Action Alert - BEWARE THE MISS-LEADERS

Peace Movement Aotearoa

"if equality means entitlement to an equal share of the profits of economic tyranny, it is irreconcilable with liberation. Freedom in an unfree world is merely licence to exploit. Lip service to feminism in the developed nations is a handy disguise for the masculinization of power and the feminization of poverty in the emerging nations." Germaine Greer, 1999)

28 April 1999
Advance Notice
Dear Sisters


This year New Zealand hosts APEC. APEC stands for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation or in our view A Patriarchal Exploiters Club.

The choice APEC gives women is to either share in the profits of economic tyranny or drown in the poverty it creates. The official APEC Women Leaders meeting planned for Wellington, 20-23 June 1999 attempts to seduce women to the former; after all who would willingly choose the latter? But we believe APEC should be destroyed not feminised.

APEC is anti-women; anti-people. It epitomises the values of capitalism, patriarchy, greed and oppression. It stands for everything that feminism stands against. APEC supports the agenda of big business to make profits at any cost. It is part of the international network of treaties, forums, and institutions that seek to subjugate the many for the enrichment of a few.

The Miss-Leaders say that it is time for women from the APEC economies to get together. However women have been doing that for the last three years - in Manila, Vancouver and Kuala Lumpur. What’s more these women have not been meeting in order to prostitute themselves to the APEC agenda. They have been meeting to expose and resist this agenda and to build sisterhood and solidarity throughout the Asia Pacific.

We are writing to give you advance notice of the Fourth Women’s Conference Against APEC that will be held in Wellington on Saturday and Sunday 19-20 June 1999 at the Law School.

An organising group for the Conference has started meeting regularly in Wellington. The organisers have already developed a number of themes for the conference, approached some speakers and invited some international guests. If you would like to contribute a paper, hold a workshop, suggest possible local speakers or help organise the conference please contact us at the address below:

Yours in solidarity and sisterhood

Maxine Gay
For the Conference Organising Group:
Leigh Cookson, Bronwyn Cross, Tere Harrison, Caroline Hatt, Prue Hyman, Tanja Shultz, Luci Highfield, Jane Kelsey, Annie Newman, Christina Rizos, Gillian Southey, Tali Williams.

Conference Organising Group, P.O. Box 50-216, PORIRUA. Tel: (04) 237 5062, Fax: (04) 237 8157

Find further information about APEC here.

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