda, and seek alternatives to the prevailing economic system, Tujan said.

At the recently concluded Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meeting, US President George W. Bush called for the exploration into the creation of a trans-Pacific, region-wide Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific- - reportedly the largest free-trade agreement ever conceived.

The Bush administration had also signed in 2005 a US-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Enhanced Partnership Agreement (EPA) whose main objectives are to increase security and political cooperation and enhance trade and investment flows as well as strengthening the investment climate in ASEAN to encourage US investment in the region.

But IBON research head Sonny Africa argues that such liberalization and integration efforts are less about strengthening ASEAN as an economic and political bloc than they are about allowing US transnational corporations the greatest freedom to locate their investments in terms of cheap labor and resources, access to markets and geography.

“A successful ASEAN-wide effort for deeper and linked implementation of ‘free market’ policies will then just mean a more intense race to the bottom for Southeast Asian countries where each client state will scramble to provide the most favorable conditions for imperialist superprofits from trade and investment,” Africa said.

He added that these conditions include the most exploitative labor conditions, the greatest fiscal incentives, the most liberal investment regime, the least intrusive environmental policies, and the most liberalized social sectors and public utilities.

Africa further pointed out that the US-ASEAN EPA led to the signing of a US-ASEAN Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) in September 2006 that lays the groundwork for an eventual US-ASEAN free trade agreement. Such an agreement could demand a level of liberalization even higher than that of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and thus, cement US economic control over Southeast Asian countries. (end)

IBON Foundation, Inc. is an independent development institution established in 1978 that provides research, education, publications, information work and advocacy support on socioeconomic issues.

With the onset of the “war on terror” and the increasing political and economic importance of ASEAN to the whole of Asia and the Pacific, the US appears to be out to increasingly use the organization as a region-wide mechanism for meeting its objectives in the sub-region and beyond

IBON Features-- Southeast Asia is essential to the United States (US) for securing its geopolitical and economic interests not only in East Asia and the Pacific but beyond to South Asia, Central Asia and even West Asia (or the Middle East). A sustained American military presence in the region is indispensable; an economic presence is likewise vital, both for the regional alliances that they underpin and the superprofits that they directly generate.

These interests are what motivate the US’s engagement in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The grouping itself was created by the US as a Cold War line of defense.

A loose and non-binding organization

The US formed ASEAN in the late 1960s as a bulwark against the expansion of Communism from China, North Korea and Indochina. The immediate threat that needed to be hemmed in at the time was seen as coming from Vietnam even as there were other countries with revolutionary movements at varying stages of development. ASEAN founding documents were nominally about economic concerns but its practice was mainly in geo-political and diplomatic matters.

The ASEAN had just five members when it was founded in 1967: Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Brunei Darussalam was admitted in 1984, Vietnam in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in 1997, and then Cambodia in 1999-- thus including all the major countries of Southeast Asia.

None of ASEAN’s members can be said to be a global economic power nor can any single member-country or group of countries be able to assert a generally acknowledged leadership role. These factors combine to define the organization’ s character so far as a loose and non-binding organization whose members are able to preserve their individual prerogatives.

This loose character makes ASEAN hard-pressed to deal decisively with sensitive and potentially divisive internal issues. It also does not have a record of taking unified positions in larger forums like the World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or in United Nations Millennium Summits. To date, the ASEAN does not yet even have observer status in the UN and indeed is the only regional grouping in the world still without such status.

Since none of the ASEAN countries are major military powers and because, individually and collectively, their most important economic partners are not the organization’ s members. ASEAN is consequently unable to substantially define a “regional” agenda autonomous of external First World interests. Indeed, the major direction of ASEAN today-- as embodied in the targeted ASEAN Community by 2020-- is conspicuously framed in terms of building closer security and economic links with non-ASEAN powers.

The US in Southeast Asia

The US’s main strategic objectives in Southeast Asia are to:

• Ensure its dominance in the sub-region and use this for developing and maintaining its hegemony over the rest of Asia, including competing with other major East Asian powers especially Japan and emerging China.
• Preserve its free access to, if not outright control of, the major sea lanes from the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean: the strategic Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar Straits as well as the South China Sea. These sea routes transiting Southeast Asia are vital for global seaborne commerce-- reportedly accounting for more than half of the world’s annual merchant shipping traffic with trade and energy shipments worth some $1.5 trillion-- and for US military “force projection” in the Indian Ocean to as far away as West Asia.
• Create, deepen and expand trade and investment opportunities. The US here directly competes with Japan, Europe and to a much lesser degree China. Although manufacturing is a key area, the US’s main thrust is currently in opening up neocolonial financial and service sectors.

These three objectives underpin all of the US’s bilateral and regional level maneuvering in Southeast Asia. The US has aggressively pursued these for decades through, and also outside, ASEAN. It has achieved its military objectives through its important control over individual countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and others. It has also attained its economic objectives through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, through bilateral economic pressure and arrangements, and multilaterally through the World Trade Organization .

With the onset of the “war on terror” and the increasing political and economic importance of ASEAN to the whole of Asia and the Pacific, the US appears to be increasingly using the organization as a region-wide mechanism for meeting its objectives in the sub-region and beyond.

The overall US approach is to elevate its bilateral military relations to a more assertive region-wide level as possible and as necessary. The foundations are military exercises, both with individual countries such as Balikatan in the Philippines and Cobra Gold in Thailand, and with coordinated sets of sequential bilateral exercises--the biggest of which so far is the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise of the US Pacific Fleet with the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. At the regional level the US Pacific Command (PACOM) has its umbrella security network Exercise Team Challenge (ETC) which is moreover used to coordinate with the militaries of Australia and New Zealand.

The US has also become the dominant economic power in the region. In the last five to six years it has overtaken Japan as the region’s biggest source of foreign direct investment (FDI). Total US FDI in the region over the period 1995-2003 sums to $35.7 billion or 16.3% of total FDI in Southeast Asia-- followed by Japan ($28 billion or 12.7% of the total) and the UK ($25.8 billion, 11.7%).

The US is also ASEAN’s largest trading partner where, at $1.2 trillion over the decade 1995-2004, it accounted for 14.7% of total ASEAN two-way trade (i.e. import and export) outside Southeast Asia.

All these investments have been in the service of creating a First World-dominated region-wide production base through dispersed industrial enclaves or so-called export processing zones. American, Japanese and European transnational corporations (TNCs) have taken advantage of economic globalization to fragment their production processes across Southeast Asia and set up firms and domestic enterprises in the form of subsidiaries, affiliates and subcontractors.

Hosting the 12th ASEAN Summit: A loyal client

It is significant that the upcoming 12th ASEAN Summit is hosted by the Philippine government which has, under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, proven that it is the US’s most loyal client state in the region. Since the chair largely decides on the agenda, it may be expected that US interests will be clearly reflected. The exact agenda of the December Summit will become clearer as it approaches although there are already indications of what it will contain.

Consistent with the US “war on terror” theme, the Philippines is pushing to complete an ASEAN Convention on Counter-Terrorism. It has also drafted a document that proposes ASEAN engagement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The SCO is a six-country military alliance founded in 2001 that specifically excludes the US and implicitly challenges its hegemony particularly in Central Asia. It includes Russia, China and the Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) with Pakistan, India, Mongolia and Iran as observers. The proposed ASEAN “engagement” is then potentially a backdoor for the US into the SCO through its proxies such as the Philippines.

Also on the agenda are the approval of a “blueprint” for the proposed ASEAN Charter and the creation of a drafting committee for this towards completion in time for the 13th Summit in Singapore in December 2007. The proposed ASEAN Charter aims, among others, to tighten organizational structures and establish more formal decision-making processes which would facilitate the implementation of region-wide interventions.

The Philippines is also pushing to discuss energy security including opening up access to the region’s oil and liquefied natural gas resources; Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines are known to have rich oil and gas reserves. Other items on the agenda, within the framework of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community, are an ASEAN Declaration on the Rights of Migrant Workers and an ASEAN Declaration on HIV/AIDS.

All these initiatives make it clear what the essential agenda of the 12th Summit is: to increase US military presence and to deepen neoliberal globalization in Southeast Asia. With reports from Joseph Yu IBON Features

IBON Features is a media service of IBON Foundation, an independent economic policy and research institution. When reprinting this feature, please credit IBON Features and give the byline when applicable.

IBON Features Vol XII No 39/November 2006

The heads of state attending the conference will undoubtedly bring their own security contingent with them and thus, such a show of force is unnecessary, according to IBON. The Philippine National Police (PNP) will reportedly field some 10,000 policemen while the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will send 3,100 soldiers.

The thousands of government security forces in Cebu may instead be intended to have a discouraging effect on demonstrations at the venue, and provide a false sense of stability from the growing unrest against the Arroyo administration.

Progressive groups have already planned an archipelago- wide caravan called “Voyagers for Peace” which will travel to Cebu from various parts of the country. Conferences by various cause-oriented groups and people’s organizations are also planned and daily demonstrations are expected, but the AFP is over-reacting due to the continued instability and unacceptability of the Arroyo regime. (end)

IBON Foundation, Inc. is an independent development institution established in 1978 that provides research, education, publications, information work and advocacy support on socioeconomic issues.

]]> IBON Foundation Tue, 21 Nov 2006 12:00:00 +0100 http://aprnet.org/index.php?a=show&t=issues&i=74 With the chosen theme for this year’s summit,  “One Caring and Sharing Community,” the Arroyo government is unsuitable to chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), according to independent think-tank IBON Foundation.

IBON research head Sonny Africa said that the Arroyo administration neglects the welfare of its constituents, and in fact has a poor human rights record marked by killings, enforced disappearances and political repression..

Further, Africa said, the government is fomenting a cycle of violence by declaring “all-out war” against rebel groups and shunning peace talks. The increased killings and forced disappearances of unarmed activists as a result of the counter-insurgency war have worsened the Arroyo government’s human rights record.

Data from human rights group Karapatan shows that since Pres. Arroyo’s second term in 2004, more than 330 activists have been killed, approximately one every three days. There have also been 168 involuntary disappearances over the same period.

Africa added the Arroyo government is also threatening the security of the region by continuing to support the US War on Terror and implementing security agreements that allow US military forces and materiel on Philippine soil. The US anti-terror war is stoking intolerance and divisions amid the region’s rich ethnic diversity through the demonization of “Islamic extremists” and “Islamic militants” in the Philippines and Indonesia.

When it comes to economic rights, the Arroyo government is also neglecting the people’s welfare, and this can be seen in declining government spending on basic social services, even as debt service payments continue to rise. (See Table)

Table. Real Per Capita National Government Sectoral Expenditures, Selected Sectors  (in pesos)

Note: 2004 and 2006 budgets were re-enacted
Sources of basic data: Department of Budget & Management; Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas; Asian Development Bank

Africa pointed out that per capita government spending on education in 2005 fell 13% from its 2001 level while that for health fell 24% and housing 29 percent. Meanwhile, per capita debt servicing for interest payments alone grew 35% over the same period, while per capita servicing for the principal skyrocketed by 174 percent.

According to Africa, all these are contrary to the aspirations for peace, progress and prosperity of Filipinos and Southeast Asian people.

Irene, who is also Chairperson of the Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP), is in Switzerland to join the Berne Declaration in its Public Opinion Campaign, aimed at mobilizing people to participate and vote on whether or not they think the Swiss based Syngenta is responsible for the poisonings, injury and reported cases of death caused by its product. Syngenta is the world’s largest producer of paraquat, which it sells under the trade name ‘Gramoxone’. The Right Livelihood Award recipient (also known as the Alternative Nobel prize) will be in the country till the end of the week on speaking engagements organised by the Swiss watchdog organisation.

“For over 45 years, Syngenta has been selling the poison paraquat for profits and has not taken any responsibility for how their product is used by workers and farmers under conditions and realities of use in the South. Plantation workers have suffered severely, their health destroyed during these years,” Irene told the journalists and press agency representatives gathered in Berne. “The effects of paraquat have been known in Malaysia for years, this is not the first time that the women are raising this issue”, stressed Irene, showing newspaper cutting from as far back as 1986.

The Public Opinion Campaign, which began on September 20 features advertisements with information on the highly hazardous and irreversible health effects of paraquat. The first advert featured examples of effects on plantation workers. Among the two cases featured was the case of the M. Rajam (known in her community as Rajammah), a woman pesticide sprayer from an oil palm plantation in Malaysia who was blinded in one eye after paraquat splashed in her face when she slipped while spraying after a rainy spell.

Rajammah’s case itself became a focus on the Press Conference due to the fact that Syngenta, when asked about the Berne Declaration’s Campaign in an interview by Swiss media, claimed that the picture the organisation used was a fabrication.

In response, PAN AP and Tenaganita organised for a video of Rajammah recounting details of her exposure, for presentation at the Press Conference. “Rajammah had to walk seven kilometers to get treatment at a clinic when paraquat splashed into her eyes. With no water to wash and no access to immediate treatment, the pesticide affected her and she spent the next two years going in and out of a government hospital, with no improvement. Rajammah subsequently paid RM2,000 (625 Swiss Francs) to a private hospital only to be told that she had lost the sight of one eye. Today, unable to survive on RM85 (26 Swiss Francs) per month from Social security, she is back to work on a tough job of putting chemical fertilizers on palm crops in the plantation” elaborated Irene of Rajammah’s plight.

“These are the real conditions of use in my country Malaysia where paraquat, and especially Syngenta's formulation of it ‘Gramoxone’, is the most widely used” asserted Irene. Irene also took to task the Malaysian governments’ recent shocking decision to temporarily lift (affective November 1, 2006) the ban it announced in 2002, to allow ‘a comprehensive study on its many uses’. “In partnership with the plantation industry, I assert that Syngenta is implicated not only in the maiming of workers, women and communities, but the company has shown total disrespect for the decision made by the government of Malaysia to ban paraquat”.

She concluded with a call to action by the Swiss public: “Syngenta, being a Swiss based company must be made accountable and responsible for the impact its product has on people anywhere in the world. Today we call on the Swiss people to support us to ensure truth and justice is upheld, and rights and dignity of Rajammah and workers of the South are protected. We cannot restore Rajammah’s eye, but we can prevent the loss of another eye, another human being maimed or hurt, and most of all another life saved”.

Francois Meienberg, Berne Declaration’s Campaign Director explained about the launch of the Public Opinion Campaign ten days ago with advertisements, the launch of the website and street actions. “This campaign aims to provoke public debate about whether or not Syngenta is guilty for the thousands of poisonings that occur each year due to their product. We invite people to visit our website: http://www.paraquat.ch to give us their opinion.” Meienberg also responded to Syngenta’s often cited argument that paraquat was useful to the environment, “we have launched a report which clearly shows that the relationship between paraquat and conservation agriculture is not a given, this is especially since many leading countries in conservation agriculture have already banned paraquat.”

Also present at the Press Conference was Dr Kirsti Siirala, of the Swedish Chemicals Inspectorate (KEMI), who explained the 1983 decision by the Swedish government to not approve paraquat for use in plant protection. “In principle, the basis for this decision is still the same”, noted Dr Siirala. “Sweden considers paraquat an extremely hazardous chemical, which can cause severe and irreversible injuries in humans. The characteristics of paraquat are: very toxic to humans when inhaled and also toxic when ingested and in contact with the skin; when human exposures reach detrimental or lethal levels, there exist no antidote; the persons who survive will suffer from prolonged illness; it is very toxic to aquatic organisms and considered dangerous to the environment; injures do not only affect agricultural workers but also their very young family members; and relevant documentation on the negative effects and incidents exist”, she explained.

Referring to the Swedish suit to the European Court of justice again the EU’s decision of 2003, ostensibly allowing paraquat to be used albeit with restrictions, Dr Siirala explained, “Sweden could not support the inclusion of paraquat in Annex I of the Council directive 91/414/EC concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market. In the Swedish view that is not in line with the directive and the precautionary principle as expressed in the treaty of the EU.” She added, “In February 2004 Sweden made an appeal to the European Court of Justice against the Commission decision and a request for annulment of the directive 2003/112/EC amending directive 91/414/EC to include paraquat. Also other European member states, Austria, Denmark and Finland, are in active support of the Swedish appeal”.

She concluded by asserting that, “We found paraquat not to be safe to use in Sweden. Due to the fact of extensive use of paraquat in developing countries with considerable less or no work protection and difficulties to use paraquat in the very safe way needed due to its extremely hazardous properties, Sweden has the opinion that we have a global responsibility for not sending contradictory signals that paraquat is safe to use”.

Expressing the worldwide breath of the danger that paraquat poses to workers and farmers, Sue Longley of the IUF (International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations), was unequivocal in her assessment, “Paraquat not only kills weeds, it kills workers, which is why our members, agricultural workers' unions around the world, are committed to its elimination. There are proven, less toxic alternatives”.

Of the Malaysian government’s apparent turnaround in its decision to ban paraquat, she expressed IUF’s deep disappointment, “as the lifting of the ban on one of the most dangerous poisons in the world has very serious implications on workers and farmers health and rights to safe working environment”. She has also noted ironically that some, “Palm oil plantations in Malaysia had successfully accommodated their production to the ban”.

Having made the journey to Berne explicitly in support of the Bern Declaration Campaign, Sue stressed that, “The world's largest manufacturer of paraquat, Syngenta, acknowledges the highly toxic nature of paraquat but contends that it can be safely used when the prerequisite precautions are used” she also noted. “However, the IUF's experience indicates that these safety measures are often ignored, especially in tropical countries where heat and humidity make personal protective equipment (PPE) uncomfortable for users. Also many farmers do not provide the necessary PPE to employees and workers cannot afford to buy their own - a pair of protective gloves is equivalent to a day's pay in Kenya”.

Citing the inherent but tragically unacknowledged hazards of agricultural work, Sue asserted that, “Agriculture is the world's biggest employer, employing about 40% of the world's workforce. Agriculture ranks alongside mining and construction as one of the three most dangerous industries. Agriculture is also heavily reliant on child labour with 70% of the world's child labour taking place in agriculture alone”.

Sue explained that it is against this background that the IUF is calling for the immediate prohibition of paraquat. “This is vital in view of the number of fatal poisonings that have occurred with undiluted and diluted paraquat and the inadequate work safety standards due to lack of resources and tropical climates.” Among the calls that Sue shared at the conclusion of her presentation that, “based on its toxicological properties – acutely toxic, delayed effects and absence of an antidote, paraquat should be categorized in WHO class Ia or Ib. The World Health Organization should reassess the hazard classification of paraquat”.

For more information on the Campaign see Berne Declaration website: http://www.paraquat.ch/ (Note: text is currently in German and French)
And for information on the problems with paraquat, check out: http://stop-paraquat.net/

IBON research director Antonio Tujan said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should avoid imitating the example of Singapore, which hosted the recently-concluded International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank annual meeting. The island-state had banned certain individuals and organizations from entering Singapore, despite the fact that they had already received accreditation from the IMF and World Bank to participate in official events with non-government organizations.

An international officer of IBON Foundation, Marevic Parcon, herself experienced being detained for more than an hour by Singapore immigration. Authorities also told her that she could not return to Batam, Indonesia, where she is participating in the International People’s Forum vs. the IMF and World Bank, through Singapore.

As President of the host country for the 12th ASEAN summit, Pres. Arroyo should ensure that civil society groups and non-government organizations have free reign to participate in official events, said Tujan. However, the National Organizing Committee of the ASEAN summit has already announced that it will impose stricter security for the five-day summit. Malacañang has also ordered the Philippine National Police to increase the number of security forces for the ASEAN meet.

Tujan also expressed concern over the apparent red scare tactics being used by Cebu officials, such as Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s plan to arm the city’s barangay captains in mountain villages to fight “unlawful elements”, and the arrest of two activists  in Cebu last September 1. “We hope that these are not a prelude to a Singapore-like situation in the upcoming ASEAN summit,” Tujan said.

He added that the red scare tactics are meant to create an excuse for preventing any civil society participation in the upcoming ASEAN summit, whether in the form of holding parallel conferences or protests.

According to Tujan, both the national government and Cebu local officials should live up to the chosen theme for the summit of “One Caring and Sharing Community”.

IBON research head Sonny Africa pointed out that Myanmar was supposed to take its turn in chairing the association in July this year, until criticism of its human rights record – including the continued detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the crackdown on political participation by her party, the National League for Democracy – forced it to forego its turn in favor of the Philippines.

Africa said the Philippines is similarly unsuitable to chair the ASEAN this year because of the poor and worsening human rights record of the Arroyo administration. He pointed out that the Arroyo administration is being called to account for some 750 extra-judicial killings and around 190 enforced disappearances since it came into power in 2001. These have already attracted the attention of international groups including the United Nations Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, International Federation of Journalists and World Council of Churches, among others, as well as the European Commission and the US State Department.

The Arroyo government has also been criticized by parliamentarians, ministers, human rights advocates, church groups, non-government organizations, and social activists in over a dozen countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania, Africa added.

He also pointed out that the situation of Suu Kyi and her political party is paralleled by government’s crackdown on progressive groups critical of the present administration. Anakpawis party-list representative Crispin Beltran has been detained on trumped-up charges for some seven months already, while members of Anakpawis, Bayan Muna and Gabriela Women’s Party have also been among those subject to violent attacks and political repression.

On those grounds the decent thing for the Philippine government to do is to similarly forego its turn, Africa said.

Two main responses are currently discussed in social and economic policy, echoing the broader tension between development and growth (and between human and state security). One, older, position stresses public action for decent work as development, along with employment creation and economic growth. The alternate, neo-liberal, position is a market approach, with the priority on employment and growth.

A third, pragmatic, position attempts to build a consensus around key concerns of both positions – holding the Declaration non-negotiable; but with collective bargaining over additional universal minimum labour standards, as aspects in decent work that are complementary (such as minimum wage) to the core labour rights; and seeking innovative private and public provision towards cost-effectiveness of implementing standards.

“Fundamental rights, still a fundamental fight,” as an ILO study puts it. Hence this paper presents specific proposals for an effective policy on realising universal labour rights in Pakistan. These begin with a binding framework, with details to be filled in through subsequent negotiations between workers, enterprise owners and government.

These proposals do implicitly point towards strengthening specific aspects of current legislation, most notably towards eliminating discrimination between and among enterprises and workers.

Reclaiming Development

Government and its major donors propose weaker labour standards for small enterprises so as to enhance employment growth. Our judgement on a presumed “growth trap” is as follows. First, there is little evidence to support the supposed negative link between labour legislation and small enterprise growth. Second, acknowledge as rights rather than entitlements, core labour rights in the Declaration must be realised universally rather than selectively. Second, as the largest employer, small enterprises cannot be exempted from application or enforcement of minimum labour standards (corresponding to core rights but also including complementary standards such as minimum wages). Third, there is much room in revenues to raise labour costs, but ways can also be found to minimise the burden upon enterprises.

Since enterprise data conceals informality of employment within the formal sector, the issue of exclusion in labour protection is even more urgent. Consider the fact of massive decline in employment registration under the Factory Act – across the 90s, such (formal) employment nearly halved even as the number of registered and working factories increased, and total employment in manufacturing rose by more than 30%.

Small enterprise growth is a natural focus for cost-effective expansion of employment. But any enterprise per se, and specially its growth, is a contribution of both capital and labour as real people and not just abstract factors of production. Competitiveness of enterprises must be real rather than illusory by shifting costs upon workers – capital too must contribute by sharing profits and increasing investments for higher labour productivity. When enterprise revenues are too meagre to support decent jobs, then such enterprises should not survive by exploitation of workers.

Politics of the economy therefore needs to get back on the labour and economic policy agenda (displacing the narrow, technocratic discourse of labour markets that privileges capital). The central issue then is social arrangements for equitable shares between labour and capital. Some of these arrangements are reflected in the existing, broad fiscal system of taxes and expenditures. These are quite inadequate – of which mass poverty is one outcome. It is appropriate to seek improvements through enterprises, with shared contributions and benefits of both labour and capital. These arrangements have to be systemic rather than be ad-hoc reliance upon the philanthropy of capital, local or international (which includes donors).

The Declaration and the national Constitution are compelling and complementary foundations of social as well as economic policy. Hence these provide the framework for public and private action that rests upon rights to work and rights at work. Amendments to legislation and implementation should then adhere to the following principles of policy:

• Universality of core labour rights
• Comprehensiveness of minimum labour standards in design and application
• Simultaneity in design and application of standards
• Tri-partite participation in innovative design and implementation of standards

These principles need some discussion, including the need for reformed and new institutions for an effective labour policy.

Recent notes available from the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research (piler@cyber.net.pk)

Does Labour Regulation Hinder Small Enterprise Growth? (published in Asia-Pacific Research Network Journal)

A Special Labour Policy for Small Enterprises? (published in Asia-Pacific Research Network Journal)

Contested Donor Approaches to Labour Regulation

Realising Universal Labour Rights 

Public Policy for Old-Age Support

The agreement, which is reportedly set to be signed at the Asia-Europe Meeting in Helsinki, Finland on Sep. 10-11, 2006, has been under negotiation away from public scrutiny for the last four years. Officials provide few details but it is reported that the agreement will cut import tariffs on industrial goods by 90% within 10 years and provide concessions for Japanese direct investment in the domestic automobile and electronics industries.

The Philippines will abolish tariffs on at least 60% of its steel imports from Japan. Tariffs on Japan-made cars will also be fully eliminated in 2010. In exchange, Japan will lower tariffs on Philippine bananas and pineapples, while the Philippines removes tariffs on Japanese grapes and pears. Japan will also allow a year-on-year quota of some 200 Filipino nurses and caregivers. It had also been reported that the JPEPA would remove mutual restrictions on Japanese and Philippine investors, as well as prohibit performance requirements.

Both governments have already said that the agreement will be positive for both the Philippines and Japan in terms of trade and investment. However the JPEPA is actually an unequal agreement between unequal parties that, moreover, is biased for the more powerful Japanese economic interests. The biggest gainers are Japanese investors who will keep setting up export enclaves in the Philippines that are unintegrated with the domestic economy. They will continue to import most of their inputs and components, exploit fiscal incentives, stifle workers’ rights to organize, and hire labor as cheap as they can get. The Philippines will also be foregoing millions in dollars in tariff revenues from Japanese imports.

Japan and the Philippines are such grossly unequal economies that nominally equal terms can never mean a “level playing field”. The Japanese economy (US$4.4 trillion GNI in 2004) is 50 times larger than the Philippines’ and its GDP per capita is 35 times larger. Japan accounts for some one-third of foreign investments (with a cumulative US$3.5 billion in Japanese investments 2003) in the Philippines and one-fifth of its external trade (with US$14.2 billion in total Japan-Philippines trade in 2004). And yet, for instance, the country’s domestic industrial base has continued to deteriorate despite the majority of Japanese investments being in the manufacturing sector.

The Philippine government is surrendering policy tools under the JPEPA that, ironically, Japan itself used heavily. The Japanese government greatly protected its domestic industries from the late 19th century until the early 1980s. Japan’s industrial might in cars, trucks, shipbuilding, computers and consumer electronics was built up in through almost a century of sustained intervention and protection, especially in their early stages. Average weighted industrial tariffs reached as high as 30-40 percent. The Japanese government required technology transfers from US, French and UK investors, or brazenly pirated technology through so-called “reverse engineering”. Government agencies were obliged to procure goods and services strictly from Japanese firms. Japanese technological and productive capacity would not have developed if not for these many decades of active state support.

The far-reaching JPEPA is also the dangerous first step towards complete government renunciation of developing the Philippine economy. What little public information there is about JPEPA indicates about a dozen areas for liberalization that collectively go far beyond anything proposed even in the currently dormant World Trade Organization (WTO). These include: the elimination or reduction of tariffs on industrial products and agriculture, forestry and fishery products; liberalization of services sectors such as construction, outsourcing, air transport, health related and social services, tourism and travel-related services, maritime transport services, telecommunications and banking; national treatment, MFN Treatment and performance requirement prohibitions; and supposedly easier entry of qualified Filipino nurses and certified caregivers.

The JPEPA also includes various provisions on: Government Procurement, Competition Policy, Intellectual Property, Dispute Avoidance and Settlement, Improvement of the Business Environment, Mutual Recognition and Bilateral Cooperation.

As the country’s first full-fledged bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), the benchmark it sets for liberalization will determine the shape of all FTAs to come. If the Philippine government sets high trade and investment liberalization standards in JPEPA then it will be obliged to also give these to partners in subsequent FTAs lest it be accused of discrimination. The country’s negotiating position in all subsequent trade and investment agreements will be gravely undermined. The end result of the JPEPA and other such agreements will be to shut the door to real domestic industrial growth and economic progress.

The government is also treating our health professionals and caregivers as mere commodities when it touts the “quotas” supposedly being given by Japan for these jobs as a good thing. The reality is that these mostly women health workers and caregivers will bear the burden of overcoming formidable language, certification and even racist and patriarchal barriers. Because of its desperation for quick sources of foreign exchange, the Philippine government is placing the burden on the cheap export of skilled Filipinos. It should instead focus on creating the strong domestic economy that will create opportunities for Filipinos at home.

The Philippine government affirms its commitment to the destructive policies of neoliberal globalization. Instead of using the collapse of the WTO Doha Round talks as an opportunity to rethink its commitment to neoliberal globalization, it is giving up its sovereignty piecemeal on a country-by-country basis through bilateral and regional economic agreements.

Japan, on the other hand, makes further headway in consolidating Southeast Asia as a source of cheap agricultural, mineral and other raw materials for Japan as well as a captive market for Japanese industrial goods. Aside from the Philippines, Japan has already signed or is negotiating FTAs with Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Vietnam.

We met some 150 of the Dalit women from this village, in a community visit organized by Tamil Nadu Women’s Movement. We were welcomed with so much energy and excitement - lots of drum playing, flowers and warm embraces. Heavy garlands were put around our necks; tikka, tumeric powder made into paste, was put on our forehead; and misri which were sugar crystals were placed on our tongue. While we were all standing there, with amazement and anticipation, two women came in front of us - one holding a brass bowl, the other a coconut husk, each with flames inside. Both women raised the bowl and husk, and moved them in circular motion around us – to welcome us, and to drive away evil spirits.

And that was how we started our gathering – with a lot of good will, sisterhood, and laughter in our hearts. Throughout the sharing, one would see that it is with the same level of energy, and more, and with strong spirit that they confront and fight against those who come and threaten their survival as a community. The Chinnu Aqua Farm Private Limited which was established in Chennai and started operating three years ago would definitely know how it is to be on the other side of this – how the Dalit women can make someone feel oh so unwelcome.

Umapathy

She is part of the sixth generation who has lived in Kolathur, and has been living and working on lands which were never put in their names. Umapathy and her husband would work on these farms owned by the upper caste men. She would grow and take care of the fruit trees surrounding her house, but were never allowed to touch any of the mangoes, jack fruits and coconut from these trees without the permission of the owners.

The other families in her community would be working on agricultural lands of the upper caste men where they would cultivate paddy, ragi and groundnuts. Umapathy, along with the other Dalit women in the village, used to spend hours in the backwater to gather prawns and fish with her hands. After selling them, she would earn 100Rps/150 Rps at the end of the day. This would be enough for food for her family.

Today, she could not spend that long in the water, which meant lesser catch, and lesser food for her family. On the other hand, the agricultural lands were sold by the upper caste men to Chinnu Aqua Farm. This meant no more paddy, ragi and groundnuts to grow on. Umapathy of course has no input whatsoever in the decision of the upper caste men. She and the other members of the Dalit community were simply workers on these lands.

Shanti

“I used to catch enough prawns to earn decent living for my 4 children,” Shanti said. “Then came Chinnu Aqua Farm.” The prawns and other living organisms in the backwater were found dying, in the increasingly polluted backwaters. Now, they can catch worth 30-40 Rp a day, less than a US dollar.

Then the tsunami came in 2004. Their area is part of the badly hit area in the Indian coast. Though not as bad as the other villages in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, for Shanti and her family, the impact was bad enough to make their lives more difficult. Their house was heavily damaged, and lost most of whatever they had. However, they received no compensation from the government as they were not considered affected, being on the side of the backwaters. The relief packages never reached their villages, as these were handled by upper caste people. “Life as Dalit is hard enough. The Chinnu Aqua Farm is making our lives even more so.”

Kalpana

Just 25 years old, one would think Kalpana had lived her life three times over, for how else would she gain so much courage and determination to fight the aqua farm, the uppercaste men supporting it, and the Indian bureaucracy who make it almost impossible for the Dalit community to legally and peacefully challenge its operations. Perhaps it’s giving birth on top of a hill after running away from the tsunami waves. Or simply being a Dalit mother who knows that fighting is the only way to survive.

Kalpana tells us about the public distribution system in Tamil Nadu. It is a fairpriced shop of basic products – rice, oil, soap, sugar. There used to be a 3 Rp subsidy from the government for all products, then was reduced to 2 Rp subsidy. However, she could not avail of these subsidized products as much as she needs to. As a Dalit woman, she could not stand in line to cue along with non-Dalit, upper caste people. Thus, she had to wait when she could fall in line. By that time, all the basic products she needed would be all gone. Most of the time, she would go after fishing, and by that time, the shop is already closed.

Fishing in the backwaters now takes longer, as the prawns, crabs and other fish are harder to find. They are dying, and disappearing.

“Where can we go for food? Where can we go to fish?” asked Kalpana. “The shrimp farm has taken over.” Kalpana is one of the more active Dalit women who organizes community actions for their voices to be heard, and to campaign against the aqua farm.

Kaliyammal

She came to me after we all had our lunch. We sat away from the big group as she wanted to show me something. She showed me her arms, where her skin was intensely dry. She lifted her sari to show her skin below her breasts, in her midrib, inner thighs, legs – scaly whitish skin.

These were Kaliyammal’s body parts which were regularly immersed in the backwaters, as she would go fishing. Wading through the waters until chest level, Kaliyammal and other Dalit women would stay there and catch prawns, crabs, lobsters with their bare hands for hours. She has been doing this since her younger years. But lately, the itchiness on her arms and everywhere else has become unbearable. She stopped fishing.

Her other companions had similar health problems, and more – some are suffering with white discharge and urinary infection. Kaliyammal had to rely now on her children who are working in salt marsh for support. The other Dalit women are now relying on the produce of their fishing husbands. The fisher men who use boats and large nets, go further and deeper for fishing, for bigger catch.

Rajam

Rajam was supposed to be one of our resource persons in a workshop on tsunami and women’s rights that APWLD organized last year in Aceh. But she wasn’t able to process the necessary documents for her to travel abroad. She has a police record.

She was one of the 33 Dalit women who were beaten up and arrested by the police men two years ago. Rajam and some 2,000 other villagers blocked the road to the shrimp farm, as one of their acts of resistance. Rajam is one of the more vocal and active in resisting the shrimp farm, making her more vulnerable to harassment and violence. One of the women stood up while Rajam was telling her story. She said that when police came, the men ran away and left the women. This drew laughter among the women who were all in agreement with the remark; even among the few men who were standing nearby.

But while that lightened the mood a bit, the intensity of the anger and frustration was determined to be felt. Rajam went on to talk about the different ways and actions the communities are taking to reclaim their source of livelihood and their way of living - peaceful protest actions, dialogues with the officials, asking the help of the media people to expose what’s happening in their villages. There was one attempt by some unknown people to poison the aqua farm. As a consequence, the security in the premises was tightened; ferocious dogs are now milling around the farm. There was one incident when one of the dogs bit one of the farmers who was passing through.

When we were there, a fact-finding mission has just been conducted; and a legal suit was filed against the aqua farm.

Chinnu Aqua Tech Private Limited

When the Chinnu Aqua Tech fenced off the shrimp farm and started their operations, other major changes started to happen. As the barbed wire fences were to prevent the villagers to come inside the shrimp farm and cause problems, these fences were not enough to contain the problems within it. The effects of the shrimp farm go well beyond double its size; and profit from this for one corporation, outweighs the number of lives it has destroyed.

But the company flatly denied they were causing these problems. When faced with the protests and criticisms, they would simply brandish the permit they have acquired from the pollution board.

Indeed, they have a permit. So what does the permit cover? Basically, the permit issued by the pollution board meant that the company has met the anti-pollution standards and that therefore, the Chinnu Aqua Tech can operate. What does this exactly allow the company to do? The permit practically allows the Chinnu Aqua Tech to suck large amount of water from the backwater and fresh groundwater to recreate the environment that shrimps thrive in. To keep the shrimp pond clean, water has to be changed daily.

The shrimp ponds are stocked with shrimp larvae, usually not of the endemic specie of the local area. To prevent then the shrimp population from getting sick as it is not adjusted to the local environment, the ponds are pumped with pesticides and antibiotics. So when they clean the pond, the water flushed out from these ponds is filled with chemicals. And this goes to the river, or sea. In Kolathur’s case, the polluted water goes to the backwaters, where Kaliyammal and the other Dalit women fish. This permit then, is a permit to cause health problems to fisherwomen such as skin, eye and cervical infections. The permit, further, allows the Chinnu Aqua Tech to poison, and so, eliminate the shrimps, lobsters, crabs, mussels that the Kolathur fisherwomen have been living on for generations. The permit, basically, is a permit to eliminate the Kolathur villagers.

RESISTANCE

The songs, dances and drum beating which followed the story-telling were equally passionate. If only these would be enough to lure the shrimp farm businessmen into the circle of the Dalit women and realize that this spirit is what the shrimps in their ponds are destroying. But that would be too naïve of me to think. The lure of profit is too strong. Profit has destroyed nations, and peoples. For them, what is one poor village to dispense with.

Laughter, they say, is the best medicine - too bad laughter is not enough to cure the skin peeling off, nor the cervical infections; the mirth in our conversations which enthralled me and my companions who came all the way from Kyrgyzstan, the hills of Chittagong and Nepal, from the plains of Philippines, Burma, Thailand, and the shores of Sri Lanka, will not be enough to bring back the shrimps and crabs into the backwaters of Kolathur to once again bring livelihood to its women.

But is the courage and determination of the Dalit women to fight their ground, and their waters, which will bring changes in the Bay of Bengal. It is with the solidarity of women across seas and mountains which will ensure that the voices of Kaliyammal and Umapathy will be heard, and the struggle of Shanti and Rajam will be duplicated, inspiring other women to resist and defend their songs, their laughter, their lives.

Note:

The community visit was part of the Workshop on Feminism and Land Rights organized by the RIW TF. The
members who joined the community visit are –
Fatima Burnad/Maggimae/Vimala/Rosalyn – SRED/Tamil Nadu Women’s Movement (India)
Olga Djanaeva / Asel Dunganaeva– ALGA (Kyrgyzstan)
Tess Vistro – AMIHAN (Philippines)
Sita Poudel – All Nepal Women Alliance (Nepal)
Kae Narintarakul – Northern Development Foundation (Thailand)
Geetha Fernando/Prabha– National Federation for Fisher Solidarity (Sri Lanka)
Val Soe – Programme Assistant – RIW TF (Burma)
judy a. pasimio – APWLD (Philippines)

all photos taken by: judy p.
judyp@apwld.org
programme officer
Rural and Indigenous Women Programme
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)
Chiang Mai, Thailand

In September 2004, a number of organisations initiated a collaborative website to support peoples' struggles against bilateral free trade and investment agreements: http://www.bilaterals.org. The initiators included the Asia-Pacific Research Network, GATT Watchdog, Global Justice Ecology Project, GRAIN, IBON Foundation and XminY Solidariteitsfonds.

When the site was set up, the collapse of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Cancún and the stalling of the US-driven Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) were being celebrated by numerous opponents of neoliberal globalisation. But behind the scenes, powerful governments -- especially the US and Europe -- were quietly moving to sign far-reaching bilateral free trade and investment deals in order to achieve what they and their transnational corporations (TNCs) had not been able to get at the multilateral level.

Two years later, the WTO is in an even deeper crisis after talks broke down, yet again, in July 2006. Governments across the world are now giving even greater emphasis to the pursuit of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). The Office of the US Trade Representative is trying to beat the clock by concluding as many deals as possible well before Bush's Trade Promotion Authority -- a special power given to the US president to negotiate and sign trade deals with almost no involvement of Congress -- expires in July 2007. Topping the list of unfinished FTAs for Washington to conclude in this timeframe are those with South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Ecuador, Panama and the United Arab Emirates for signature, and those with Peru and Colombia for ratification. But many other governments, including quite a few from the so-called developing world, are also pushing more than ever for exclusive bilateral and regional FTAs and investment deals.

Bilateral deals are fast becoming the centrepiece of foreign trade policy in countries as diverse as Chile, China, India, Japan, Pakistan and Switzerland. Regional integration projects between governments -- whether Mercosur in South America, ECOWAS in West Africa, the GCC in the Middle East or the ASEAN in Southeast Asia -- are struggling to 'keep up' and provide some kind of 'alternative' to both the failed WTO and the fractionalism of bilateral FTAs. Meanwhile, the world's most powerful governments are competing more and more to sign bilateral deals with the same countries in order to serve their distinct geopolitical and military agendas. As many people have learned, FTAs often have little to do with trade and much to do with securing spheres of political influence and control.

Bilateral agreements are a lot worse than the WTO -- deliberately so. Negotiated in secret, through the direct hand of corporate lobby groups, they lock countries into far-reaching commitments on issues ranging from investors' rights, to the environment, to intellectual property. They open up agricultural markets in the South without touching subsidies to corporate agriculture in the North, condemning countless small farmers to bankruptcy. They guarantee extensive rights for TNCs to conduct business on their own terms, including the right to sue governments if their mere expectation of a profit is not met. Bilateral deals are privatising public services, trampling constitutions and forcing countries open to the wishes of TNCs. All in the name of some promised tiny market openings for local exporters, the gains from which have not been trickling down to workers or to producers.

There are now over 2,200 bilateral investment treaties in force. And the number of FTAs is rising by the month. Yet despite the speed of these secretive, far-reaching deals, there have also been victories where these agreements have been stalled or stopped by popular resistance.

Supporting the global anti-FTA movement

Bilaterals.org was set up as an open-publishing site where people fighting bilateral trade and investment agreements could exchange information and analysis and build cooperation. At the time, there was no single website for information about the whole range of bilateral FTAs and BITs and their interconnections. Those campaigning against bilateral deals had found it hard to link up with others around the world to compare notes, share analysis and develop broader and complementary strategies.

Two years down the line, the feedback is that bilaterals.org has become a useful resource for social movements, NGO researchers, journalists and the broader public as a clearinghouse for media stories, texts of agreements, critical analyses and education tools to understand, expose and mobilise against these agreements. It has also helped bring more visibility to bilateral deals as powerful instruments of privatisation and neoliberalism. But the resistance movements need more support and strengthening.

People's movements to stop FTAs on the ground are growing, particularly in the Third World. Yet movements are often isolated from each other, a direct reflection of the 'divide and conquer' strategy that bilateralism thrives on. For this reason, FTA Watch, a broad coalition in Thailand, invited bilaterals.org, GRAIN and Médecins Sans Frontières to help co-organise a global strategy meeting of anti-FTA movements. Dubbed 'Fighting FTAs', the three-day workshop was held at the end of July 2006 in Bangkok. It brought together 60 social movement activists from 20 countries of Africa, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific to share experiences in grassroots struggles against FTAs and to build international strategies and cooperation.

In the coming weeks and months, various documents, audio-visual materials and followup plans coming out of the workshop will be finalised and shared. A number of proposals point to a broader role for bilaterals.org, and this note is to inform you about and invite you participate in these new developments.

Towards a more activist website

Bilaterals.org is entering a new phase of expansion over the coming months in order to expand its role as an activist website that directly serves the anti-FTA struggles around the world. This should include:

• opening a new section for the free and easy exchange of audio-visual materials (videos, photos and audio recordings) between people's movements
• creating both a Spanish and a French version of the entire site
• integrating a wiki component for people to collaborate more easily on joint documents
• expanding the coverage of critical analyses and perspectives
• more people getting involved in posting, translating and disseminating materials
• building stronger structural links with other activist websites in the global anti-FTA struggle

Bilaterals.org is an open-publishing site. It's very easy to get involved and use it for your campaigns and education work. The site's structure is simple. It has three main sections: daily news reports on specific negotiations; background analyses of how bilateral deals affect key issues; and texts of the treaties themselves. It also has a section for getting more involved, where you can post action alerts, campaign materials and links to other websites.

To participate, all you need to do is to register as an editor of bilaterals.org. This allows you to post documents, photos, links and comments. If you want to take responsibility for any section, or if you want to make specific suggestions on how to improve the site, please do. While no one owns or controls bilaterals.org, a small group of people collaborate informally to keep the site going on a day to day basis. You can join the team or simply get in touch with any questions or concerns by writing to webteam@bilaterals.org.

Whether we're engaged in struggles around food sovereignty, access to water, public health, job security, the problems caused by mining or biopiracy, the future of the media or education, bilateral trade and investment agreements are creating dangerous new rules and realities affecting all of us. We need to deepen our understanding of these processes and learn from each others' experiences in order to build stronger mobilisations and movements against these instruments of neoliberal globalization.

Bilaterals.org aims to provide a modest support to these struggles. We invite you to participate in the further building of this collaborative website, and to spread the word about bilaterals.org among your networks.

In solidarity,

Aziz Choudry, GATT Watchdog; Board member, Global Justice Ecology Project
Paul Pantastico, webmaster, bilaterals.org
Renée Vellve, GRAIN
Carlos Vicente, GRAIN
the webteam, bilaterals.org

Going further

• The Bangkok Post published two reports from the 'Fighting FTAs' workshop, one on 2 August 2006 (http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=5386) and another on 13 August 2006 (http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=5521).

• Bilaterals.org has recently been featured in a BBC report on the crisis of the WTO and how it may boost bilateral free trade negotiations (Evan Davis, BBC Economics Editor, 'The Death of the WTO's Doha Talks', BBC News, London, 25 July 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5215318.stm) as well as an International Herald Tribune report looking at the pros and cons of FTAs (Daniel Altman, 'Managing Globalization: A new trade bandwagon - Are rich-poor pacts fair?', International Herald Tribune, Paris, 8 August 2006, http://www.iht.com//articles/2006/08/08/business/glob09.php). 

• bilaterals.org offers customised RSS feeds so that you can monitor new postings on specific topics of your choice (e.g. 'South Africa', 'US-Korea', 'intellectual property rights', 'actions') and in your preferred language. Find out more at http://www.bilaterals.org/plan.php3.
  • Visit the site at www.bilaterals.org or contact webteam@bilaterals.org
  ]]> Aziz Choudry and the bilaterals.org webteam Fri, 01 Sep 2006 11:00:00 +0100 http://aprnet.org/index.php?a=show&t=issues&i=69 Date: September 15-16, 2006
  Place: Kathmandu, Nepal

  Local hosts:

  Nepali Policy Institute with various Nepali and South Asian solidarity groups and initiatives.

  Co-organisers:

  International League of Peoples' Struggles (ILPS), International Association of Peoples' Lawyers (IAPL), Asia-Pacific Research Network (APRN), The Reality of Aid Asia-Pacific and others to join.

  Objectives and tentative programmes:

  1. Sharing with people of Nepal for their struggles for democracy and human rights
  2.  Successes, challenges ahead and solidarity building
  3. Adoption of a Kathmandu Declaration on how to support Nepal as neighbouring countries, friendly donors and international financial institutions

  Suggested topics for discussion:

  Political issues:

  • Analysis of the reasons for the failure of 15 years of parliamentary democracy
  • Overview of the Nepali democratic movement: both armed and unarmed
  • Functioning of an interim government
  • Peaceful dissolution of monarchical system

  Economic issues:

  • Cancellation of debts
  • Alternatives to free-market economy, liberalistion and privatisation
  • Donors' role in areas of providing conditions-free loans and grants, particularly during the peaceful transition and reconstruction phase
  • Nepal-India relations in the context of disputes over water, trade and transit

  Adoption of Kathmandu Declaration and Programme of Action

  • For Nepal
  • For South Asia
  • For Asia-Pacific, and
  • International as a whole

  There will be series of briefing notes and papers to be presented at the conference. 

  There will be exposure trips to different parts of Nepal depending on the interests of participants from Maoist liberated regions to conflict-affected areas for documentary, journalistic research or meeting with the local people who joined or supported the Maoist insurgency and the April Revolution, suffered from repression, and fighting for post-peace justice and rehabilitation. Participants joining the exposure trips will have to cover their expenses for travel and accommodation when necessary.

  Opening session

  There will be a high-level participation of top political party leaders at the opening session. They will address the conference. with their experiences in the democratic struggles in Nepal and challenges ahead.

  Details about participants

  Although we cannot confirm the number of participation from other countries at the moment, which we think will be above 20 at a minimum, we are expecting about 30 participants from South Asia.

  From Nepal, we will be inviting over150 participants representing various political parties and social movements.

   The conference will be open for all those who are engaged or interested in progressive, social and anti-imperialist movements around the world.

  Logistics

  The conference will be organised in a modest place and the cost of food and accommodation will be provided by the organizers. The participants will be put with local families or friends as far as it is possible or in a modest guest house.

  The organisers have no financial resources available at the moment to provide travel support. We will be informing of you any progress we make to this regard.

  Formal invitation letter will be sent upon request and confirmation of participation. There is upon arrival visa privilege for all participants coming from other countries.

  Registration fees

  There will be a registration fee of US $100 for participants coming from developed countries and US $50 to those coming from other countries.

  Secretariat:

  Nepali Policy Institute
  GPO Box 2125
  60 New Plaza Marga, Putalisadak
  Kathmandu, Nepal
  Tel: 0977-1-4429741 Fax: 0977-1-4419610 (attention: Ratan)
  E-mail: nepalconference@gmail.com
  Mobile: 0977-9851090905 (Chintan)

  ]]> Nepali Policy Institute Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:00:00 +0100 http://aprnet.org/index.php?a=show&t=issues&i=67 Today, July 30th, another massacre was committed in Lebanon: More than sixty civilians, among them 37 children, were killed by Israeli bombs while they were sleeping in shelters in the village of Qana. They died not very far away from the mass grave holding the bodies of 106 civilians burned by a previous Israeli attack in April 1996 inside a shelter provided by a UN battalion

  Reacting to these terrible news, Pope Benedict XVI said today: “In the name of God, I call on all those responsible for this spiral of violence so that weapons are immediately laid down on all sides.” And in more simple terms, the Swedish Foreign Minister expressed the feeling of citizens worldwide: “It is time to end this madness.”

  The only sane decision that needs to be made immediately is that of a ceasefire.

  A ceasefire would allow for humanitarian relief to reach the innocent victims, for the bodies to be buried instead of being eaten by the dogs, and for all the underlying problems to be negotiated and eventually solved. More victims can only produce more hatred.

  In the last few days, Lebanon has been promised by the EU, the UK and the US help in rebuilding its infrastructure and humanitarian aid to assist the eight hundred thousand internally displaced persons and “humanitarian corridors”, but they stopped short of demanding a ceasefire, which encouraged Israel to continue with its “mission” of unilaterally enforcing the resolution to disarm Hezbollah. With that same logic, Hezbollah could argue it has a mission to enforce the many UN Security Council resolutions demanding Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.

  On July 27, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that Israel had given civilians ample time to leave southern Lebanon. “All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” he said, according to the BBC.  

  “Just because the Israeli military warned the civilians of Qana to leave does not give it carte blanche to blindly attack,” said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. “Through its arguments, the Israeli military is suggesting that Palestinian militant groups might ‘warn’ all settlers to leave Israeli settlements and then be justified in targeting those who remained.”  

  The escalating violence in Lebanon can not be solved unilaterally with self-proclaimed righteousness by any party. Peace is negotiated between enemies, not with friends. And the first step to any negotiation is a ceasefire. Or is it that every child has to die so that they do not grow into “terrorists”?

  A year ago, the UK Prime Minister championed the cause of including in the UN mandate the “responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”.  Yet the UN, the European Union, The United States and the United Kingdom have failed in their responsibility to protect the Lebanese children. Or even to clearly condemn that criminal act.

  The Arab NGO Network for Development condemns the aggression against Lebanon and the lack of commitment with world peace that the UN, EU, US and the UK have shown in this situation.

  ANND calls upon all its friends, colleagues, sisters and brothers from civil society organizations, and concerned citizens across the world to join all their efforts in order to put an end to the escalating aggression against Lebanon.

  ANND calls for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Lebanon.

  Please take action now!

  • Write an e-mail to annd@annd.org endorsing this call as an individual or organization (please give us your full name and nationality and, in the case of an organization, the name, country and city of its headquarters and position of the signing person)
  • Write to the UN secretary general Kofi Annan, to President George W. Bush, to Prime Minister Tony Blair or to your own government asking them to engage actively in achieving an immediate cease-fire.
  • Send a monetary contribution to the victims, the internally displaced persons and to the people affected by the current situation in Lebanon to the following account Number:

  Bank name: BLOM Bank - Tarik Jdide Branch
  Name of account holder: Al Chabaka Al Abrabia (Arab Network)
  Account No.: 300/1080338/2
  Currency: USD
  Swift code: BLOMLBBX

  ]]> Arab NGO Network for Development Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:00:00 +0100 http://aprnet.org/index.php?a=show&t=issues&i=68 The collapse of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks is very welcome even if it far from puts an end to neoliberal “globalization”. Certainly the WTO has been used to open up hundreds of third world countries to unequal trade and plundering investment for over a decade. However, it has been doing this as just one of many mechanisms of the big powers – albeit the most expansive – and in collusion with third world governments and business elites. These other options such as bilateral or regional deals and even outright invasion remain. Likewise, the domestic political and economic elites that have been collaborating to push not just the WTO as such but the neoliberal agenda also remain. Indeed, many of these governments have resorted to political repression and brute force to overcome mounting people’s resistance. The Philippine experience is a case in point.

  The Philippine government is a member of the ostensibly “progressive” G33 bloc of the WTO that has been lobbying for concessions in agricultural trade reforms, particularly limited exceptions from liberalization in identified “special products” (SPs) and through “special safeguard mechanisms” (SSMs). Yet upon accession to the WTO in 1995 the government actually implemented an agricultural liberalization program that went far beyond what was formally required under the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). For instance, average agricultural tariffs were slashed by two-thirds from 28 percent in 1995 to just 9 percent in 2004. There was a similar eagerness in industry with industrial tariffs slashed by four-fifths from 14 percent to 3 percent in the same period.

  Indeed the 1990s has actually been a decade of severe opening-up of the country to imperialist trade and investment. There was foreign investment liberalization starting in 1991 followed by the removal of capital and foreign exchange controls. Public infrastructure, water, power, oil and oil were privatized. Telecommunications, air and water transport, retail trade and banking were also liberalized. The end result is that monopoly capital has achieved unparalleled strength over Philippine economic and even political affairs. While the profits of foreign and domestic big business are at double- and triple-digit highs, domestic agriculture and industry have been devastated and unemployment is at a historic sustained high. The collaboration of the Philippine state has been crucial to achieving these.

  Filipino workers, peasants, youth, indigenous peoples, women, church workers and even professionals have been vigorously opposing imperialist “globalization” especially since the last decade. The breadth of mass organizing, protests, grassroots education and alliance work has already greatly strengthened the country’s mass-based resistance movement. Today these organized forces are the greatest barrier to the next level of “globalization” being pushed by the government and demanded by foreign monopoly capital: the outright revision of the Philippine Constitution, the country’s basic “law of the land”.

  The Philippine government has already twice tried to revise the Constitution particularly to remove its explicit provisions on national sovereignty and patrimony. The first time was a few years after accession to the WTO when it became clear that the “free market” demands of its agreements were contrary to the Constitution’s “nationalist” and “protectionist” provisions. The second time was after the so-called Asian Crisis which foreign investors sought to exploit to increase their penetration into the domestic economy. Both these efforts were successfully stymied by the organized anti-globalization resistance movement and the neoliberal agenda has been forced to nominally conform to the charter.

  However the current Arroyo administration has since last year accelerated the government’s third attempt. It is on an ideological offensive and is peddling the tired myth that opening up to foreign trade and investment are the keys to national development. Yet the successes of national and global campaigns to expose the bankruptcy and plundering nature of neoliberal “free market globalization” limit the effectiveness of this tactic of deceit. To make up for this deficiency the government has intensified its political repression especially of the progressive mass movement.

  Leaders and members of activist and community organizations have been killed by state military and paramilitary forces since the first few months of the Arroyo presidency in 2001. There has however been a drastic leap in the number of extrajudicial killings since last year with 705 deaths and 182 disappearances already documented by the human rights group Karapatan. The peasantry is most affected with some 44 percent of these victims being farmers, most of whom are active in peasant organizations struggling against neoliberal “globalization”. The other victims are workers, students, teachers, church workers, lawyers and also human rights advocates. In the last five years there have also been over 50,000 documented cases of threats, harassment and intimidat