ILPS Chairperson
- Joint call to commemorate Fukushima disaster and demand the end of using nuclear power
- Message of solidarity and gratitude for the launch of Selected Works
- Message in honor of Amancio Samuel Villatoro, martyr and hero of the proletariat and people
- Message of solidarity to Migrante Australia on the occasion of its 2nd General Assembly
- Message of solidarity to Asia-Wide Campaign on 15th Meeting of AWC Campaign Coordinating Body
Highlights: 4th International Assembly
Build a bright future! Mobilize the people to resist exploitation and oppression amidst the protracted global depression, state terrorism and wars of aggression!
7 - 9 July 2011, Philippines
Assemblies Fourth Assembly (2011) FIA Media Releases
First Assembly, 2001
Second Assembly, 2004
Third Assembly, 2008
Fourth Assembly, 2011
FIA Media Releases
COMMISSION 16: Rights & Welfare of Refugees, Migrant Workers & Homeless Persons
The International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) today said that an estimated 214 million people currently live outside their country of origin and this has resulted to a myriad of problems concerning rights of migrants.
The ILPS promotes, supports and develops the anti-imperialist and democratic struggles of the peoples of the world. It strives to realize the unity, cooperation and coordination of these struggles. Established in May 2001 in Zutphen, the Netherlands, it is set to hold its 4th International Assembly this July. Among its 18 concerns are the rights and welfare of displaced persons, refugees and migrant workers.
"All over the world, migrant workers and immigrants are facing a resurgence of racism. The negative impact of the global financial crisis on the employment rates of countries has caused local residents to attack immigrants and migrants, unfairly and erroneously blaming them for taking away their jobs and depleting government funds. But even before the rapid deterioration of global economies began, xenophobia already existed against migrants. In host countries, migrants have long suffered discrimination in housing, education, health, work or social security," said Grace Punongbayan of Migrante-Europe.
Punongbayan said that international institutions involved in migrants rights document how migrants arriving in new countries are often subjected to discrimination.
COMMISSION 14: Arts & Culture & Free Flow of Information in the Service of the People
The monopoly bourgeoisie intensifies its cultural offensive as it tries to recover from the world capitalist system’s deep crisis. They use the arts and media to hide the real hardships of the working people and obscure the real causes of the economic crisis. They wish to divert the people from the struggles against exploitation and oppression, and they violently suppress revolutionary and progressive movements worldwide.
Neoliberalism propagates colonial culture, consumerism, individualism and decadence on one hand, and destroys national and indigenous cultures on the other. The influx of foreign cultural goods undermines the rights and welfare of local cultural workers. Development aggression like liberalized mining and commercial developments destroy entire indigenous communities. The use of the colonial language as the official language and medium of instruction erodes the use of national and native languages.
The global media cartel of Microsoft, News Corp, Time Warner, Disney, Viacom among others control the flow of information through various media (films, publications, news outfits, internet, etc.) They peddle the free market ideology, conceal the role of US big banks in the global financial crisis and economic depression, manufacture justifications for the global war on terror and militarist interventions in sovereign nations, and downplay the current high tide of peoples’ democratic and liberation struggles.
COMMISSION 11: Rights of Teachers, Researchers & Other Education Personnel
The International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) today said that, contrary to misconceptions that only teachers in economically-backward countries have to contend with issues of low salaries, meager benefits and underemployment, educators in more advanced economies also have to deal with the same.
The ILPS is set to tackle the rights of teachers, researchers and other educational personnel in its 4th International Assembly this July. According to U.P. Prof. Judy Taguiwalo, an active ILPS Philippines chapter member, recent international developments involving teachers and their rights are a close concern of the ILPS.
Against budget cuts and unemployment
"For the last few years, teachers in countries such as the United States and members of the European Union (EU) have been experiencing the impact of an ever-worsening economic crisis. Governments continue to slash allocations for social services including education, and with this, the salaries and benefits of teachers are affected," said Taguiwalo.
COMMISSION 10: Rights of Indigenous Peoples, National Minoroties & Nationalities for Self-determination and Decolonization
The Dayaks, indigenous peoples of Sarawak, have cultivated thousands of hectares of land for generations. Today, large oil palm plantation companies in collusion with the local and Federal Government of Malaysia threaten their very existence.
In the Philippines, large-scale mining, bioethanol projects, dams and other development aggression displace thousands of indigenous peoples in different parts of the country. In Cordillera region alone, nearly a million hectares or 51 percent of the land area is covered by licensed operations and pending applications of mining transnational corporations (TNCs). These operations encroach upon ancestral domain of indigenous peoples.
Elsewhere in Asia, indigenous peoples/national minorities suffer from denial of their rights to ancestral lands, territories, and resources. Often, states refuse to recognize their collective socio-cultural and political systems/customary laws.
COMMISSION 9: Children’s Rights Against Child Labor, Sexual Abuse & Other Forms of Exploitation
When soldiers came, schools closed down. In the many conflict-hit countries worldwide, school children are most affected; they lose their chance for education, their homes, even their lives.
In two villages in Surigao del Sur province in southern Philippines, school children did not even get a chance to come on their first day of school this June; the schools suspended their opening after villagers evacuated their homes. Some 800 residents from the villages of Mahaba and Buhisan began leaving their homes from June 20 to 26 to escape military atrocities in the area.
Villagers complained that soldiers of the army’s 29th Infantry Battalion fired at four people including a 14-year-old boy. A farmer, who was one of the three adults fired upon by soldiers, remains missing to date. Classes at the Mahaba Elementary School, San Roque Primary School, Magkahunao Community School and Luknodon Community School have been suspended.
COMMISSION 8: Rights of Youth to Education & Employment
The sight of young people sleeping in public parks is something unfamiliar to people living in countries in northern Europe such as the Netherlands. But as recent as spring of this year, the Dutch have been seeing an influx of young people especially from Spain arriving in the Netherlands in droves. They're not the so-called backpack tourists who sleep in tents to save hotel costs, but EU citizens looking for work in the Dutch capital.
Spain now has the highest level of unemployment in the whole European Union, which explains this migration phenomenon. Spain has been included in the list of bankrupt EU economies on the verge of collapse, called PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain). These EU countries now act like the monicker attached to them, forced to literally scrounge for the EU's financial surplus and bailout from the EU Central Bank and loans from the EU's still well-off members such as Germany, France, The Netherlands and the UK.
