[asia-apec 388] Launching of NO to APEC campaign

[mario mapanao]

          CARRY FORWARD THE STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALIST GLOBALIZATION!
        
                  A statement of solidarity on the occasion of 
                  the launching of the B.C. NO TO APEC Campaign
                                  20 March 1997
        
             We, members of  the Network Opposed to Anti-People Economic 
        Control (NO TO APEC) in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, extend our 
        warm and militant greetings as you launch today the NO TO APEC 
        campaign in Vancouver, British Columbia.
        
             Across Canada today, militant anti-imperialist organiza-
        tions, groups and individuals are laying the ground for a massive 
        protest movement against the APEC Leaders' Summit to be held in 
        Vancouver, B.C. this coming November.  In the coming months, NO 
        TO APEC campaigns will be launched in other cities of the coun-
        try, to culminate in a main activity - People's Conference 
        Against Imperialist Globalization: Continuing the Resistance - as 
        well as coordinated events in November.  The NO TO APEC campaign, 
        in fact, is a national campaign spearheaded by organizations of 
        Filipino workers, women and youth, Philippine solidarity and 
        support formations composed of Filipinos, Canadians and people of 
        other nationalities, joined by Canadian and other non-Filipino 
        groups and organizations united on the issue of opposition to, 
        not just the APEC, but more so, imperialist globalization.
        
             The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is nothing but 
        an expanded version of the North American Free Trade Agreement 
        (NAFTA).  It is another ploy by the ringleaders of global monopo-
        ly capital to deepen and make permanent structural adjustment in 
        Canada and other parts of the Asia-Pacific, just as it further 
        distorts the already maldeveloped economies and tramples on the 
        fundamental rights of the peoples of the oppressed countries like 
        the Philippines.  On the one hand, the phenomenon of regional 
        trading blocs, like the APEC and the NAFTA, is reflective of the 
        need of the global capitalist powers (the G-7 countries mainly) 
        to consolidate themselves in the face of an ever-worsening crisis 
        of their own making i.e., the crisis of overproduction.  On the 
        other hand, it underscores the intensifying struggle for the 
        redivision of the world among these giants.  The APEC in particu-
        lar, is US imperialism's bid to strengthen and further expand its 
        sphere of influence against the Japanese and European economic 
        offensives in the region. 
        
             We are well aware of the impact of such schemes on the 
        affected peoples.  As the APEC hastens implementation of the 
        GATT/WTO agenda of trade and investment liberalization, deregula-
        tion and privatization, jobs are lost, the incidence of poverty 
        in both "developed" imperialist and maldeveloped, oppressed 
        countries goes up, the environment is destroyed to make way for 
        mega-projects which sap the countries of the much-needed resourc-
        es for its own peoples. 

             In Canada under the NAFTA and structural adjustment, the 
        real unemployment rate as of October 1996 was close to 17% (ECEJ, 
        December 1996).  This rate adds some "half a million discouraged 
        workers who have dropped out of the labour force because they do 
        not believe there are any jobs to be found, and another 642,000 
        who are only working part-time because they cannot find fulltime 
        jobs, to the 1.52 million Canadians officially counted as looking 
        for work.  And yet the Chretien government shells out millions of 
        dollars just for the APEC Leaders' Summit in Vancouver this 
        November.
        
             The quality of jobs has also been going down in Canada.  
        There are now more part-time low paying jobs, with more and more 
        people employed in temporary jobs, including workers hired for 
        short-term work through temp agencies and workers directly hired 
        by firms for short-term contracts.  Women, youth and people of 
        colour comprise the greater number of workers in non-standard 
        jobs which have average incomes of less than one-half of those of 
        standard employment and few to no benefits.   
        
             In the Philippines, the KMU (May First Movement) puts the 
        real unemployment figure at around 38%.  Under President General 
        Ramos's Philippines 2000, there is the "no union, no strike" rule 
        especially in the export processing zones and subsidiaries of US, 
        Japanese and European multinational firms.  There are the market-
        oriented hiring schemes like temporary hiring, job-sharing, 
        labour contracting - all designed to reduce wages, remove job 
        security and undermine unions. Farming and indigenous communities 
        are constantly threatened by displacement as a result of develop-
        ment projects and the push to build export processing zones and 
        tourism development projects.
        
             Beneath the high-tech development and so-called technologi-
        cal advances ostensibly brought about by "globalization," the 
        question remains: all these for whom?  It is therefore illusory 
        to expect the APEC leaders to take the interests of the people 
        seriously and, at their annual summits,  to squarely address the 
        root issues that make for poverty, unemployment, national dis-
        crimination and oppression, and environmental destruction.  No 
        amount of sidebar agreements, made within the framework of the 
        ruling world order, can effect real change in favour of the 
        working peoples.  Institutions such as the WTO, and agreements 
        such as the APEC and the NAFTA are hatched by the big imperialist 
        bourgeoisie precisely to bail itself out of the contradictions of 
        the world capitalist order. 
        
             It is only the militant and determined unity of anti-imperi-
        alist forces the world over that can overturn this ruling system 
        in decay.  We have only to look at the struggles of the peoples 
        in the oppressed countries and in the capitalist centres as well.  
        We take inspiration from our own people's struggle for national 
        freedom and democracy in the Philippines where, as the APEC 
        leaders met in Manila last year, a total of 176 foreign and local 
        delegates and 178 observers attended the People's Conference 
        Against Imperialist Globalization sponsored by BAYAN (New Patri-
        otic Alliance).  The delegates came from labour, women's groups, 
        farmers' organizations, academics and other groups and individu-
        als from 30 countries in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe.  
        Almost 400 hundred vehicles and about 5,000 men and women partic-
        ipated directly in the People's Caravan against APEC.  Mass 
        actions were held in 14 provinces across the Philippines.  There 
        were also anti-APEC/anti-globalization activities in other parts 
        of the world. Other chapters of BAYAN International held their 
        own protest actions.
        
             Let us therefore continue to wage this campaign against 
        imperialist globalization  and help forge the strongest possible 
        unity of  anti-imperialist and democratic forces on this side of 
        the globe.
        
                        CAST AWAY ILLUSIONS!  JUNK APEC!
        
          CARRY FORWARD THE STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALIST GLOBALIZATION!
        
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        THE NETWORK OPPOSED TO ANTI-PEOPLE ECONOMIC CONTROL (NO TO APEC)
        
        Montreal:       
        
          Centre for Philippine Concerns (CPC)
          PINAY
          Montreal Coalition of Filipino Students (MCFS)
          Student Christian Movement - McGill University (SCM-McGill)
        
        Ottawa:
        
          Philippines-Ottawa Solidarity and Support Effort (POSSE)
          Ottawa-Carleton CUPE Council
         
        Toronto:
        
          Philippine Solidarity Group-Toronto (PSG-Toronto)
          Katipunan  ng Manggagawang Kababaihan-Toronto (KMK-Toronto)
          Progressive Filipinos Overseas United for National Democracy   
            (PROFOUND)