Towards a Just and Lasting Peace Conference Secretariat International League of Peoples’ Struggles – Participating Organizations in Canada
SPEAKERS' PAPERS

Input for “Towards a Just and Lasting peace Conference”

by Dr. Carol P. Araullo
ILPS Vice Chairperson for External Affairs
Chairperson, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN)

Allow me, first of all, to extend congratulatory greetings of BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance), the biggest and most comprehensively anti-imperialist legal alliance of democratic mass organizations in the Philippines, as well as the Philippine chapter of ILPS, to the Canada-based organizers of this international conference “Towards a Just and Lasting Peace”.

Prof. Jose Maria Sison, ILPS Chairperson, has given a very broad and clear overview in his keynote address. I will thus focus my contribution by elucidating and concretizing the role of ILPS in advancing the cause of national liberation, democracy and social liberation by deepening understanding, promoting unity and resolutely carrying out the tasks outlined in the resolutions of the First and Second International Assemblies on said concern.

Certainly the ILPS as a whole, and through its participating organizations, has made a significant contribution to advancing the sharpest anti-imperialist analyses and calls in the international and national arenas, on major developments and urgent issues, including calling for international solidarity for the valiant struggles of the world’s peoples against imperialism and reaction.

To cite a specific example, I would like to highlight the role of the ILPS -- in particular the ILPS Hong Kong-based organizations, the ILPS Philippines chapter, as well as ILPS participating organizations from other SEAsian countries -- in the highly successful anti-WTO education and mobilization campaign held in the run-up to and during the 6th Ministerial of the WTO last November 2005.

The most well projected call was “Junk WTO” that the ILPS carried.  This was the distillation of the clearly anti-imperialist line regarding the WTO, as an imperialist tool to further the exploitation and oppression of the world’s peoples, in its 10th year.  The call sponsored by anti-WTO groups that were not anti-imperialist, “Take the corporate agenda out of WTO”, was completely overtaken.  (By the way, this is the call that future founding ILPS members audaciously put forward when they held the only comprehensively anti-imperialist conference and march during the historic 1999 “Battle of Seattle” in conjunction with the 3rd Ministerial of the WTO.)

The chanting that the ILPS organizations did at the many demonstrations and marches of “US Imperialist No 1 Terrorist” and “People Resist WTO” also caught on.  The slogan “Resist Imperialist Plunder and War” was also popularized by means of posters, stickers, buttons, t shirts, streamers and banners that were captured in the Hong Kong and international media coverage of the events.  

The ILPS-sponsored “Forum on Trade and War” achieved its objective of providing a venue for deepening understanding on the nature of so-called “free trade” globalization as nothing more than imperialist plunder under a new signpost and the US-instigated “War on Terror” as nothing but imperialist wars of aggression, military interventionism and state terrorism against the struggling peoples of the world.

Moreover, the correct united front policy ensured that the ILPS would be part of the broader People’s Action Week against WTO and be ale to interact with and influence a bigger network of people’s organizations and anti-WTO groups that congregated in Hong Kong during the 6th Ministerial.  The ILPS figured in the follow up campaign for the release of the activists of different nationalities who had been arrested by the HK police during the anti-WTO demonstrations.

Another outstanding example of the work of ILPS in pursuing the cause of national liberation, democracy and social liberation is by way of the First European Consultative Conference of the ILPS European Coordinating Committee held in November 2005.

The formation of the ILPS European Coordinating Committee represents an advance in the work of ILPS as it is in charge of providing a framework for the ILPS participating organizations in Europe to coordinate their activities more closely and thereby contribute to the overall development of the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle of the people in Europe.

The consultative conference dealt with three main topics 1) Imperialist wars and struggles for national and social liberation, and international solidarity; 2) EU social and economic policies; and 3) Civil and political rights.

A third example you are probably very familiar with and that is the conference held in May, 2004 here in Quebec, Canada entitled Labels, Laws and Liberation: The case of Professor Jose Maria Sison.  It successfully undertook a critical study on the impact of anti-terrorism laws on the right to national liberation and the future of human rights.

Fourthly, a one week anti-imperialist camp was organized by ILPS in Thessaloniki, Greece in June 2003 in conjunction with the European Summit. It carried the name Thessaloniki Resistance 2003. Very lively and fruitful debates were held on various important issues to the peoples of the world in their struggle against imperialism and reaction. Thessaloniki Resistance 2003 mobilized several thousand people.

Lastly, Mumbai Resistance, an anti-imperialist campaign was held to coincide with the holding of the World Social Forum on January 2004, in Mumbai, India.  MR 2004 provided a critical, anti-imperialist pole to the compromising position of the WSF that has come to be dominated by reformists and NGO bureaucrats. MR2004 posed the problem of imperialism squarely and posited the need for systemic change as opposed to the reformist road that in the end only serves to prop up the imperialist system.

If you will notice, these examples I have given also reflect the work of ILPS in major global regions such as East Asia and Oceania, Europe, North America and South Asia.

Prof. Sison has succinctly pointed out in his keynote address:

“The people fighting for national and social liberation, the countries defending their national independence against imperialist impositions, and the people struggling in the imperialist countries are all linked by common needs, by a common determination to strengthen their solidarity and mutual support and by common aspirations to overcome their common enemy and achieve a durable and lasting peace.”

Indeed, as the Resolution of the Workshop on Concern No. 1 at the FIA states:

“The ILPS answers the urgent need of the broad masses of the people for the creation of an international rallying force in the struggle for national independence, democracy and social liberation.  It is their weapon against the intensifying exploitation and oppression unleashed by “free market” globalization and the new world disorder under the hegemony of US imperialism.
 
The ILPS is needed in order to raise the consciousness and militancy of the toiling masses and the middle social strata in the common struggle against the imperialists and their socio-economic, political and cultural instruments.”

I am very pleased to announce the forthcoming ILPS and Asia Pacific Research Network co-sponsored international conference on the campaign to oust US military facilities in East Asia Pacific as well as the First Consultative Conference of the East Asia and Oceania Coordinating Committee that will both be held in the Philippines in December 2006.  These will coincide with a country-wide mobilization and caravan to culminate in a big demonstration at the site of the ASEAN meeting of heads of state. 

Just like this International Conference “Towards a Just and Lasting Peace” that we are privileged to be a part of, the upcoming international meetings in the Philippines and another one being planned on Iraq are outstanding examples of what can be done under the auspices of a broad, mass-based international anti-imperialist organization such as ILPS. 

We look forward to the further expansion and consolidation of ILPS globally.  In countries where there is a sufficient number and strength of ILPS participating organizations, we anticipate determined efforts to form national chapters of ILPS, which will eventually pave the way towards the setting up of regional ILPS Coordinating Committees.

In that respect, the prospects appear bright for the birthing of ILPS Canada Chapter and hopefully soon after, ILPS USA Chapter. An ILPS North America Coordinating Committee is bound to follow.

Thank you for patiently listening and good morning to all. #