[asia-apec 1227] Alternatives To The APEC Agenda Details Announced

[APEC Monitoring Group]

                AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND APEC MONITORING GROUP
                       PO Box 106 233, Auckland. Email: notoapec at clear.net.nz
                                   
                                 MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE
 
5 August 1999

Details of Alternatives To The APEC Agenda Announced - APEC Monitoring Group

The September Leaders Summit won't be the only conference in Auckland to focus on APEC. The APEC Monitoring Group today announced details of its forum entitled Alternatives To The APEC Agenda to be held from September 10-12 in Auckland.

Alternatives To The APEC Agenda will bring together a range of prominent local and international critics of the global free market economic model, and will focus on concrete strategies and genuine alternatives to APEC's free trade and investment agenda.  It is supported by GATT Watchdog, the NZ Trade Union Federation, Corso, and the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa.

"This forum is the culmination of a year-long programme of education and action to expose and oppose APEC's failed free market, free trade and investment approach," says Aziz Choudry.

 Since it was founded at the 1994 Jakarta APEC Summit, members of the APEC Monitoring Group  have participated in parallel NGO and union forums opposed to APEC in Kyoto/Osaka (1995), Manila (1996), Vancouver (1997) and Kuala Lumpur (1998).

The APEC Monitoring Group has held a series of alternative public meetings, forums, rallies and workshops throughout the country to coincide with all the major New Zealand APEC meetings during 1999. 

"Unlike the APEC meetings, our forum will not be an extravagant and vacuous gabfest and its main achievements will not be measured in taxpayer-funded pre-election photo opportunities", said Mr Choudry.

"APEC is in a state of virtual paralysis and will struggle to limp on into the new millennium. But the economic policy package it promotes needs to be taken seriously, especially as it leads into the WTO.  One of our primary goals is to help people understand the link between APEC's goals and the destructive economic policies which have devastated this country and peoples' lives over the past 15 years, and to promote discussion on alternative policies and strategies to achieve economic, social and Treaty justice." 

The forum ends with a rally against APEC at 4.30 on 12 September, the first day of the Leaders Summit.

Further details are available on the APEC Monitoring Group's Website - <http://www.apec.gen.nz>

Confirmed speakers include: 
Professor Jane Kelsey, Auckland University; author of "Reclaiming the Future";
Moses Havini, representative of the Bougainville Interim Government;
Moana Jackson, Director of Nga Kaiwhakamarama I Nga Ture (Maori Legal Service); 
Annette Sykes, Ngati Pikiao lawyer and Treaty educator; 
Alejandro Villamar Calderon, RMALC (Mexican Action Network on Free Trade)
Antonio Tujan, Executive Director of IBON Databank, Philippines; 
Sunera Thobani, Ruth Wynn Woodward Professor of Womens Studies, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada;
Rex Varona, Executive Director, Asian Migrant Centre, Hong Kong;
Crispin Beltran, Chairman of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) unions, Philippines;
Mereana Pitman, Ngati Kahungunu, Treaty educator;
Peter Wills, biologist and GE activist;
Prue Hyman, Associate Professor of Economics, Victoria University, Wellington;
Aziz Choudry, GATT Watchdog;
Radha D'Souza, Asia-Pacific Workers Solidarity Links;
Bill Rosenberg, researcher for Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA);
Leonie Pihama, Ngati Mahanga/Te Atiawa, Maori educationalist;
Robert Reid, NZ Trade Union Federation International Officer

For further comment contact: Aziz Choudry, ph (03) 3662803 or (021) 217 3039
                                              Or Leigh Cookson ph  (09) 3025390 (ext 833)