APEC MINISTERS IN MELBOURNE

I'll hope to give a korero at this anti apec demo tomorrow. APEC Haere Atu Hands Off the Pacific. Some snippets for ya:

Occupied Australia is the land of genocide and apartheid for its Indigenous peoples.

The invasion of Aboriginal lands was illegal under international law at the time of the arrival of the First Fleet. This invasion involved the perpetration of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and theft of Aboriginal homelands.

The current contempt and lack of respect rights and third world conditions that Indigenous peoples face in Australia is an International Shame.


As a Maori settler allay of Aboriginal Sovereignty, I refuse to be a silent beneficiary of aboriginal genocide any longer.

Like New Zealand Canada, and the USA, Australia is a colonial settler state, based on invasion, dispossession and colonisation. Its past 25 years of free market fundamentalism must be understood in the context of an ongoing colonial occupation of Aboriginal lands and resources on which the Australian nation-state is based

and will be wrapping up with some classic NFIP stuff from back in the day:

Indigenous rights as perceived by ourselves are especially critical to our Pacific Island peoples and nations as we approach the 21st century, called by some The Pacific Century.
Political, nuclear, military, economic and environmental violations of our Pacific peoples' indigenous rights by superpowers as well as by our own governments and transnational corporations are mounting. The world needs to be reminded of these past wrongs a century ago and their relationship to World War II and its aftermath, the Cold War, nuclearism and continuing militarism in the Pacific.
The New World Order of economic globalization is not only based in the dominant nations of Western Europe and north America, but also in a growing number of Asian countries. This neocolonialism is directed at our 300 million surviving indigenous peoples with plundering of our natural resources to sustain the hegemony of corporate transnationalism. In the Pacific, pitted against this mammoth of insatiable capitalistic greed and materialism are we, the indigenous islanders who are determined to survive by invoking our own traditions of spirituality, cultural identities and unity with our sacred environments

People's Charter for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP). The charter declared:
"We, the people of the Pacific have been victimized too long by foreign powers. The Western imperialistic and colonial powers invaded our defenceless region, they took over our lands and subjugated our people to their whims. This form of alien colonial, political and military domination unfortunately persists as an evil cancer in some of our native territories such as Tahiti-Polynesia, New Caledonia, Australia, and New Zealand. Our environment continues to be despoiled by foreign powers developing nuclear weapons for a strategy of warfare that has no winners, no liberators and imperils the survival of all humankind.
We ... will assert ourselves and wrest control over the destiny of our nations and our environment from foreign powers, including transnational corporations. We note in particular the recent racist roots of the world's nuclear powers and we call for an immediate end to the oppression, exploitation and subordination of the indigenous people of the Pacific."

Title:: APEC MINISTERS IN MELBOURNE
START DATE: 10/5/2007
START TIME: 12:30 PM
Duration: 2 Hours
Location: Melb: City
Location Details: at the top of Collings st....at Spring St
Event Topic:
: Protest
: Contact Email: protestatapec@hotmail.com: MEET:
On Thursday 10 May 2007, financial ministers of the member nations of the APEC forum to attend the 'Finance Ministers Process' meeting, that will be held in Melbourne City at a top-secret location.

Please meet at the Parliament steps, as we demand from our government true representation, the damaging facts of APEC and for them not to hide from the public that they claim to represent their interests.

WHATS WRONG WITH APEC?
On 8th of September 2007, Sydney will play host to Australia's biggest international meeting, costing AUD$308m. Special guests will include: George W Bush, John Howard, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jinato, and many more.

APEC was set up in 1993 for Australasian and Eastern European countries (including USA) to discuss and implement policies of free-trade, privatisation, security, and trading of natural resources. APEC is mainly dominated by the USA and the interests of large corporations, seeking to increase obscene profits at the expense of people and the environment.

WE SAY NO TO:
War (specifically, in the middle east)
Global Warming
Nuclear weapons, uranium and waste dumps
Attacks on worker's rights
Free trade
Dismantles of civil liberties

CONTACT/LINKS:
Organised by the Anti-APEC Coalition of Melbourne
protestatapec@hotmail.com
http://www.myspace.com/stopbus2007
http://www.stopbush2007.org