[asia-apec 204] Protest Philippine Ban on Peace and HR Activists

[Robert Weissman]

Friends:

Essential Information (parent organization of Multinational Monitor and 
the Multinationals Resource Center) is sponsoring a protest against the 
Philippine ban on Jose Ramos-Horta and other activists. The demonstration 
is scheduled for 12:30 on Tuesday, October 29, outside the Philippine 
Embassy in Washington,  D.C.

Further information is contained in the electronic flyer which follows 
below. Note that it was composed before the announcement of the ban on 
activists other than Jose Ramos-Horta.

Robert Weissman
Essential Information			|   Internet:	rob at essential.org




Protest The Philippine Government's Bar on
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jose Ramos-Horta 


Date: Tuesday, October 29, 1996

Time: 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Place: The Philippine Embassy, 1600 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
(17th and Massachusetts, NW)

Sponsored by: Essential Information. For more information, call 202-387-8030.




In early October, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee awarded the Nobel Prize 
to Jose Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo for their work on 
behalf of East Timor. 

Indonesia invaded the small nation of East Timor in 1975. In the two 
subsequent decades, one-third of all East Timorese -- more than 200,000 
people -- are estimated to have lost their lives in massacres carried out 
by the Indonesian military and due to forced starvation.

Jose Ramos-Horta is the special representative of the National Council of 
Maubere Resistance, the underground umbrella organization representing 
East Timorese groups opposing Indonesian occupation. Ramos-Horta, on 
behalf of the National Council of Maubere Resistance, has called for a 
10-year phase out of Indonesian occupation, to be followed by a 
UN-sponsored referendum on self-determination for East Timor.

Ramos-Horta sought to enter the Philippines to participate in a citizens' 
conference scheduled to occur during a November summit meeting of the 
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Indonesia, the United States, 
Japan and the Philippines are among the 18 members of APEC.

The Philippines refused Ramos-Horta's visa request, however. Letting 
Ramos-Horta into the Philippines would be "inimical" to the country's 
interest, Philippine President Fidel Ramos told Agence France-Presse.