Asia

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn

September 3, 2009 -- On August 28, Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul (known by her nickname as “Da Torpedo”) was sentenced to 18 years in prison for lese majeste (insulting the royal family) after a secret trial in Bangkok. This is another example of how Thailand is rapidly coming to resemble authoritarian countries like North Korea. Other examples are the use of the Internal Security Law to prevent peaceful demonstrations by the pro-democracy ``Redshirts'' and the way that the unelected prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, urged the military to kill demonstrators in April. What is also shocking is the way that there has been complete silence from so-called “human rights activists” and NGOs and academics in Thailand about what has been going on. This can only be described as shameful. Amnesty International's long-term policy of turning its back on Thai prisoners of conscience, jailed over lese majeste, is also appalling. It throws into question the role of that organisation.

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Photos and text by Ulfa Ilyas

On August 25, 2009, a demonstration was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, organised by the Parliament of the Streets Alliance at the inauguration of newly elected members of parliament. The protesters demanded free education for all citizens, free health programs, employment and housing programs for poor people.

Henri Anggoro, a leader of the Poor People’s Union (Serikat Rakyat Miskin Indonesia, SRMI), which organises in the sprawling shanty towns, said that experience has shown that parliament ignores the interests of the people. "They only represent the interests of a handful of people, rather than representing the people who elected them", he said.

Corazon Aquino (far right) in 1986.

Below is spokesperson for the Labour Party Pakistan Farooq Tariq's introduction to his new book, Facing the Musharraf Dictatorship: An Activist's Narrative. Following that is the preface by Peter Boyle, national secretary of the Democratic Socialist Perspective of Australia. Facing the Musharraf Dictatorship is available from Good Books Lahore. Email goodbooks_1 [at] yahoo.com to order a hard copy. You can also download the entire 300-page PDF file at the end of the two articles below.

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Introduction

By Farooq Tariq

It was October 12, 1999. As usual, I was at the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) secretariat in Lahore. Around 6pm, Farooq Sulehria called me to break the news that Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif had removed the army chief General Pervez Musharraf who was flying back to Pakistan from a visit to Sri Lanka. Sulehria asked me to issue a press statement to explain the LPP's point of view. "Wait and see the response of the army", I told him.

By the Socialist Party of Malaysia

August 13, 2009 -- Pulau Pinang, Malaysia -- PSM -- Today was the moment of truth for Kampung Buah Pala villagers. It was the third time that their homes have faced demolition. But it was the first time that the local villagers outnumbered the outsiders who were the majority during the previous attempt on August 4. Today, when the police, the developer and the bailiff came, the villagers did not have the luxury of the presence of state assemblymen, MPs, the state government representative or even lawyers. Only a handful of Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM, Parti Sosialis Malaysia) members and Hindraf [a civil rights organisation] supporters were with the villagers.

By Farooq Tariq

On August 9, 2009, Tariq Mehmood, a human rights activists and general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) in the Toba Tek Singh district issued a press release to the journalists in Toba Tek Singh. He alleged that eight Christian women were raped by Muslim fanatics in an attack on Korian village in Gojra Tehsil on July 28 attack. He also alleged that 40 women are still missing and no clue is yet found about their whereabouts. He condemned this atrocious and horrific act and demanded the government to probe the case. More than 60 houses were burnt by fanatics in the village on the accusation of blasphemy. This act led to another attack on Gojra Christian community and nine people were burnt alive.

By Jon Dillingham

Thanh Nien -- August 10, 2009, was the first Orange Day organised in Vietnam –- not only to be remembered by victims of Agent Orange but to mark Vietnam's common pain. Those responsible for exposing Vietnamese citizens and US troops to toxic defoliants kept silent about known health implications, a review of documents finds.

US chemical companies that made Agent Orange and the government and military authorities who ordered its spraying on Vietnam knew the human health toll it could take, according to official and unofficial documents detailing the history of the deadly defoliant.

A review of the documents related to the use of Agent Orange –- a dioxin-laden herbicide -– in Vietnam, including decades-old declassified papers from the companies that manufactured it and the government and military that used it, provides compelling evidence that those in charge also concealed evidence of the devastating effects it could have on people.

[See also South Korea: Graphic photos, video -- Ssangyong sit-in workers' appeal: `Our lives are at stake'.]

By Young-su Won

August 6, 2009 -- After days of harsh and inhumane assaults by riot police and company thugs on striking workers occupying the Ssangyong Motor plant in Pyeongtaek, near Seoul, the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) and management reached an agreement: the union accepted part of the company’s redundancy proposal, saving about half the strikers’ jobs, while the rest will apply for voluntary retirement or unpaid long-term leave, or accept another job with the spin-off company.

By Norm Dixon

August 6 and August 9 mark the anniversaries of the US atomic-bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In Hiroshima, an estimated 80,000 people were killed in a split second. Some 13 square kilometres of the city were obliterated. By December, at least another 70,000 people had died from radiation and injuries.

Three days after Hiroshima's destruction, the US dropped an A-bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in the deaths of at least 70,000 people before the year was out.

Since 1945, tens of thousands more residents of the two cities have continued to suffer and die from radiation-induced cancers, birth defects and still births.

A tiny group of US rulers met secretly in Washington and callously ordered this indiscriminate annihilation of civilian populations. They gave no explicit warnings. They rejected all alternatives, preferring to inflict the most extreme human carnage possible. They ordered and had carried out the two worst single terror acts in human history.

Urgent appeal by the Korean Metal Workers Union and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions

By S. Arutchelvan

August 1, 2009 -- Parti Sosialis Malaysia -- The 40,000-strong mobilisation today in Kuala Lumpur and the thousands who did not make it because of police roadblocks gave a very clear and precise message to Malaysia's Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak: repeal the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA).