Global solidarity with refugees

BY IGGY KIM

SYDNEY — Refugee rights campaigners across the world have protested
against the Australian government’s refugee policy. In Auckland, New Zealand
on January 26, activists picketed the Australian consulate. A similar picket
is being organised outside the Australian consulate in San Francisco for
February 15. Anti-globalisation protesters mobilising against the World
Economic Forum on January 31-February 4 in New York also raised the issue.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is attending the conference.

One of the most powerful statements against the Australian government’s
persecution of refugees, however, is likely to come from a protest being
organised as part of the Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference,
to be held March 29-April 1 in Sydney.

On March 31, conference participants from more than 40 countries will
converge in an international solidarity protest at the Villawood refugee
prison. The action will hear speakers from Europe, North America, Central
Asia, the Middle East and South-East Asia. Many of those attending the
conference, from Australia and overseas, are experienced campaigners for
refugee and immigrant rights.

The protest is aimed at complementing the national convergence at the
Woomera refugee prison, also taking place over the Easter weekend.

“The international character of the conference action will make it a
unique contribution to the refugee rights campaign, potentially taking
it to a new level,” conference convenor Max Lane told Green Left Weekly.

“The problem of refugee flows and anti-refugee policies is fundamentally
about global inequality”, Lane continued. “The devouring of world resources
for First World profit and the deepening chasm between rich and poor countries
create mass poverty, war, repression and ecological catastrophe.

“Hundreds of millions are driven to migrate — either with or without
documentation — from the Third World, only to collide with the fortress
policies of the First World.”

The conference will also feature a stream of anti-racism workshops and
a plenary panel on the international dimension of refugee and migrant rights.

Additions to the speakers list include: Frank Pascual, director of the
Resource Centre for People's Development (Philippines); Dr Nasir Hashim,
general secretary of the Malaysian Socialist Party; Tahmmeena Faryal, senior
spokesperson, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan; Powes
Parkop from Melanesian Solidarity (Papua New Guinea); Robert Pavey from
Papua New Guinea's newly formed Socialist Democratic Party; Matt McCarten
and Mike Treen from the New Zealand Alliance; Grant Morgan and David Colyer
from the New Zealand Socialist Workers Organisation; Jean-Pierre Page from
the French Communist Party; Stuart King from the UK Workers Power; and
Michael Albert, founder of Z-Net in the US.

From Green Left Weekly, February 6, 2002.

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From GLW issue 479