Declaration of the Founding Assembly of the
Asian Peace Alliance, Quezon City, Philippines, Sept. 1, 2002
We are individuals and representatives of organisations
from different parts of Asia. Alarmed and angered by the 'war against global
terrorism' engulfing the lives of hundreds of millions of Asian children,
women, and men, we have come together in Manila to found the Asian Peace Alliance
to help reverse the ongoing tragedy and bring peace to this troubled continent.
In the past year, the peoples of Asia have experienced a significant rise
in their already high levels of insecurity. From Korea in the East to Palestine
in the West, from Central Asia in the North to Indonesia in the South, wars,
conflicts, and rising tensions have been our shared reality. The common source
of our heightened insecurity is unmistakable: the winds of war unleashed by
the United States in its pursuit of the so-called campaign against terror.
This is based on a militarism that links physical coercion and patriarchy
as the currency of power.
The war on Afghanistan must be condemned. Furthermore, its very initiation
conduct represents a flagrant violation of political rights and defiance of
the minimum standards of international law, as Washington has arrogated to
itself the roles of judge, jury, and executioner.
Let there be no mistake. We in the Asian Peace Alliance are against terrorism
of all kinds, be it pursued by individuals, organisations, or states. But
when state terror is used to fight terror, when war is pursued as the strategy
against terror, when the 'war against global terror' is made the excuse to
push US expansionist, strategic, and economic objectives, then the peoples
of Asia must denounce this deadly enterprise and speak forcefully for peace.
CONFLICT AND WAR ACROSS ASIA
War goes hand in hand with an assault on human rights
and democratic freedoms throughout Asia
The destruction of our rights is now being systematised and institutionalised
in so-called anti-terrorist legislation that has either been signed or awaits
passage by governments. Some of these regimes have given in to intimidation
by Washington. Others, like Islamabad and Manila, have willingly betrayed
their citizens in return for cold cash euphemistically labeled as 'economic
aid.' Still others, like New Delhi, have taken advantage of the war against
terror to push through repressive legislation they had wanted to pass even
before September 11.
Washington claimed that one of its war aims was to liberate Afghan women from
the clutches of the oppressive Taliban regime. In fact, Afghan women continue
to experience great insecurity with the return to power of the vicious marauders
of the Northern Alliance who have been known to routinely employ rape as an
instrument of war.
Confident of Washington's backing, Pakistani dictator Musharraf flouts rising
demands for democracy, consolidates his repressive regime, and massacres unarmed
landless peasants and fisherfolk. Taking advantage of Washington's rhetoric,
the Hindu chauvinist government in New Delhi labels the Pakistani government
'terrorist' in order to close off any peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue
and cover up its culpability in the barbaric pogroms that its own followers
have carried out against Muslims.
This very gathering, in fact, has suffered the shameful denial by the Philippine
government of the participation of invited Afghan delegates.
Washington's war negatively affects the security of
all countries in the region
George W Bush's naming of North Korea as part of the 'axis of evil' has effectively
scuttled the move towards rapprochement between the two Koreas and set back
their eventual reunification.
The US push to enlist Japan in the anti-terror coalition has resulted in the
Koizumi government compounding the violation by previous governments of the
Japanese constitution by sending Japanese Self Defense forces to the Indian
Ocean to support Washington's war on Afghanistan. In addition, the emergency
military bill has been promoted. These moves have stoked legitimate fears
of Japan's remilitarisation.
In the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has effectively overturned
the Filipino people's decision a decade ago to kick out the US military bases
by allowing US troops to return in force via the Visiting Forces Agreement.
In the name of the war against terror, the Pentagon has renewed its aid to
the Indonesian military, an institution notorious for its violation of human
rights. In Malaysia, Mahathir has been emboldened to carry out more repression
under the draconian ISA (Internal Security Act).
In the coming months, our insecurity is likely to grow instead of diminish,
for even as we meet in Manila in the last days of August and the first days
of September, Washington is preparing to invade Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein.
Let there be no mistake: We have no sympathy with Saddam Hussein, but his
fate is for the people of Iraq to decide, not Washington.
The US war had made many domestic conflicts much less
susceptible to peaceful resolutions
Of course, not all our problems and conflicts can be attributed to Washington's
policies. Our region has had more than its share of civil wars, communal conflicts,
ethnic tensions where, as in Burma, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Thailand, elites
and majorities are ranged against oppressed classes and minorities.
Taking advantage of perceived US support, elites and governments have hardened
their positions against the just struggles of the oppressed. The anti-terror
alliance with the US, for instance, has emboldened the Arroyo administration
in Manila to drop all pretence of meeting the Moro people's demands for the
right to self-determination and economic justice in favor of a mailed fist
policy that is converting the Southern Philippines into a zone of permanent
war. US backing has also enabled Jakarta to move away from a peaceful and
just resolution of conflicts in Aceh, the Malukus, and other parts of Indonesia.
Conflicts with an inter-state dimension like Kashmir also become more difficult
to resolve, with each party assuming that the US is behind them.
WAR AND GLOBALISTION
The wars breaking out in Asia cannot be divorced
from the larger processes unleashed in the region by economic globalisation.
The Afghanistan campaign is meant to crush opposition to a permanent US military
presence in the Arabian peninsula to protect the interests of Big Oil, one
of the prime beneficiaries of economic globalisation. It is part and parcel
of the US effort to gain access to Central Asia - a strategic move dictated
by two imperatives: achieving control over the region's vast energy reserves
and allowing the US to gain an advantage over its geopolitical rivals Iran,
China, and Russia. September 11 was a gift to the oil and energy lobby that
now reigns in the White House.
The war is related to corporate-driven globalisation in another way: Asia
was, during the 1980s and 1990s, subjected to structural adjustment programs
imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. Designed to create a hospitable climate
for transnational corporations via liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation,
these programs increased poverty, widened inequality, consolidated economic
stagnation, and worsened ecological degradation. Fundamentalist and terrorist
movements have, in many cases, stemmed from the widespread anger at the erosion
of living standards and social injustices triggered by these programs. Like
Dr Frankenstein, the US is now moving against the very monsters that its economic
programs have created, and conveniently enough, Washington and its allied
governments are using the campaign against terror not only to go after terrorists
but also to crush the just and legitimate struggles to overturn these structural
adjustment programs waged by farmers, workers, urban and rural poor, women,
human rights organisations, indigenous peoples, and other marginalised groups.
In the name of fighting terror, we are seeing the criminalisation of dissent.
An important ally of this US-led globalisation is the corporate-controlled
media - newspapers, radio and television - which since September 11 has been
whipping up war hysteria all over the world. This media has emerged as a major
weapon in the US armory to give legitimacy to its deployment of violence.
As it is, elite-dominated media throughout Asia does not adequately reflect
and needs of ordinary people.
Globalisation has marginalised and disintegrated the economic and socio-cultural
systems of less developed countries. The war on terror exacerbates this by
providing a pretext for instituting more repressive and authoritarian forms
of control over the movement of workers and further promoting the trafficking
and smuggling of persons especially women and children. Refugees, migrant
workers, internally displaced persons and asylum seekers already suffering
from racist, xenophobic and discriminatory policies and practices are further
subjected to inhumane deportation, arbitrary crackdown, and detention.
PEOPLE'S SECURITY, NOT WAR
With our governments buckling under pressure or happily collaborating with
Washington, it is up to citizens and peoples' movements to reverse this process
of militarization that is foreclosing the future of peace, security, and justice
that we commonly desire. The Asian Peace Alliance is both a product and a
promoter of this emerging region-wide movement against war.
Our perspective is shaped by the following concerns, values, and goals:
Stop the Wars, End US Militarism
Afghanistan's tragedy must be ended and the Afghan
people must be allowed to determine their own future. This can only be achieved
through the withdrawal of US and allied military and police forces. We see
this as an overriding goal, in much the same way that we prioritise standing
on the frontlines of the growing global movement against a US invasion of
Iraq. In this connection, we condemn the so-called International Coalition
against Terrorism that the US has formed to provide a figleaf for its unilateral
moves.
Asia's western end is being convulsed by Israel's genocidal policies against
the Palestinian people, an enterprise that is aided and abetted by Washington.
Ending this crime against humanity must be on the top of our agenda. We are
not free unless the people of Palestine are free.
The US involvement in South Asia has aggravated peoples' efforts to secure
a lasting peace. We join concerned groups in India and Pakistan in their efforts
to end US diplomatic machinations, which are meant above all to promote its
own strategic objectives, and support their efforts to pressure their governments
to end their dangerous posturing and move towards peace.
US military presence in South Asia and Southwest Asia is supported by the
chain of US military bases that stretches from Diego Garcia in the Indian
Ocean to Korea and Japan in Northeast Asia. We support the Korean and Japanese
peoples' efforts to shut down these launching pads for intervention as well
as the Filipino people's drive to revoke the Visiting Forces Agreement and
other agreements that permit the stationing of US troops in Philippine territory.
One of the most insidious aspects of militarisation is the existence and spread
of nuclear weapons. There already exists, at least in name, the Southeast
Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone declared by the ASEAN governments. We support
the people's movements that seek to make this zone a reality. We also back
the drive of citizens' groups in Korea and Japan to establish a Northeast
Asian Nuclear Free Zone, and the efforts of peace movements in South Asia
to create a South Asia Nuclear Free Zone to contain the reckless nuclear brinkmanship
of New Delhi and Islamabad. In addition, we join the opposition to all forms
of missile defence systems in Asia and condemn the US Nuclear Posture Review,
which is aimed at using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapons states
and justifying the development of new nuclear weapons. We, of course, are
unequivocally opposed to all the nuclear weapons states, led by the US and
demand the total and immediate global abolition of nuclear weapons. Understanding
that nuclear power installations can facilitate nuclear weapons development
and are prime targets for military attacks, serious thought should be given
to phasing them out.
The US Navy's self-arrogated role as gendarme of the Asia Pacific region has
been massively destabilising and has repeatedly brought East Asia to the brink
of nuclear war. US military intervention throughout the region - and beyond
- is to a significant measure made possible by the US-Japan Military Alliance
which reinforces militarist moves within Japan at the expense of the Japanese
people, and especially the Okinawans. We strongly support the efforts of peace
movements in this region and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific, to end US interventionist
presence.
US unilateralism has sought to undermine vital multilateral institutions of
law and order like the International Criminal Court. This unilateralism has
displaced and marginalised the UN system, itself in need of further democratisation.
Where useful, UN bodies and authorities have been converted into extensions
of US policy, as in the case of Secretary General Kofi Annan, whose subservience
to Washington has significantly contributed to the UN's loss of credibility.
It is imperative that the UN and its agencies be allowed to play their due
role under the UN Charter.
Demilitarisation
Freeing the region of the US military presence
and de-nuclearising it are, however, only the first steps in our campaign
to banish war from our region.
Other steps must be taken, such as reducing military budgets, shrinking armed
forces and police forces, and ending the massive traffic in arms that is making
life precarious for millions of Asians even as it enriches merchants of death
in the US, European Union, Israel, Russia, China, and India.
Transformation of patriarchal relations in
Asian societies
Peace will always be a fragile condition unless
the patriarchal structures and relations that underlie overt violence in times
of war as well as deep-seated structural and gender violence in time of so-called
peace, are repudiated decisively. The transformation of patriarchal values
and attitudes must not be left to the end in our efforts in stopping the wars.
Unless it is launched at the very beginning of the process, our search for
peace will lead nowhere.
We celebrate a large number of Asian women that suffered under war who have
broken their silence and raised their voices against sexual violence and demanded
the end a culture of impunity for crimes committed during war-time and intra-state
conflicts.
Promotion of Peace and Justice
Peace and justice are intertwined, and the region
will not know peace unless ethnic, religious, and cultural discrimination
against minorities is ended and the right of self-determination can be exercised
by oppressed peoples. This means, among other things, taking a firm line against
the rise and activities of racist, chauvinist, and fascist groups that seek
to incite the majority population to violence and repression. It means supporting
democratisation, secularism, and pluralism. In this context, we oppose the
demonisation of Islam and the manipulation of religion for destructive ends.
Peace and justice can only be ensured through sustained political democratisation.
An essential dimension of this process is rolling back the so-called anti-terrorist
legislation being pushed everywhere. Another is opposing attacks on refugees
and workers and firm support for their free and secure movement within and
across borders. Still another is making the elite-controlled media accountable
to public opinion and forcing them to acknowledge, if not express, the people's
needs and aspirations for peace and justice. This process must include the
real devolution of power and the expansion and deepening of democratic freedoms
and human rights.
War, poverty, inequality, unjust class systems, and unjust power-sharing arrangements
are often the root of internal wars, and internal wars can invite external
military intervention. Thus peace in our region cannot be assured unless economic
justice is institutionalised. This agenda can only be realised by a peace
movement is integrally linked to the movement against corporate-driven globalisation.
A program of peace that deserves our support must include as central components
the end of IMF-World Bank-Asian Development Bank structural adjustment programs
(which now go under the euphemism of 'Poverty Reduction Strategy Programs'),
the cancellation of the foreign debt of Asian countries, the suspension of
commitments to the World Trade Organisation, restrictions on the operations
of transnational corporations, land reform, and significant asset and income
distribution. A sustainable peace depends on the end of corporate-driven globalisation.
A sustainable peace can only be built on the base of vibrant national economies
structured along the following principles: domestic-market oriented growth,
relative equity, decentralised production, and trade among countries that
enhances the capacity of the trading partners instead of institutionalising
unequal relations. Also essential to a sustainable peace is an ecologically
friendly system of production, distribution, and exchange.
The dominant militarist statist and masculinist theory and regime of 'national
security' and 'international security,' in short, must be replaced by one
that is de-militarised, peace-loving, feminist, universal, and people-centred.
In conclusion, we are aware of the vast mobilisation of commitment, energy,
and resources that will be required to meet the challenges before us. We are
committed to reaching out to the countless other individuals, organisations,
and networks in other parts of the world, including the United States, that
share our aspirations for peace. We are confident that, collectively, our
efforts will bring us closer to a peace built on justice, equity, ecological
harmony, and a decisive repudiation of militarism and patriarchy.