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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.
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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.
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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)
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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
