Today, Burmese and global supporters mark the 21st anniversary of the 8888 uprising, the day of Burma’s largest pro-democracy uprising. On August 8, 1988, hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens took to the streets to join a student-led general strike, bravely calling for democracy. We honor all courageous democracy activists, especially those who have paid the ultimate price with their lives working to bring necessary change their country.

On this day, we reflect on these sacrifices and consider the question- when will Burma make genuine progress towards democracy and national reconcilation? The Regime has been doing its best to lobby the international community, touting the 2010 elections as its latest move towards “democratization,” and recycling and recycling the age-old tactic of promising to release prisoners, this time supposedly at the request of the UN Secretary General.

While mobilizing this rhetoric of ‘democratization’, the regime has taken no real steps to move towards national reconcilation. Instead, the military regime has been taking systematic steps to exclude pro-democracy activists from 2010 elections. The lastest of these efforts include the extension of Daw aung San Suu Kyi’s trial, the continued detention of over 2,160 political prisioners, as well as the unceaseing systemic human rights violations against ethnic civilians. The people of Burma are exhausted and frustrated from having their futures, their families, their land, and their rights taken away from them. This next year poses a crucial turning point for the people of Burma and the international community.

รือข่ายแรงงาน – นักศึกษา ยื่นหนังสือถึงทูตอาร์เจนตินา กรณี “กุสตาโว เวรา” ถูกทำร้าย

วันนี้ (23 ก.ค. 52) เวลาประมาณ 09.00 น. เครือข่ายแรงงานและนักศึกษาซึ่งประกอบไปด้วย สหภาพแรงงานไทรอัมพ์ฯ, โรงงานสมานฉันท์, โครงการรณรงค์เพื่อแรงงานไทย, นักศึกษาจากมหาวิทยาลัยรามคำแหง และตัวแทนจากเครือข่ายแรงงานในเอเชีย ได้รวมตัวกันที่สถานทูตอาร์เจนตินาประจำประเทศไทย เพื่อยื่นหนังสือเรียกร้องความเป็นธรรมกับรัฐบาลอาร์เจนตินา กรณีนักกิจกรรมแรงงานที่เคยมาพบปะแลกเปลี่ยนประสบการณ์กับแรงงานไทยถูก ทำร้ายร่างกาย (อ่านเพิ่มเติม: นักกิจกรรมด้านแรงงานในอาร์เจนตินาถูกอันธพาลรุมทำร้าย หลังช่วยคนงานออกจากโรงงานนรก)

โดยตัวแทนผู้เรียกร้อง ได้เข้าพบและยื่นหนังสือร้องเรียนให้กับนายฟิลลิปเป้ ฟรีดแมน (Felipe Frydman) เอกอัครราชทูตอาร์เจนตินาประจำประเทศไทยซึ่งเป็นผู้รับมอบด้วยตนเอง และได้ส่งเรื่องจดหมายร้องเรียนดังกล่าวไปยังรัฐบาลอาร์เจนตินาแล้ว

Art& Activism

Formed out of the mass mobilizations (“aksi”) that culminated in the 1998 ousting of Suharto’s decades-long dictatorship, Yogyakarta-based collective Taring Padi (translated literally: “Fangs of the Rice Plant”) has maintained an unfailing commitment to building a People-Orientated Art (Seni Kerakyatan) to forge that solidarity whose beginnings were eradicated in 1965 and exiled from Indonesia’s state histories in the years that followed. Strongly opposed to the kind of “art for art’s sake” mantra that so perfectly embodies the New Order ideal of the nation as a disengaged “floating mass,”(1) with each sector of society devoted to its own isolated and apolitical self-development, Taring Padi has executed projects that exist squarely within the common, public realm.

Since their peak in the 1990s, issue-oriented mass mobilizations have continued to occur throughout Indonesia, and yet these actions have failed to produce candidates within the electoral system who do not serve elite interests. Although no stranger to Indonesia’s history of uneven development, the IMF and other international bodies have even further compromised the country’s sovereignty in economic policymaking after 1997, introducing dozens of new agreements and memoranda that have been met with strong resistance by those who have been devastated by cuts in fuel subsidies or the elimination of protective tariffs on crop imports. Finally, a wider struggle has ensued over the history that was so categorically cut off in 1965 and obscured by complicit ‘66 Generation intellectuals in the employ of the state. Taring Padi’s collective focus has shifted accordingly with these changes in Indonesian social movements, and the group now grapples with localized issues of gender equality, biodiversity, labor rights, ethnic hatred, and electoral fraud, among many others. The form of these projects ranges from woodcut print posters and protest sculpture to self-published books and street actions. While indeed Indonesia’s grassroots “aksi” struggles remain fragmented in the face of local and international elites’ pervasive efforts to retain their power over the country’s resources, Taring Padi’s populist art practice offers to its communities the a common consciousness of oppression that is the a prerequisite to continuing a revolution of national and social liberation that was preemptively cut short half a century ago.(2)

Background

On 12th March 2009 representatives from Argentina met with representatives from the Solidarity Factory at the offices of Thai Labour Campaign. We discussed our various problems. We came to the conclusion that we had to jointly produce and advertise our goods. Each country would raise a campaign about safe and ethical consumption. We will use the media, campaign in public and find alliances to help with our campaigns. In the first instant we shall design a join product to be launched in July 2009 and raise capital for this project.

Aims

- To build sopdarity between workers of the two countries.
- To expand our markets.
- To jointly carry out research into garment production.
- To get the consumers to see the importance of buying ethical goods.

Methods

- We need to find volunteers to help with the website.
- We need volunteers to help with translating documents.
- We need to prepare data and personnel for our campaigns.