API conducted Peace Action of theatrical and art installation in celebration of World Food Day
Oktober 22, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009, Jakarta. Today Indonesia Peasant Alliance (API) conducted Peace Action of theatrical and art installation in celebration of World Food Day. Peace Action was conducted in Bundaran Tugu Tani (Farmer monument), Menteng, Central Jakarta.This Peace Action were carried out regarding to small-scale farmers rice household conditions that in the coming years will increase the burden by the high cost of fertilizer as the increases of HET fertilizer to 80%, the expensive of labor in rural areas due to the lack of productive labor, the expensive rent of land increased due to land conversion and disaster from the storm of El Nino and La Nina that will reduce the rate of rice productivity.
The theatrical performed farmers condition in nowadays with the more burden that small-scale farmers have to face. For those, the art installation that put in the “Tugu Tani” (Farmer monument), calling for the demand to the government to increase the HPP (government floor price of rice) up to 20%.
Dozens of scare crows (with farmers and related minister mask) were put along the The Tugu Tani. For reflection, on this World Food Day, we should concern to the farmers’ prosperity to secure the world food sovereignty.
ADB meeting will not be another Pattaya'
Mei 05, 2009
[http://www.thejakartapost.com].A high-ranking military officer and the chief of Bali Police stated Monday both the army and the police were ready to secure the Asian Development Bank's upcoming 42nd Annual Governors Meeting (ADB-AGM), which will be held May 2-5 at the island's tourism enclave Nusa Dua.
Both generals were also convinced the possible presence of protesters during the event would not escalate into another Pattaya, a reference to the aborted ASEAN Summit in Thailand, in which thousands of protesters stormed the conference venue and forced the evacuation of ASEAN leaders.
"Indonesia does not have such a culture. According to the recent intelligence report, there is no indication chaos like in Thailand will happen here," Maj. Gen Supiadin A.S. said.
Supiadin is the operation assistant to the Indonesia Military commander. On Monday, he inspected the Udayana Military Command's preparations, which supervises Bali and West Nusa Tenggara, in securing the event.
He observed as hundreds of soldiers stood in formation at Puputan Margarana Square in Denpasar. Later on, a squad from the Raider battalion performed a hostage rescue simulation.
He declined to mention the number of personnel to be deployed during the meeting, which will be attended by leaders from Georgia, Palau, Cambodia, Fiji, Tonga and the Cook Islands, as well as finance ministers from 67 ADB member countries.
"It's a lot. It's not the number of personnel that is important, but how the meeting can be safe," he told reporters.
Later in the afternoon, the Indonesian National Police's operations deputy, Insp. Gen. SY Wenas, conducted a similar inspection of hundreds of officers from the Bali Police.
Bali Police chief Insp. Gen. T Ashikin Husein said he had heard a number of NGO activists would hold a meeting at Udayana University, Badung regency, which aimed to criticize the ADB loans.
He said he was aware of the possible protests, and said the police would focus on the criminal actions.
"It's okay to stage a protest. They can express their opinions or disagreements. But don't try to disturb the event," he said, adding the police would deploy 1,100 officers. *
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Indonesia: Farmers lose in hybrid rice lottery
April 03, 2009
Just under two years ago Indonesia's central government launched a major hybrid rice programme. The plan was to convert over 135,000 ha of prime rice land to hybrid rice production by offering farmers free seeds, which the government would purchase from private seed companies. It was a great deal for seed companies, especially for those with the political connections to access the scheme-- people like Tommy Winata, a local tycoon who had just recently set up a joint venture with a Chinese hybrid rice company.
For Indonesia's farmers, it was a different story. By October of 2007, with the first season of the hybrid rice operation in full swing, those farmers who'd signed up to the scheme were experiencing major problems, and even complete crop failures. Some were burning their fields out of desperation.
"We are like a lottery as the government tests its variety," said one farmer from the village of Dusun Karang Duwet, about 25 km south of Yogyakarta City, Central Java.
in 2008, the government expanded its programme and the seed companies ramped-up their production. In July of that year, GRAIN and Biotani met with a number of local groups, farmers and scientists in Central Java to see how farmers were doing with the latest round of the hybrid rice scheme. As we feared, many more unsuspecting farmers are being drawn into using hybrid rice, with miserable consequences.
One of the ways that the government is promoting hybrid rice is through the Sekolah Lapang-- farmer field schools that were developed years ago in Indonesia to foster integrated pest management practices and build collective farmer knowledge and innovation in rural communities. The 36 farmers of one of these farmer field schools in the community of Samben (Argomulyo Village, Sedayu) were asked by local officials to devote the lands of their school to a trial of hybrid rice. The government offered them freed seeds for the trial from a variety called Intani-2, which is marketed by PT Bisi, a subsidiary of the Thai multinational company Charoen Pokphand. Enticed by the offer of free seeds and company promises that the variety would yield 13 tonnes/ha, the farmers agreed to allocate 5 ha of the 16 ha managed by their school to the trial.
In July, we spoke to Mr. Jakiman, the head of the farmer field school. At that time, he said that the crop was progressing well and there were so far few problems with pest and diseases. The harvest, however, proved to be somewhat disappointing. According to Jakiman, the crop yielded 9.6 tonnes/ha. While it only suffered minor attacks from stem borer, he says that pest and disease pressures were particularly low that season and that there is consensus among the local farmers that hybrid rice is in actual fact highly susceptible to pests and diseases. The farmers were also bothered by not being able to save seed from hybrid rice and the high costs of Intani-2 seeds-- 50,000 Rp/kg compared to 6,000 Rp/kg for the commonly grown IR-64. The subsidised trial did not convince them to continue on with hybrid rice. For the next season, they are going back to IR-64.
At another rice farming area outside of Yogyakarta, we met with a farmer who was growing a Pioneer/DuPont variety of hybrid rice on 1.5 ha, in the Mingas Baru hamlet, Klaten regency. His field was in brutal shape. This was the first year he'd planted hybrid rice and he said his crop was devastated by pests and diseases, so much so that he'd been forced to replant some parts of his field and spend even more onseeds. The main problem was blackbug. He tried using the insecticide Furadan against it, and, when this didn't work, he tried a more expensive pesticide. But this didn't work either.
He said the company told him he could get between 13-15 tonnes/ha-- twice his normal yield. This is why he decided to buy it, even at a price of 45,000 Rp/kg. This is the first time in 12 years that he has had pest problems like this and the first time his rice crop has failed. This, he said, is the last time he will grow hybrid rice.
Reports about failures of hybrid rice are also coming in from other parts of the country. Abdullah Kamil is a community organiser who has been working with communities in the Kidiri and Nganjuk regencies of East Java since the early 90s when he started doing underground work to oust Suharto. He says that farmers in both regencies recently began growing hybrid rice. During the last season, starting in January and finishing in April, 4,000 ha were planted to hybrid rice in Kidiri and 6,000 ha planted in Nganjuk. The seeds were distributed to the farmers for free, either through government extension programmes or by candidates from the political parties competing for the May regency elections. He told us that 40% of the hybrid rice crops failed and that when the hybrid rice was milled and cooked, it turned to "boiling water"-- i.e. it was very chalky and broken.
The failures of hybrid rice are no surprise to one of Indonesia's most respected rice scientists, Prof. Dr. Kasumbogo Untung, an entemologist at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta who was instrumental in developing the country's farmer field schools. He says that he and his colleagues have long been familiar with the problems with hybrid rice, especially its susceptibility to pests and diseases. In fact, he says that he often uses it with his students because it is the only variety that gives students direct access to pests and diseases that, in Indonesia, are only seen in textbooks. Now he worries that the large-scale introduction of hybrid rice will lead to a resurgence of pests like brown planthoper. Dr. Kasumbogo says it is "very regretful" that the government is promoting hybrid rice because it will undo the advances that they made with integrated pest management in the country and cause farmers to increase their use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers.
"Hybrid rice is a luxurious variety that needs more care than a baby," says Dr. Kasumbogo.
One of Dr. Kasumbogo's big concerns is that the push for hybrid rice is undermining the very basis of the farmer field schools. These schools are supposed to take a bottom-up approach with farmers sharing local knowledge and seeds to improve their farms. With hybrid rice though, the government is using incentives and even directives to get the farmer field schools to plant hybrid rice varieties promoted by private companies. It is a top-down, disempowering process.
While in Central Java, we met with a local NGO helping farmers moving in a very different direction than the hybrid rice scheme. The Sekretariat Pelayanan Tani-Nelayan (SPTN) works with about 2,000 farmers engaged in (non-certified) organic farming. One of the farmers' groups they work with is Sri Rejki, based inthe village of Kanoman. The farmers of Sri Rejki plant only local varieties and follow organic practices, and they've managed to convince many other farmers in their village to go back to planting local varieties. Shortly before our visit, some local government officials had convened an evening meeting with them and proposed that they dedicate 30 ha of their land (basically all of it) to field test a hybrid variety, called Supertoy HL-2, with the government providing the seeds for free. The farmers told them they weren't interested. And it's a good thing too. A nearby group of over 400 farmers that did take up the offer with this variety suffered crop failures. Only after protesting and threatening to sue did the company finally agree to compensate the farmers for their losses.
The Sri Rejki farmers provide a strong example of how farmers can organise themselves to improve their livelihoods. But it is increasingly difficult for farmers across Indonesia to navigate past all the traps being laid by the government and private companies, often in collusion.
(For a detailed analysis of the Indonesian government's promotion of hybrid rice, see Hybrid Rice, Indonesia: State subsidising corporates, by Riza Tjahjadi.)
by Biotani and GRAIN
http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=213
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Advancing a Peoples’ ASEAN Statement of the ASEAN Peoples’ Forum-Fourth ASEAN Civil Society Conference
Maret 13, 2009
20 – 22 February 2009
Bangkok, Thailand
We represent a group of more than 1,000 participants from the ASEAN region, and in solidarity with our friends and colleagues from all over the world, have come together at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, from 20th to 22nd of February 2009, for the ASEAN Peoples’ Forum (APF) - Fourth ASEAN Civil Society Conference (ACSC IV).
We represent various community-based organisations, civil society organisations, NGOs, social movements of women, children and youths, person with disability, migrant workers, formal and informal workers, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, peasants, small-scale fisher folk, stateless and vulnerable groups, and want to highlight the key concerns of people and communities in the region, which must be the focus of ASEAN work for it to be truly significant, meaningful and effective. We call on ASEAN and its member states to:
While strengthening our connection and advancing a Peoples’ ASEAN, following outcomes of the past three ACSC held in Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore, our three-day deliberations underscored challenges to be urgently and strategically addressed in the region.
Here are the key concerns of people and communities in ASEAN region; ASEAN must focus on these issues, for the association to be truly significant, meaningful and effective.
ON POLITICAL-SECURITY CLUSTER
Deteriorating human rights situation and the persistence of intra-state conflict continue to undermine the political, and peace and security conditions in the ASEAN region. The situation is particularly alarming in Burma, with continuing arrests and detention of political prisoners, systematic human rights violations against ethnic minorities, among others, assaults on basic freedoms and rights, especially made stark during the Saffron Revolution and the events surrounding the Nargis cyclone disaster. While human rights violations escalate and remain unresolved, human rights defenders (HRDs) have been targeted and stripped of their freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
In view of the above, we call on ASEAN and its member states to:
• Ensure a transparent and inclusive process in the establishment of the ASEAN human rights body (ARHB), by ensuring the widest representation of organisations in the drafting, adoption, and implementation of its terms of reference. The AHRB must be guided by human rights principles of non-discrimination, self-determination, substantive equality, interdependence, inter-relatedness, universality, and indivisibility of human rights standards.
• Call for the High Level Panel on the establishment of the AHRB to make public the draft of the Terms of Reference on AHRB to ensure that the process will be transparent and participatory. The terms of reference of the AHRB should be explicit in its mandate to actively protect, not just promote, human rights in ASEAN.
• Ratify and implement key ILO Core Labour Standards and key UN human rights conventions, which should be reflected in national laws.
• Establish the special mechanism of protection for Human Rights Defenders (HRDs), including women HRDs, in the AHRB, and develop national level protection mechanisms integrated in the mandate of the national human rights institutions, in accordance with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, including an individual complaint mechanism.
• Ensure that human rights and human security is guaranteed in all situations especially in conflict situation. Provide dispute prevention and resolution and address intra-state conflicts by having early warning system with the involvement of civil society groups.
• Create a regional peacekeeping and peace monitoring team that can be used to monitor armed conflicts in the region.
• Secure the release of all Burma’s political prisoners as a condition for the country to proceed forward to national reconciliation and democratisation process.
• Not to recognize or accept the legitimacy of the upcoming 2010 election which will entrench military rule in Burma, but urge the Burmese military junta to instead review the 2008 Constitution with the involvement of key stakeholders such as leaders of pro-democracy forces and ethnic groups.
• Ensure that the root causes of the Rohingya refugee crisis– the lack of democracy and human rights in Burma – is addressed by calling for a special emergency meeting of ASEAN governments to find a long lasting solution taking a human rights approach in dealing with refugees staying in ASEAN countries.
• Push for the cessation of attacks and exploitative policies against ethnic nationalities, the use of systematic rape as weapon and the use of child soldiers in Burma.
• Ratify and/or harmonise national laws with international human rights conventions and principles, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the ILO Multilateral Framework Instrument for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ensure that relevant provisions are implemented at the national level.
• Ensure that the rights of all workers and their families including migrant workers, especially women migrant workers and domestic workers regardless of their legal status, marital status, race, ethnicity, age, or religion, are recognised, protected, realised and fulfilled. All workers should also be given decent work and wages, the rights to organise and to form trade unions, collective bargaining, access to safe and affordable health services including reproductive health, occupational safety, social security, and protection from violence.
• Establish effective mechanisms for social security and worker protection, especially in times of crisis.
• Eliminate child labour and hazardous work in the region.
• Promote, implement, and protect the rights of migrant children and children of migrant workers. Access to nationality shall be guaranteed with no regard of their legal status.
• Involve civil society organisations and ensure transparency in the preparation of the ASEAN Convention on Combating Human Trafficking; ensure that the definition of human trafficking is in line with the Palermo Protocol; and protect and respect the rights of indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, refugees, child of migrant workers, and sex workers. ASEAN must also ensure that the redress, reparation, and reintegration process of trafficked persons are implemented from a rights based approach and urge responsibilities of ASEAN+3 countries pertaining to the protection of trafficked persons.
• Support the initiative on the international convention on the rights of peasants.
• Exert regional suasion and create mechanisms to solve border conflicts peacefully and without using military force. The rest of the ASEAN members shall be engaged in solving such disputes as well.
SOCIO-CULTURAL CLUSTER
Education, health, heritage, culture and disaster management continue to be neglected areas in the region, with serious consequences to quality of life. Free and quality basic education is still not accessible to all children and youth in ASEAN, and a large number of adults are illiterate. Most ASEAN member states do not seriously allocate budget for education that will reach out to poor and marginalised sectors such as communities in armed conflict areas and emergency areas. ASEAN countries have yet to meet the minimum budget allocation for health despite the high prevalence of malnutrition, maternal mortality, and diseases. Disaster Management is done in an ad hoc way, focusing only on restoring livelihood but not addressing attendant problems such as land disputes and human rights violations, often rendering response ineffective, such as in the case of major disasters such as the Cyclone Nargis.
We call on ASEAN and its member states to:
• Draw up a long-term plan for disaster management, by involving local communities in programmes and creating a volunteer network that could be mobilised when there is an emergency. The disaster management plan should lead to a long-term rehabilitation and sustainable development for the community. Humanitarian efforts should also be transparent and accountable.
• Ensure that all the six goals of Education For All (EFA) are met and that there are national and regional plans in ensuring education for all with affirmative action for marginalized groups. Education should consist of formal, non-formal, and alternative education.
• Secure EFA by allocating 6% of Gross National Product and 20% of national budgets for basic education. Three percent of national budget should go to adult education. ASEAN should work for multilateral and/or bilateral assistance for education.
• Implement education policies toward genuine multiculturalism in education and ensure the use of appropriate languages and dialects as part of quality learning and respect for diverse culture and identity in South East Asia.
• Allocate at least 5% of national budget of each country to ensure safe, affordable and accessible quality health care service for the people.
• Promote gender sensitivity and equality in all its policy and processes.
• Promote ASEAN youth exchange for cultural and historical understanding for solidarity.
• Provide sufficient budget for youth empowerment including promoting and supporting sustainable entrepreneurship for youths.
• Protect and preserve the ASEAN natural and ancient heritages be protected and preserved.
• Promote and support peoples’ media and establish ASEAN’s own media.
ECONOMIC CLUSTER
Large-scale development projects, such as mining, dams, ASEAN power grid, roads and industrial plantation, currently key drivers of the ASEAN economy, have led to environmental degradation and resulted in negative impacts on culture and livelihoods of peoples and communities in the region. Such a development thrust has further exacerbated inequality and food insecurity in the region, where many, especially the poor, are suffering from rising food prices, severe hunger, rising unemployment and falling incomes, and lack of access and control over land, water, productive resources, genetic resources, as well as social protection.
The climate crisis further highlights the vulnerability of the region, where the impacts of climate change have become unmistakable and pervasive, yet there is still no plan to reverse the development path especially for industrial and energy development, and environmental standards or common values at the national and regional levels are still lacking to address this urgent and serious situation.
We call on ASEAN and its member states to:
• Reverse the current unsustainable development trajectory by upholding the rights-based approach to development and providing communities the rights to access and manage natural resources based on participation and local knowledge, balancing pro-poor economic policies with ecological sustainability, ensuring that economic integration in the ASEAN region is built on respect for human rights and peoples’ welfare, and promoting community-based, people-centred and small-holder economic initiatives.
• Guarantee the protection of farmers and all workers-- including formal, informal and migrant workers-- to establish an egalitarian market system, secure livelihoods and decent works
• Produce a strategic policy to eradicate structural poverty in every level, and create mechanisms to protect and secure the welfare of all peoples, especially in times of crisis
• Compel large corporations including transnational corporations, to follow international human rights and environmental standards and conventions. Make them accountable for violations of applicable national laws and international conventions and agreements, including any their existing contractual arrangements with governments and/or communities.
• Formulate, as a matter of urgency and in consultation with civil society organizations, a national climate change action plan that would feed into an ASEAN climate change action plan, including both mitigation and adaptation measures, based on justice and development rights, with emphasis on adaptation plans and disaster risk reduction.
• Develop a common ASEAN position in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to push for a fair climate regime and climate friendly development efforts that is appropriate to the level of development of the ASEAN member-states and protective of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities
• Work closely with civil society organisations to develop alternative energy as a strategy.
• Reject nuclear power and show leadership in actively promoting sustainable, renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, energy conservation, and decentralised energy systems and appropriate technologies.
• Address and put a stop to land grabbing and conversions pushed by the business sector and large corporations.
• Develop a common agricultural policy and action plan that aims to improve access and control of small-scale farmers and fisher folk to land, water and other natural resources, increase their productivity and incomes through sustainable livelihoods and organic agriculture within the broader framework of food sovereignty. Establish a common agricultural development fund that will help carry out such agricultural policy and action plan.
• Promote food sovereignty through genuine agrarian reform and equitable access and distribution of land and resources as mandated by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nation International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development.
• Promote and implement people-oriented water resource management.
• Regulate transnational corporations in agriculture and protect the land of smallholder farmers from agribusiness expansion.
• Set-up mechanisms banning any form of speculation on food commodities and impose a moratorium on agro-fuels. Re-orient the ASEAN Food Reserves away from a trade focus and towards the regional stabilisation of supply and prices.
• Re-orient the current export oriented model of development.
• Make trade policy-making and negotiations transparent and accessible by providing space for participation by civil society and social movements like workers organisations.
• Enhance civil society contributions to development by providing an enabling environment; including regular consultations between various sectors across the region, to ensure their participation in the design, implementation and monitoring of aid modalities, development programs and strategies. Formulate an Official Development Assistance (ODA) system for aid coming into the ASEAN region. Ensure that aid will come in the form of grants not loans, and be based on justice and reparation.
• Require business sectors to balance all shares and benefits for the local peoples’ livelihood by ensuring payment for environment services, recognising that local people are the shareholders for those projects and not just recipients of compensation.
Towards a Peoples’ ASEAN
We call on ASEAN to
• Engage the peoples especially youth and children in all of its work, discussions, deliberations, agreements, and monitoring of all the pillars of cooperation.
• Facilitate and recognise all forms of civil society organisations and institutionalise mechanisms of peoples’ participation in ASEAN processes and policies through, for example, the establishment of Small-scale Farmers and Fishers Advisory Council.
OUR COMMITMENTS
We, the participants in this gathering, are committed to work together to build a genuine “people-centred ASEAN”, where all policies are decided by the people, so that an ASEAN community based on human rights, human dignity, participation and social dialogue, social and economic justice, cultural and ecological diversity, environmentally sustainable development, and gender equality can be established
We will continue to make ASEAN accountable to the voices and the needs of the peoples by continuing to effectively monitor the work of ASEAN.
We will continue to struggle side-by-side with our Burmese colleagues to ensure that genuine democracy is restored after more than 20-years of dictatorial rule by the military junta. We therefore demand ASEAN to pressure the Burmese military government to move toward positive changes by engaging in national dialogues with the National League for Democracy and all the Ethnic Nationalities in Burma as soon as possible.
We commit to meet again in October 2009 in Thailand prior to the 15th ASEAN Summit, to follow-up on our demands to ASEAN, with full energy toward a commitment for the creation of a just, people-centred, and genuine caring and sharing ASEAN Community for the peoples.
-END-
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We represent various community-based organisations, civil society organisations, NGOs, social movements of women, children and youths, person with disability, migrant workers, formal and informal workers, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, peasants, small-scale fisher folk, stateless and vulnerable groups, and want to highlight the key concerns of people and communities in the region, which must be the focus of ASEAN work for it to be truly significant, meaningful and effective. We call on ASEAN and its member states to:
While strengthening our connection and advancing a Peoples’ ASEAN, following outcomes of the past three ACSC held in Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore, our three-day deliberations underscored challenges to be urgently and strategically addressed in the region.
Here are the key concerns of people and communities in ASEAN region; ASEAN must focus on these issues, for the association to be truly significant, meaningful and effective.
ON POLITICAL-SECURITY CLUSTER
Deteriorating human rights situation and the persistence of intra-state conflict continue to undermine the political, and peace and security conditions in the ASEAN region. The situation is particularly alarming in Burma, with continuing arrests and detention of political prisoners, systematic human rights violations against ethnic minorities, among others, assaults on basic freedoms and rights, especially made stark during the Saffron Revolution and the events surrounding the Nargis cyclone disaster. While human rights violations escalate and remain unresolved, human rights defenders (HRDs) have been targeted and stripped of their freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
In view of the above, we call on ASEAN and its member states to:
• Ensure a transparent and inclusive process in the establishment of the ASEAN human rights body (ARHB), by ensuring the widest representation of organisations in the drafting, adoption, and implementation of its terms of reference. The AHRB must be guided by human rights principles of non-discrimination, self-determination, substantive equality, interdependence, inter-relatedness, universality, and indivisibility of human rights standards.
• Call for the High Level Panel on the establishment of the AHRB to make public the draft of the Terms of Reference on AHRB to ensure that the process will be transparent and participatory. The terms of reference of the AHRB should be explicit in its mandate to actively protect, not just promote, human rights in ASEAN.
• Ratify and implement key ILO Core Labour Standards and key UN human rights conventions, which should be reflected in national laws.
• Establish the special mechanism of protection for Human Rights Defenders (HRDs), including women HRDs, in the AHRB, and develop national level protection mechanisms integrated in the mandate of the national human rights institutions, in accordance with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, including an individual complaint mechanism.
• Ensure that human rights and human security is guaranteed in all situations especially in conflict situation. Provide dispute prevention and resolution and address intra-state conflicts by having early warning system with the involvement of civil society groups.
• Create a regional peacekeeping and peace monitoring team that can be used to monitor armed conflicts in the region.
• Secure the release of all Burma’s political prisoners as a condition for the country to proceed forward to national reconciliation and democratisation process.
• Not to recognize or accept the legitimacy of the upcoming 2010 election which will entrench military rule in Burma, but urge the Burmese military junta to instead review the 2008 Constitution with the involvement of key stakeholders such as leaders of pro-democracy forces and ethnic groups.
• Ensure that the root causes of the Rohingya refugee crisis– the lack of democracy and human rights in Burma – is addressed by calling for a special emergency meeting of ASEAN governments to find a long lasting solution taking a human rights approach in dealing with refugees staying in ASEAN countries.
• Push for the cessation of attacks and exploitative policies against ethnic nationalities, the use of systematic rape as weapon and the use of child soldiers in Burma.
• Ratify and/or harmonise national laws with international human rights conventions and principles, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the ILO Multilateral Framework Instrument for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ensure that relevant provisions are implemented at the national level.
• Ensure that the rights of all workers and their families including migrant workers, especially women migrant workers and domestic workers regardless of their legal status, marital status, race, ethnicity, age, or religion, are recognised, protected, realised and fulfilled. All workers should also be given decent work and wages, the rights to organise and to form trade unions, collective bargaining, access to safe and affordable health services including reproductive health, occupational safety, social security, and protection from violence.
• Establish effective mechanisms for social security and worker protection, especially in times of crisis.
• Eliminate child labour and hazardous work in the region.
• Promote, implement, and protect the rights of migrant children and children of migrant workers. Access to nationality shall be guaranteed with no regard of their legal status.
• Involve civil society organisations and ensure transparency in the preparation of the ASEAN Convention on Combating Human Trafficking; ensure that the definition of human trafficking is in line with the Palermo Protocol; and protect and respect the rights of indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, refugees, child of migrant workers, and sex workers. ASEAN must also ensure that the redress, reparation, and reintegration process of trafficked persons are implemented from a rights based approach and urge responsibilities of ASEAN+3 countries pertaining to the protection of trafficked persons.
• Support the initiative on the international convention on the rights of peasants.
• Exert regional suasion and create mechanisms to solve border conflicts peacefully and without using military force. The rest of the ASEAN members shall be engaged in solving such disputes as well.
SOCIO-CULTURAL CLUSTER
Education, health, heritage, culture and disaster management continue to be neglected areas in the region, with serious consequences to quality of life. Free and quality basic education is still not accessible to all children and youth in ASEAN, and a large number of adults are illiterate. Most ASEAN member states do not seriously allocate budget for education that will reach out to poor and marginalised sectors such as communities in armed conflict areas and emergency areas. ASEAN countries have yet to meet the minimum budget allocation for health despite the high prevalence of malnutrition, maternal mortality, and diseases. Disaster Management is done in an ad hoc way, focusing only on restoring livelihood but not addressing attendant problems such as land disputes and human rights violations, often rendering response ineffective, such as in the case of major disasters such as the Cyclone Nargis.
We call on ASEAN and its member states to:
• Draw up a long-term plan for disaster management, by involving local communities in programmes and creating a volunteer network that could be mobilised when there is an emergency. The disaster management plan should lead to a long-term rehabilitation and sustainable development for the community. Humanitarian efforts should also be transparent and accountable.
• Ensure that all the six goals of Education For All (EFA) are met and that there are national and regional plans in ensuring education for all with affirmative action for marginalized groups. Education should consist of formal, non-formal, and alternative education.
• Secure EFA by allocating 6% of Gross National Product and 20% of national budgets for basic education. Three percent of national budget should go to adult education. ASEAN should work for multilateral and/or bilateral assistance for education.
• Implement education policies toward genuine multiculturalism in education and ensure the use of appropriate languages and dialects as part of quality learning and respect for diverse culture and identity in South East Asia.
• Allocate at least 5% of national budget of each country to ensure safe, affordable and accessible quality health care service for the people.
• Promote gender sensitivity and equality in all its policy and processes.
• Promote ASEAN youth exchange for cultural and historical understanding for solidarity.
• Provide sufficient budget for youth empowerment including promoting and supporting sustainable entrepreneurship for youths.
• Protect and preserve the ASEAN natural and ancient heritages be protected and preserved.
• Promote and support peoples’ media and establish ASEAN’s own media.
ECONOMIC CLUSTER
Large-scale development projects, such as mining, dams, ASEAN power grid, roads and industrial plantation, currently key drivers of the ASEAN economy, have led to environmental degradation and resulted in negative impacts on culture and livelihoods of peoples and communities in the region. Such a development thrust has further exacerbated inequality and food insecurity in the region, where many, especially the poor, are suffering from rising food prices, severe hunger, rising unemployment and falling incomes, and lack of access and control over land, water, productive resources, genetic resources, as well as social protection.
The climate crisis further highlights the vulnerability of the region, where the impacts of climate change have become unmistakable and pervasive, yet there is still no plan to reverse the development path especially for industrial and energy development, and environmental standards or common values at the national and regional levels are still lacking to address this urgent and serious situation.
We call on ASEAN and its member states to:
• Reverse the current unsustainable development trajectory by upholding the rights-based approach to development and providing communities the rights to access and manage natural resources based on participation and local knowledge, balancing pro-poor economic policies with ecological sustainability, ensuring that economic integration in the ASEAN region is built on respect for human rights and peoples’ welfare, and promoting community-based, people-centred and small-holder economic initiatives.
• Guarantee the protection of farmers and all workers-- including formal, informal and migrant workers-- to establish an egalitarian market system, secure livelihoods and decent works
• Produce a strategic policy to eradicate structural poverty in every level, and create mechanisms to protect and secure the welfare of all peoples, especially in times of crisis
• Compel large corporations including transnational corporations, to follow international human rights and environmental standards and conventions. Make them accountable for violations of applicable national laws and international conventions and agreements, including any their existing contractual arrangements with governments and/or communities.
• Formulate, as a matter of urgency and in consultation with civil society organizations, a national climate change action plan that would feed into an ASEAN climate change action plan, including both mitigation and adaptation measures, based on justice and development rights, with emphasis on adaptation plans and disaster risk reduction.
• Develop a common ASEAN position in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to push for a fair climate regime and climate friendly development efforts that is appropriate to the level of development of the ASEAN member-states and protective of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities
• Work closely with civil society organisations to develop alternative energy as a strategy.
• Reject nuclear power and show leadership in actively promoting sustainable, renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, energy conservation, and decentralised energy systems and appropriate technologies.
• Address and put a stop to land grabbing and conversions pushed by the business sector and large corporations.
• Develop a common agricultural policy and action plan that aims to improve access and control of small-scale farmers and fisher folk to land, water and other natural resources, increase their productivity and incomes through sustainable livelihoods and organic agriculture within the broader framework of food sovereignty. Establish a common agricultural development fund that will help carry out such agricultural policy and action plan.
• Promote food sovereignty through genuine agrarian reform and equitable access and distribution of land and resources as mandated by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nation International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development.
• Promote and implement people-oriented water resource management.
• Regulate transnational corporations in agriculture and protect the land of smallholder farmers from agribusiness expansion.
• Set-up mechanisms banning any form of speculation on food commodities and impose a moratorium on agro-fuels. Re-orient the ASEAN Food Reserves away from a trade focus and towards the regional stabilisation of supply and prices.
• Re-orient the current export oriented model of development.
• Make trade policy-making and negotiations transparent and accessible by providing space for participation by civil society and social movements like workers organisations.
• Enhance civil society contributions to development by providing an enabling environment; including regular consultations between various sectors across the region, to ensure their participation in the design, implementation and monitoring of aid modalities, development programs and strategies. Formulate an Official Development Assistance (ODA) system for aid coming into the ASEAN region. Ensure that aid will come in the form of grants not loans, and be based on justice and reparation.
• Require business sectors to balance all shares and benefits for the local peoples’ livelihood by ensuring payment for environment services, recognising that local people are the shareholders for those projects and not just recipients of compensation.
Towards a Peoples’ ASEAN
We call on ASEAN to
• Engage the peoples especially youth and children in all of its work, discussions, deliberations, agreements, and monitoring of all the pillars of cooperation.
• Facilitate and recognise all forms of civil society organisations and institutionalise mechanisms of peoples’ participation in ASEAN processes and policies through, for example, the establishment of Small-scale Farmers and Fishers Advisory Council.
OUR COMMITMENTS
We, the participants in this gathering, are committed to work together to build a genuine “people-centred ASEAN”, where all policies are decided by the people, so that an ASEAN community based on human rights, human dignity, participation and social dialogue, social and economic justice, cultural and ecological diversity, environmentally sustainable development, and gender equality can be established
We will continue to make ASEAN accountable to the voices and the needs of the peoples by continuing to effectively monitor the work of ASEAN.
We will continue to struggle side-by-side with our Burmese colleagues to ensure that genuine democracy is restored after more than 20-years of dictatorial rule by the military junta. We therefore demand ASEAN to pressure the Burmese military government to move toward positive changes by engaging in national dialogues with the National League for Democracy and all the Ethnic Nationalities in Burma as soon as possible.
We commit to meet again in October 2009 in Thailand prior to the 15th ASEAN Summit, to follow-up on our demands to ASEAN, with full energy toward a commitment for the creation of a just, people-centred, and genuine caring and sharing ASEAN Community for the peoples.
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“ a Duel” of Heterodox and Orthodox at IGJ
Maret 07, 2009
Research presentation entitled "Re-Explanation of Indonesian Economic Based on Heterodox Economics Perspective” was held by Institute for Global Justice (IGJ) in one of their office at Diponegoro street no. 9 Jakarta. Event that initially invites some economic experts and practitioners, such as Sri Edi Swasono and HS Dillon is trying to duel the two of economic thoughts due to socio-economic and politics of Indonesia. This forum was attended by several NGO representatives, mass organizations and the Youth Movements (SNI, Kasbi, API, IHCS, Jatam, Binadesa, SPI, KAU and others)."This research was set to use instruments heterodox economics to analyze and explain the Indonesia economy, to gain different explanation of the state relationship, markets, companies and communities", as described by the host in its abstract.
The Research is working to harsh confront the thought of orthodox economic system that 'accused' override the political social dimensions and Heterodox that are considered more "environmentally sound" and holistic.
"The Heterodox mentioned that economics also includes a variety of concepts from other sciences such as history, sociology, political and moral philosophy. While mathematics is also considered important, but are secondary. So, human according to Heterodox means Habitus oeconomicus because it covering all of the social aspects that is not separated ", as described Fachru Nofrian, one of the research team. According to him, this is what distinguishes Heterodox with orthodox which assume that most human beings as the main economic (homo oeconomicus).
In addition to explain the various assumptions and theoretical analysis of the philosophical background of both thought, in the operational level, the template Heterodox analysis also try to expose Indonesian economic behaviour as long. Many data taken from the Bank of Indonesia and the securities exchange is treated in such a way to explain that strengthen of the research material.
However, then it was not a little criticism then popped out. Although almost all the participants followed the discussion agreed to encourage Heterodox thoughts as the basis and paradigm economic, but "stick it" with a variety of factual evidence (?) 'Cases' of the national economy were still considered too far from adequate, it is also recognized by the IGJ director, Bony Setiawan who is also a senior researcher.
"I think it is too far if we want to provide re-explanation to the Indonesian economic based on heterodox perspective. Heterodox term has very important and relevant meaning, but at this time seem to be enough to introduce it first and include them in economic thought that social pro, "he said.
At the end of the forum, the research team in addition to the various arguments, it was also recognized the weakness of the responses as that appear in the forum. "It is important to improve and sharpen the point of view before on eventually it was considered as quite publishable and published in book form," he said at the end of the presentation. (Dzi)
Translated by Julia
