[asia-apec 619] Malaysian Government tells APPA to go through proper channels

[PAN Asia Pacific]

The Star
September 4, 1998


Go Through Proper Channels, Rafidah tells NGOs
by Jacqueline Ann Surin

KUALA LUMPUR: Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) organising a
people's summit parallel to the APEC leaders' meeting here in
November, will have to go through the proper channels to do so.

International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz
said the ministry was aware that such a meeting was being
organised but "we have nothing to do with it".

"The NGOs have to seek permission through the proper channels- for
example, getting a police permit for their meeting," she said. 
rafidah was responding to an announcement be the Asia Pacific
Peoples' Assembly (APPA) Secretariat last week that a parallel
people's meeting would be held before the APEC leaders' meeting. 
APPA spokesman Tian Chua had said that the parallel meeting would
provide an alternative forum for people to discuss the APEC
process and globalisation in its broader social and political
context.

Since the original APEC Leaders' Meeting in Osaka in 1993,
representatives from NGOs, grassroots groups and social justice
movements have met in similar alternative forums like in Manila in
1996 and in Vancouver last year.