[asia-apec 174] WOMEN SAY NO TO APEC! NO TO IMPERIALIST GLOBALIZATION!

[GABRIELA-Philippines]

Dear Friends:

On November 25, 1996, the APEC Leaders' Summit shall be held in Olongapo
City, Philippines.  It will be attended by heads of states of its eighteen
member countries, including the Philippines.  APEC is the regional bloc
dominated by the US which shall ensure the unified implementation of the
globalization process in the region.

GABRIELA, the national alliance of women's organizations, together with
other people's organizations under BAYAN, the center for the patriotic
movement in the Philippines, is sponsoring the "People's Conference Against
Imperialist Globalization" from November 18 to 25 to highlight the people's
resistance to APEC and the whole schema of renewed imperialist drive for
global domination. Among the activities lined up for the conference are
workshops and fora on the effects of globalization on women, to be
organized by GABRIELA.

We therefore request for your support in soliciting signatures (names) of
women who support our calls against APEC and imperialist globalization. 
Herewith is a statement entitled, "WOMEN SAY NO TO APEC! NO TO IMPERIALIST
GLOBALIZATION!" which will be circulated and read during the People's
Conference and will likewise serve as a springboard for future joint
actions on these issues.

We will appreciate receiving the list of signatures (names) together with
their organizations, full office address, phone/fax numbers, and e-mail
addresses on or before 08 November.    Thank you very much.


																						GABRIELA
						gab at mnl.sequel.net


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				WOMEN SAY
				NO TO APEC!
		      NO TO IMPERIALIST GLOBALIZATION!
				  (statement)


	More than 27,000 families are bound to lose their homes and livelihood as
preparations for the coming APEC summit are being feverishly undertaken by
the Philippine government under General Fidel V. Ramos.  Demolitions occur
almost everyday in Metro Manila alone as infrastructural projects for the
comfort and convenience of the Summit delegates are being built.  The
Summit is scheduled to take place in November 25, 1996 in Olongapo City and
will be attended by heads of states of the 18-member countries from around
the Pacific Rim.

	Beggars, mainly women and streetchildren, are being rounded off the
streets by the police in an effort to hide poverty in the country,
cosmeticize the adverse impact of General Ramos' "Philippines 2000"
program, attract more foreign investments, and in the process, enhance his
carefully-built image as the exemplary spokesperson for US imperialism in
the region.

	The US, on the other hand, has undertaken an active campaign of
recruitment for intelligence agents tasked to monitor the activities of
anti-imperialist organizations.  A clampdown on known anti-imperialist
activists is not a remote possibility.

	The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC is the regional trade bloc
which started as a loose economic forum but has now evolved  into a formal
regional mechanism dominated by the US and with Japan jockeying for
control.  It has now become a mechanism for hastening economic
liberalization and ensuring implementation of commitments to GATT-related
policies by member-countries.  This the US aims to do by pushing for the
unification of policies and implementation programs among its members. 
Through these measures, APEC thus complements the World Trade Organization
(WTO) in ensuring the globalization process in the Asia-Pacific region. 
The region includes some of the fastest growing economies in the world and
so-called "transition" economies which constitute a vast market for surplus
goods and services from the North.

	But there are more reasons for women around the world to say NO TO APEC,
NO TO IMPERIALIST GLOBALIZATION.  For these can only result to the
unprecedented displacement, commodification and modern-day slavery of
women.  Globalization is hostile to working women of both North and South
as technological development and capitalist schemes such as labor
flexibilization lead to the severe reduction of jobs and falling wage rates
as in the case even of the US, the bastion of imperialism.

	As national economies are more and more integrated into the global
capitalist system through liberalization, deregulation, and privatization
policies,  transnational corporations acquire full rights to own, plunder,
and control the world's natural and human resources which spawns the
poverty and deprivation of  peoples at an unparalleled scale.  Under the
so-called "globalization," women have become a primary commodity traded in
the international market through massive migration and trafficking.  Asia
is the scene of a booming "migration industry" of about 35 million migrant
workers providing labor to some of the world's wealthiest and most dynamic
economies.  This occurs at such a high human cost ranging from the
breakdown of families on a social scale, violations of labor rights, abuse
and deaths of migrant women, etc.  With the phenomenon of "jobless growth"
under globalization, various forms of prostitution easily become an
attractive alternative for women.

	All these imperialist-dictated policies can only be implemented through
the use of sophisticated global scheme of repression and deception
machinated by global powers such as the US and their client states. 
Militarism and repression of labor and human rights shall become an
indispensable feature of globalization to repress peoples as the
consequences of imperialist stranglehold intensify.

	All these trends shall negate whatever gains the international women's
movement has already achieved.  These can only worsen the political and
economic conditions of toiling women everywhere in the coming decades.

	Women have reasons to oppose APEC and imperialist globalization.

>>>We affirm our support for the struggles of women in their respective
countries against imperialist-dictated policies.  We affirm the need to
advance the anti-imperialist struggles of toiling and progressive women
from around the world.  We call for a global economic order free from
imperialist dominance and which respects the sovereign and democratic
rights of peoples.<<<


				NO TO APEC!
				NO TO GATT!
	OPPOSE GLOBALIZATION AND IMPERIALIST DOMINATION!
		ADVANCE THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLES
		    OF WORKING WOMEN WORLDWIDE!



signed:

NAME             ORGANIZATION             ADDRESS          PHONE/FAX/EMAIL



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 GABRIELA (A National Alliance of Women's Organizations in the Philippines)
 P.O. Box 4386, 2800 Manila, Philippines
 telephone numbers +63-2-9288034/9269653
 fax number +63-2-9246901
 e-mail: gab at mnl.sequel.net 

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