BY MAX LANE
MANILA — On September 1, an assembly of about 100 peace activists, including more than 50 representing organisations from around Asia, founded the Asian Peace Alliance (APA).
The meeting was called by several organisations as a response to the US "war on terror" and the increased US military presence and activity in the Asian region, including the war in Afghanistan.
The APA called for a coordinated region-wide protest action on October 6-7, the anniversary of the start of the US bombing on Afghanistan. The APA also called for immediate coordinated protest actions if the US launched any military action against Iraq.
The APA adopted a founding declaration that identified different aspects of the US drive to war. It pointed to the US effort to gain control of the oil resources of Central Asia. It also pointed out that the war drive was an integral part of the US corporate elite's push to open up the Third World to greater exploitation by Western, particularly US, transnational corporations — a goal that has been facilitated by the "structural adjustment programs" imposed by the US-dominated International Monetary Fund.
"Designed to create a hospitable climate for transnational corporations via liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation, these structural adjustment programs increased poverty, widened inequality, consolidated economic stagnation and worsened ecological degradation", it noted.
"Fundamentalist and terrorist movements have, in many cases, stemmed from the widespread anger at the erosion of living standards and social justices triggered by these programs. Like Dr Frankenstein, the US is now moving against the very monsters that its economic programs have created, and conveniently enough, Washington and its allied governments are using the campaign against terror to ... also crush the just and legitimate struggles to overturn these structural adjustment programs waged by farmers, workers, urban and rural poor, women, human rights organisations, indigenous peoples, and other marginalised peoples."
The APA combined with local movement activists to hold a rally outside the US embassy protesting US aggression in the region and US intervention in local political conflicts.
There was a wide geographical attendance with activists from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia, the United States and Britain. The largest contingents came from India, Japan and the host country, the Philippines.
More than 40 organisations, both advocacy groups as well as mass organisations, were represented from the Philippines. Australian representation comprised Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) as well as Ghassan Hage and Carolinde Akorso from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sydney.
Regional research institutions such as Focus on Global South and ARENA also participated.
A steering committee was elected by the meeting to coordinate the holding of future APA activities. The meeting also agreed to hold a Peace and Security Conference in conjunction with the Asian Social Forum being held in Hyderabad, India in January, 2003.
[Max Lane is the national chairperson of ASAP.]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, September 11, 2002.
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