[asia-apec 388] Launching of NO to APEC campaign
mario mapanao
mario_m at HK.Super.NET
Wed Apr 2 11:43:25 JST 1997
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)
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