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Asia-Pacific Peoples' Assembly kicks off to a grand start

Over 700 local and foreign participants converged at Federal Hotel in the Malaysian capital Tuesday, November 10, to confront globalisation and reassert the peoples' rights.

The five-day Asia Pacific Peoples' Assembly (APPA), organised by a group of Malaysian non-governmental organisations (NGOs), is the fifth such people's forum which has run parallel to the governmental APEC summit. APPA will come up with resolutions and statements of the peoples' rights which APEC governments have ignored and violated.

APPA organising committee spokesperson Syed Shahir said APEC was an elitist gathering, limited to government and business leaders and ignoring the rest of the populace. Furthermore, it has failed to address the impact of globalisation on workers, the environment, human rights, women and indigenous people among others.

"The people have not had their say for far too long. We have been ignored, used and abused in the government's pursuit of power and wealth for the few chosen elites.

"Our rights have been trampled upon and our dignity shattered. This has to stop and APPA is a forum for the people, by the people and of the people. We are here to ensure APEC leaders do not ignore us and the basic issues confronting the peoples", he said at the official opening of APPA today.

Pointing out the current global economic crisis and in particular Malaysia's problems, Syed Shahir said globalisation and its capitalistic focus was a major contributing factor to this and that the "governments cannot continue ignoring these issues".

According to him, globalisation had continued to increase the injustice and inequality of the vast majority of people. "Indigenous people's land and livelihoods have been gravely threatened. Women continue to remain in the lower rungs of labour as their jobs become more informal and insecure."

"Threats to the environment have multiplied with the kind of development that globalisation has brought", he added.

He said multinationals were clearly the prime movers of the globalisation process and they have brought with them liberalisation and privatisation, which threaten the lives of the vast majority of the people of the world.

Syed said insecurity was fast extending to the food security of the people of the world as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) attempts to control seeds and patent native knowledge.

"We do not accept that the poor and discriminated people of the world have to sacrifice their basic rights so that the interests of the minority will be served. We assert that people have a right to determine how their lives should be lived. For that reason we say globalisation has to be confronted and peoples' rights should be reasserted." Some 13 forums in APPA will discuss and try to address these issues.