The 3rd Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference will bring together activists from the Asia-Pacific region and around the world, and activists from across Australia engaged in all solidarity, antiwar, and progressive struggles. It will be an anti-imperialist conference, discussing strategies, theory, and organising real solidarity, and action. The conference will be a gathering of leaders of left parties and movements, and an opportunity to hear from academic researchers, people’s campaigners, and social movement activists.

The conference will build on the success of the previous Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conferences in 1998 and 2002 where 7-800 Australian activists met and discussed with 50-60 international guest speakers. (For details and some of the papers from the 2002 conference, visit: here

The conference will take the form of a series of feature talks, plenary sessions, panels, seminars and workshops. There will be class series on socialist ideas and anti-imperialist struggles, social and cultural events, exhibitions, bookstalls and video screenings. Applications to present a paper or organise a panel or workshop are now being received.

Country reports, debate, planning, solidarity…

Country reports from Asia, Pacific, Latin America, North America, Europe will be central to the agenda: including discussions of Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Iraq, the United States, Europe, Scotland, China, Vietnam and others. There will be a range of topics on issues and problems of Australian politics, economy and society. These all will be complemented by discussions of strategy internationally and here in Australia. There are some topics below, but contact us now if you have an idea for a workshop.

1. A Conference Against War, Plunder and Re-Colonisation!

No to a permanent rich-poor, prosperous versus devastated, divided world! No to a world with walls! No to permanent war! This is the world that the rulers in the west want to impose on the rest of us. But the people in the Third World are fighting back, and the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements in the last few years have shown that the majority in the wealthy countries reject this scenario too. Hundreds of thousands have come out on the streets against the war, against racism, for refugees and asylum seekers. Some topics:

* The rich-poor divide – imperialism today

* Washington’s strategy for world domination

* Vietnam, Iraq; Two wars, two movements

* The dynamic of permanent war, and permanent terror

* Debates about imperialism, yesterday and today.

* The Australian antiwar movement, a national consultation.

* Imperialism and Oil

* Israel’s Apartheid wall and the Palestine struggle today.

* Gated communities – Australia’s refugee policy.

* "Developing countries"? No chance!

2. No more a bad neighbour! For Australian-Asian peoples solidarity!

Australia, Asia and the Pacific – who’s the "bad neighbour"? An "arc of instability", or the Australian ruling class (its government as well as its component businesses) wanting to shore up its control and its profits in the region? Is Australia’s role the "deputy sheriff", or the main pirate? Topics might include:

* Australia’s East Timor oil theft

* Australia’s Solomons takeover

* The recolonisation of PNG

* Australian mining interests in Indonesia

* Resumption of Australian military ties with Indonesia, Aceh and Papua

* What’s behind the Australian elite’s hatred of Mahathir

* Does Islamic terrorism in Southeast Asia have "no root cause" as Downer et al argue?

* The Pacific Solution for refugees – actually more the ‘Indonesia solution’

* What happened to the overseas aid debate? Does ACFOA still exist?

* Australia’s ‘aid’ program in the region (AIDWATCH et al)

* Solidarity with Papua and Aceh: and what about the 120 million Javanese poor?

* Australia’s funding agencies: part of the solution or part of the problem

* Selling education overseas while helping the IMF hold back national education programmes in the region?

* The universities: what ever happened to Third World Studies?

* Topics in the culture and arts fields.

3. Against global corporatisation. Another World is Possible – But how?

The rapid rise of the anti-globalisation and antiwar movements show the anger and the commitment. The huge attendance at the World Social Forums show the desire to discuss, and find a way forward. But how to counter imperialism’s military, economic and ideological hegemony? How to prevent demoralisation and confusion among those who protest? How to organise, and how to win? Some topics:

* Campaigning against the WTO, WB, and IMF

* Assessing the World Social Forums

* Inter-imperialist conflicts – Europe vs America

* China in the world economy (when did it return to capitalism?)

* The question of agency, the question of parties

* Renewing the left (after the collapse of the Soviet Union)

* Left unity and alliances -- Australian and International experiences

* Building the European Anti-Capitalist Left

* Organising with the Scottish Socialist Party

* Revolutionary upheavals in Latin America. The experiences of Nicaragua, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia

* Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution

* 45 years of the Cuban Revolution; Fighting Washington’s subversion

Four feature sessions

1. Oppose the occupation of Iraq. Troops Out Now! In the two years since the invasion of Iraq by the US, Britain and Australia in March 2003, the ongoing resistance to the occupation within Iraq, and the ongoing antiwar movement around the world, have been at the centre of world politics.

2. Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. The bourgeois opposition to Chavez and their US backers were again decisively defeated in the August 15 referendum. Chavez has foreshadowed further steps to hand more power to the people and services for the poor.

3. The 30th anniversary of the final liberation of Vietnam. On April 30, 1975, the people of Vietnam finally succeeded in winning their freedom. It was a victory for all humanity.

4. The 100th anniversary of the first Russian Revolution. In 1905 the first workers Soviet was set up in Petrograd. The workers didn’t hold power for long, but it prepared the ground for the historic victory in 1917.

Who’s coming?

The 3rd Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference at Easter 2005 in Sydney (March 25-28) aims to provide a meeting place for many of the experiences of struggle and to draw together the continent-wide discussions that have been taking place in Asia, Latin America, Europe and Africa. You are warmly invited to participate. We have already had encouraging acceptances from the following parties and activists.

* Dita Sari, PRD, Indonesia;

* Ram Seegobin, Lalit, Mauritius;

* Srilata Swaminathan, CPI (ML), India;

* Sonny Melencio, RPM, Philippines;

* Farooq Tariq, LPP, Pakistan;

* Ahmed Shawki, ISO, USA;

* Matt McCarten, Alliance, New Zealand

* Scottish Socialist Party, Scotland

* Ali Kazak, head of the Palestinian delegation to Australia

* Seraiki National Party, Pakistan

* Leonel Vivas, ambassador for Venezuela

* Malik Miah, trade union activist, USA

Speakers from Australia will include: Chris Cain, Humphrey McQueen, Max Lane, Jack Mundey, Sue Bolton, Craig Johnston, Pip Hinman, Sam Watson, Wendy Bacon, Clinton Fernandes, John Percy, Scott Poynting, Peter Boyle, Lisa Macdonald.

Contact us

We are calling for international sponsors, partners and participants in this important conference. If your party, union, social movement or community organisation can attend, contact us as soon as possible so your input can be added in. If you would like to present a paper or workshop, let us know now so we can plan and advertise the agenda well in advance.

If you look to build a more powerful and effective movement against the scourge of neo-liberal globalisation, if you look to strengthen the struggle for the anti-capitalist and socialist cause, you should not miss the third Asia-Pacific International Solidarity Conference.

The conference has been initiated by the Asia Pacific Institute for Democratisation and Development, and is being organised by Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific. It has been sponsored and supported by: Green Left Weekly, Socialist Alliance, Democratic Socialist Perspective, Resistance, Links magazine, Campaign in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean.

For more information contact:

PO Box 515, Broadway 2007, Australia.

Email: <apisc2005@greenleft.org.au>.

Tel: (02) 9690 1230 (From outside Australia: 61 2 9690 1230)

Fax: (02) 9690 1381 (From outside Australia: 61 2 9690 1381)

Venue: Sydney Boys’ High School

Registration: 2004 discount rate: $80 waged/ $40 unwaged/ $20 high school student