INDONESIA: Conference to discuss next steps for global peace movement

BY HERBERT DOCENA

JAKARTA — Organisers of the "Iraq and the Global Peace Movement: What Next?" conference, which will be held here on May 19-21, expect attendance by as many as 200 delegates from the broad anti-war coalitions that have emerged in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The US war on Iraq has given birth to a global peace movement that is historically unprecedented in both scale and reach — mobilising at least 12 million people around the world on the February 15-16 weekend.

The organisers of the Jakarta conference hope it will bring together a broad range of representatives from peace movements around the world and draw up a concrete and detailed plan of action for responding to these developments from different fronts.

The conference is being sponsored by a group of organisations, most of which were also behind the sending of an Asian Peace Mission to Iraq on the eve of war, including a group of Indonesian organisations and individuals led by the Indonesian National Front for Workers' Struggle (FNBPI) and the Indonesia Centre for Reform and Social Emancipation (INCREASE).

Also part of the conference organising committee are the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and the Amsterdam -based Transnational Institute.

The conference is open to all those who wish to attend but participants will have to take care of their own travel and accommodation expenses.

For more information, contact Herbert Docena at <herbert@focusphilippines.org>.

From Green Left Weekly, May 14, 2003.

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From GLW issue 537