BY IGGY KIM
SYDNEY — Following the success of the second World Social Forum at Porto Alegre, Brazil, activists will meet at the second Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference to discuss the formation of a regional social forum. The solidarity conference will be held at Sydney Boys High School on March 29-April 1.
The 50,000-strong international gathering in Brazil demonstrated a defiant stance against the US government's renewed militarism. The Sydney conference will seek to coordinate a similar front of international resistance.
"In the face of escalating military and economic assaults throughout the Asia Pacific region, this is crucial", said Peter Boyle, a member of the conference organising committee.
"However there are also increased, and reviving, mass struggles throughout the region: the peace movement in Pakistan, the intensifying struggle for democracy in Malaysia, the budding workers' movement in East Timor, the continuing resistance in the Indonesian archipelago, the struggle against US imperialism in the Philippines, and the political organisation of South Korean labour militancy.
"These struggles need to be galvanised into a regional front of resistance against war and corporate globalisation", Boyle said.
The second Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference will build on the dialogue successfully begun at the first conference in Sydney in 1998, which attracted 750 participants, including 67 international representatives.
The second conference will feature activists from Aceh, Burma, Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Nepal, South Korea, Malaysia and New Zealand, as well as from North America, Africa, Europe and Latin America.
To find out more about the conference phone (02) 9690 1230 or 1800 634 206 or visit the conference website at <www.global-revolt.org>.
From Green Left Weekly, February 13, 2002.
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