URGENT INTERNATIONAL ANNOUNCEMENT

 

へ戻る

back to へ戻る


Dear Asia Pacific Sisters

Please find below the programme for the forthcoming 1999 Women's Conference
Against APEC.  It is being held immediately prior to the official APEC
Women's Leaders Meeting in Wellington.

You will be aware that rather than organising a big international
conference at the time of the APEC Leaders meeting in Auckland New Zealand
in September of this year, the New Zealand Aotearoa / NZ APEC Monitoring
Group is organising a year of activity against APEC which will be more
focussed on the New Zealand population.  We have already organised highly
successful events in February and April at the time of the APEC Senior
Officials meetings in Wellington and Christchurch.

The official APEC Women's Leaders Conference in June 1999 provides us with
a further opportunity to confront the patriarchal and neo-liberal agenda of
the APEC process.

We have been in consultation with the organisers of the Kuala Lumpur
Women's Conference Against APEC to ensure that the Wellington Conference
continues the tradition of the previous Anti-APEC Women's Conferences. 

Eliza Tita Lubi from GABRIELLA has been nominated from APWLD to be our
key-note speaker and provide the link from the previous conference.

Our conference will be mainly aimed at New Zealand Women to help build up
the opposition to APEC in this country.

However we welcome any woman form the Asia Pacific who may wish to
participate in our Conference.

Please note:  WE HAVE NO FUNDS TO PAY FOR ANY AIR TICKETS FOR WOMEN WHO MAY
WISH TO COME.  YOU WILL HAVE TO FIND YOUR OWN SPONSORSHIP.  However we will
be able to provide home-stays and waive the registration fee for any
international sister that wishes to come.

Please find below the programme for the Conference.  Please contact us if
you require any further information or return the registration form if you
are able to come.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------



BEWARE THE MISS-LEADERS:
1999 Women's Conference Against APEC


("If equality means entitlement to an equal share of the profits of
economic tyranny it is irreconcilable with liberation.  Freedom in an
unfree world is merely licence to exploit.  Lip service to feminism in the
developed nations is a handy disguise for the masculinization of power and
the feminization of poverty in the emerging nations".  Germaine Greer 1999)


This year New Zealand hosts APEC.  APEC stands for Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation or in our view A Patriarchal Exploiters Club.

The choice APEC gives women is to either share in the profits of economic
tyranny or drown in the poverty it creates.  The official APEC Women
Leaders Network Meeting planned for Wellington, 20-23 June 1999 attempts to
seduce women to the former; after all who would willingly choose the
latter?  But we believe APEC should be destroyed not feminised.

APEC is anti-women; anti-people, it epitomises the values of capitalism,
patriarchy, greed and oppression.  It stands for everything that feminism
stands against.  APEC supports the agenda of big business to make profits
at any cost.  It is part of the international network of treaties, forums,
and institutions that seek to subjugate the many for the enrichment of the
few.

The Miss-Leaders say that it is time for women from the APEC economies to
get together.  However women have been doing that for the last three years
- Manila, Vancouver and Kuala Lumpur.  What's more these women have not
been meeting in order to prostitute themselves to the APEC agenda.  They
have been meeting to expose and resist this agenda and to build sisterhood
and solidarity throughout the Asia-Pacific.


Programme
Saturday and Sunday
19-20 June 1999

Venue:
Law School, Old Government Buildings
Lambton Quay
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND


PROGRAMME

Saturday

9.00am  Plenary

The First Voices:
APEC, Maori and the 2nd Colonisation
Leonie Pihama, Mereana Pitman, Tanja Shutz, Tere Harrison
(others to be confirmed)

The Women's Struggle Against APEC
An international perspective by Eliza Tita Lubi, from
GABRIELA, Philippines, 3rd Women's Conference Against APEC

And we all live happily ever after - Fairytales from the Global Market
Place
Anne Else

Lunch

Concurrent Thematic Sessions

1:  APEC & Women Workers
Overview - Rubina Jamil
Working Women's Organisation, Pakistan

Contracting:  Security of Employment
 Homecare:  Gender Issues & the value of work
Annie Newman and Luci Highfield

Garment Workers:  The high cost of fashion
Maxine Gay

DPB Workers:  Political attacks and the Poverty Trap
Caroline Hatt and Celia Briar

2:  APEC, Food and Health
Overview - Christine Dann (To be confirmed)

GM Food:  Consumer choice or corporate voice
Sue Kedgley

Health:  Corporate colonisation of public health
(Speaker to be confirmed)

3:  APEC and Education
Commercialisation and Privatisation
Macdegrees versus the public good
Jane Kelsey

Fees/Allowances and Student Debt
Tanja Shutz and Christina Rizos

Secondary School Students as Workers
Tali Williams

Workshops

Exploration of issues arising from the themes (1-3)
Suggested solutions
A resolution

Nibbles and networking

SUNDAY

Plenary

Current Concerns for New Zealand Women
And how Left feminism marks out the road forward at the intersection of
class and gender
Linda Hill

10.00 Workshops
Rebuilding the feminist movement
Strategies for dealing with the Miss-leaders
Building sisterhood internationally
Others

12.00 Lunch

12.45 Plenary

Report back from workshops (day 1 & 2)

Practical discussion on how to progress themes of the conference

Presentation of Conference Resolutions and Statement
Jane Kelsey and Tita Lubi

Adoption of Conference Resolutions and Statements

Final Speech

Close



ORGANISERS:

The Conference is sponsored by the APEC Monitoring Group.  The Organising
Committee members are:  Leigh Cookson, Bronwyn Cross, Maxine Gay, Tere
Harrison, Caroline Hatt, Prue Hyman, Tanja Shutz, Luci Highfield, Jane
Kelsey, Annie Newman, Christina Rizos, Gillian Southey, Tali Williams


APEC MONITORING GROUP

Since the 1994 APEC Summit in Indonesia, the APEC Monitoring Group has been
involved with ongoing research, education and media work on the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and the implications of its
agenda for Aotearoa and other APEC member countries.  Members of the
Monitoring Group have attended alternative meetings on APEC in Jakarta
(1994), Osaka/Kyoto (1995), Manila (1996), Vancouver (1997) and Kuala
Lumpur (1998) as well as monitoring the official APEC meetings themselves
and their impact on the cities that have hosted the events.  The APEC
Monitoring Group is a member of the GATT Watchdog coalition and works
closely with Corso and the Trade Union Federation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------




REGISTRATION FORM

Name.....................

Address....................

........................

Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:

PLEASE indicate the theme that you are primarily interested in:

____  Women workers
 
____  Food and Health

____  Education


Do you require home stay?      Yes/No

Arrival date, time and flight number:___________________________________

Departure date, time and flight number: ________________________________


Please send to:
Conference Organising Group
Box 50 216
Porirua

Fax: 64-4-237 8157
E-mail:
clothing.union@clear.net.nz

(By June 10th 1999)


----------------------------------------------------------------------------



Maxine Gay
Secretary
Clothing & Laundry Workers Union
PO Box 50216
Porirua
NEW ZEALAND
Tel: 64 4 237 5062 Fax:64 4 237 8157
Mobile: 025 2769 225