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  • Counter-APEC global assembly unfazed by threats of deportation
Published 17 November 2015

Counter-APEC global assembly unfazed by threats of deportation
 
MANILA -  Members of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) are set to join protest rallies this week defying threats of deportation and tighter APEC security after the Paris attacks.

“We denounce this harassment from the government. We shall remain undeterred and shall go on with our protest activities,” ILPS Secretary-General Malcolm Guy said.

The ILPS closes its three-day assembly today with over 160 foreign delegates from 36 countries

The Philippine National Police earlier warned foreigners not to join protest actions during the country’s hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Meeting next week.

A similar threat was raised by the Armed Forces of the Philippines against foreigners who joined a recent fact-finding mission on the lumad killings in Mindanao.

Participants to the ILPS 5th assembly, however, were undaunted.

The activists from 36 countries of Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America, North America, Europe and the Middle East are set to join anti-APEC rallies with the People’s Campaign Against Apec and Imperialist Globalization (PCAIG).

Conceived on the eve of the 1999 Battle in Seattle of the World Trade Organization, the ILPS has always been critical of free trade agreements and resisted what it called “state terrorism”.

The ILPS expressed sympathy with the victims of the Paris attacks as well as those in Beirut, Lebanon. Delegates lit candles and offered flowers Sunday for the victims. It scored the US for spawning the terrorist group Daesh/ISIS/ISIL from its war in Iraq and Syria

A growing threat is brewing as world powers turn their focus towards Asia.

Former U.S. Representative Cynthia Ann McKinney, in her keynote address to the assembly, said:
“You know that when the Americans come, they don’t easily leave.  I say, “Beware President Obama’s Pivot to Asia!  Don’t get tricked and don’t be fooled!”

McKinney served six terms in the US House of Representatives and served as a Commissioner in The Citizens' Commission on 9-11.  She actively advocated pro-people and anti-war legislation in Congress.

Also in attendance is Leila Khaled, a celebrated Palestinian freedom fighter. She addressed the assembly stating that “in the streets of Palestine, a new uprising – a new intifada – has erupted.”

Khaled expressed solidarity with the liberation movement in the Philippines.

McKinney and Khaled were joined by ILPS Chairperson Jose Ma. Sison In a teleconference. He reported on the gains made by the ILPS in the past years.

Sison said that the assembly is timed to oppose the APEC summit and the neoliberal economic policy "of imperialist globalization which continues to brutally exploit the working people and plunge the world further in an ever worsening economic and social crisis.”
 
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