Bhutto’s assassination will only fuel Pakistani people’s resolve to oust Musharraf

ASA Statement on the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
December 28, 2007

 

The Asian Students Association condemns in the strongest terms possible the December 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto. 

Bhutto was hit in an open fire by a suicide bomber before the latter detonated the bombs wrapped around his body killing 20 others. The unfortunate incident happened during a campaign rally of Bhutto’s party, Pakistani People’s Party, in Rawalpindi City.

This incident has only exposed further the worsening state of human rights and democracy in Pakistan. This has only displayed the present administration’s utter disregard for the overwhelming campaign of the Pakistani people for the immediate and genuine democratization of Pakistan. 

Instead of heeding, Musharraf denied the opposition party’s demand for proper security and equipment to Bhutto and her group. Even on that day, Musharraf’s police and military have even actively attempted to foil the said gathering in Rawalpindi.

While extremists may be responsible for Bhutto’s death, Musharraf is and should not be spared from the condemnation. He is accountable in every way possible as he has already displayed in recent times his inability to uphold and respect the Pakistani people’s rights to assembly, expression and participation in the democratization process that Pakistan has to go through.

Even if he has recently withdrawn the state of emergency, he himself has replaced the judiciary with people who seemingly will bow to his bidding.

There is no greater threat to genuine peace, justice and democracy in Pakistan but Musharraf himself. Bhutto’s death did not create a climate of fear among the people but fueled their anger against his despotic regime and call for genuine social transformation.

We in the ASA express our solidarity with our member organizations in Pakistan, the Pashtoonkwa Students Organization and Sindhi Shagrid Tareek, who are steadfastly organizing their fellow students and youth and joining the growing people’s movement to oust the military dictator that is Musharraf and replace him and his corrupt and rotten system with one that upholds peace based on justice, human rights and democracy.

Youth Camp 2007: What We Did and How We Did It (Slide Show)

Youth Camp in Nepal successfully concluded

We did not only share about the situation of education and employment in our countries. We committed ourselves to act to uphold and defend them.

Last December 12-15, we held the YOU ACT ON EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT: Regional Youth Camp on Developing Activism, Building Movements and Strengthening Solidarity on Education and Employment in Asia Pacific. In the beautiful district of Kavre, in Dhulikhel, Nepal, we gathered 30 international and local participants to discuss and plan how we can work collectively on these concerns.

Nepal proved to be politically significant as its people go through the gargantuan challenge of building a democratic republic and laying down the foundations for greater youth involvement. Not only that, we had participants from Burma, Pakistan (Pashtoon and Sindh), Bangladesh, Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong and indigenous communities (Nagas and Jomis) in India to share their current situations and struggles.
Through workshop, we were able to come up with a common analysis on education and employment: that they are continually neglected by the governments that are supposed to provide them to the youth and people of Asia. That education continues to become an item of trade and a factory of workers for the foreign labor market, not the needing economies. That employment is absent and remain unaddressed in countries while labor export policy is championed by many states. That international financial institutions and other capitalist-controlled institutions like the World Trade Organization have only made these two birthrights unreachable to the many.

We have come up with demands and action resolutions that we can take and implement locally and internationally. We have agreed to create a campaign network that will ensure that all our efforts are coordinated and will prove more effective. We have successfully released a declaration that sums up all our discussions, our conclusions, our resolutions, our aspirations, our commitment.

It was indeed a very unforgettable experience for many of the participants who attended the youth camp for the first time. Apparently, the 21st century is gifted with many vibrant, promising, committed and willing youth in Asia Pacific.

To read more about the declaration, please click more.

As opening nears: Youth Run for ASA Youth Camp

This morning, December 10, more than 100 university students participated in a fun run to promote the ASA’s regional youth camp on education and employment.

For more details as to this very exciting event, please click more.

Petition: Cancel Unjust 1-Semester Suspension for Lee Song Yong

ASA member DEMA (Malaysia Youth and Students Democratic Movement) is presently holding a campaign for Lee Song Yong, a student from the Universiti Putra Malaysia  who was unjustly suspended by the university administration for allegedly challenging the school’s security.

On December 14, they will submit a joint memorandum to the Malaysian minister on higher education demanding to overturn the administration’s decision to suspend Lee Song Yong for one semester.

To know more about the case or if you want to sign the petition, please go to DEMA’s blogsite and their online petition.

Philippines: PUP students, community condemn P40.2 M budget slash

Walk out of classes, march to Mendiola

Students of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), together with the other sectors of the PUP community, today launched a massive class walkout to condemn the P40.2 million slash in the state university’s budget.

The PUP Office of the Student Regent, Sentral na Konseho ng Mag-aaral and Sandigan ng Mag-aaral para sa Sambayanan-PUP (Samasa-PUP) spearheaded the class walkout.

The PUP community held an in-campus protest in the morning before commencing in a protest march towards Mendiola to decry ‘the government’s abandonment of state education in line with its commercialization and privatization schemes for state universities and colleges (SUCs).’

The P40.2 million budget cut is the largest decrease in PUP history.

“We are outraged. The overwhelming cut in PUP’s budget is clearly anti-student, especially for PUP students who consist of the poorest among students from SUCs, ” said Ma. Sophia Prado, PUP Student Regent.

Prado said that the P40.2 million budget cut is ‘unacceptable and unfair considering large budget allocations for military-spending and debt-servicing’.

For his part, Samahan ng mga Janitors sa PUP (SJ-PUP) President Ricardo Cagomoc said, “We condemn the huge PUP budget cut because it will also directly affect  workers in the PUP community. Our jobs and livelihood are at stake because we figure in PUP’s least priority if pitted against the university’s infrastructure-building projects for its commercialization schemes.”

Unyon ng mga Kawani sa PUP (UNAKA-PUP), a union of PUP employees, will also participate in tomorrow’s protest. “PUP employees are disappointed with the result of the budget deliberation. We are yet to receive the benefits promised us by the PUP administration. With this development, our hopes for better benefits are becoming more and more far-fetched,” said UNAKA-PUP President Dindo Emmanuel Bautista.

PUP administration doing nothing
Prado also criticized the PUP administration for ‘blindly and passively’ accepting the P40.2 million budget cut.

“The PUP administration, according to President Dante Guevarra, did not submit any budget proposal stressing the need for an increase in the PUP budget. It seems that the PUP administration is all set to just accept this injustice and as a result be able to justify income-generating schemes by the university,” Prado said.

Prado criticized the PUP administration’s infrastructure projects that consume most of the university’s budget.

She particularly cited CHED’s (Commission on Higher Education’s) anomalous call center project in coordination with the PUP administration.

Prado clarified that “The PUP studentry and the PUP community will not receive any amount from this project, not even a single centavo. Only the private companies will profit from it, at the expense of students.”

Prado said that the PP40.2 million budget cut in PUP is only a manifestation of the government’s neglect of education.

PUP students succeeded in preempting a proposed 525% tuition increase last semester after a massive walkout at the event of a Board of Regents’ meeting meant to approve the imposition. Some 5,000 students marched from the PUP campus to the CHED main offices in Ortigas in protest against the said proposal.

Hold Rally for Democracy in Pakistan

Last Friday, November 9, we joined the Asian Human Rights Commission in their protest action against the state of emergency issued by President Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan.

Despite the media blackout, news about the arrest of the chief justice and other lawyers as well as all sorts of violent actions made by the military have reached us in the international community.

There is no denying that the people of Pakistan are resisting Musharraf and we in the Asian Students Association are one with them.

This Thursday, November 15, we call on everyone to join us in this internationally coordinated action in support of the Pakistani people as they fight the military dictatorship of Musharraf.

Respect Indigenous Peoples’ Rights! Free the Arrested Maoris!

The Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network released a signature campaign calling for the immediate release of Maoris who were illegally rounded up and arrested by the NZ police.

The Terrorism Suppression Act apparently has been used to crack down on activists and other progressives.

The Asian Students Association joins the APIYN in calling for the unconditional release of all the arrested Maoris as well as the repeal of the Terrorism Suppression Act.

To sign the petition, please click here.

Generation Q: The New Breed of Young Americans?

A friend sent this New York Times column by Thomas Friedman about the new generation of youth in the U.S. He calls them “Generation Q” or the Quiet Generation.

I found it to be an interesting read.

Calling for Participants!

The Asian Students Association will hold a Regional Youth Camp on Education and Employment in Kathmandu, Nepal this December 14-19, 2007.

We are calling on all student organizations and unions as well as young members of national trade unions to attend this youth camp/conference and discuss the current situation of education and employment in Asia Pacific.

Aside from seeing a regional trend on the two issues, the youth camp we call “YOU ACT ON EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT” aims to see the relations between education and employment, the policies of the governments and international institutions on these most urgent concerns, provide participants with a better understanding of existing international conventions and policies with regard to the two, and possibly create a campaign network that will ensure that these rights are protected and upheld both at the national and international levels.

This we do in the light of the developments affecting the youth not only in the region but all over the world. With the dismal statistics showing the failure of some governments to respond to the so-called Millenium Development Goals that they themselves have created, the ASA wants the sector to be more actively involved in the campaign, putting their stance in the debate and providing a space for their greater participation.

Due to limited resources, however, we can only accommodate a certain number of international participants from the region.

For more information, please feel free to contact us at asasec@netvigator.com.