Anti-free trade agreement (FTA) activists were arrested and hurt by the police during a rally at the venue of the 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Manila, Philippines.  Protesters claim that the FTA only advances the interests of corporations at the expense of the people’s needs.

Protesters were arrested and hit with truncheons and metal shields by the police in a violent dispersal of an anti-free trade agreement (FTA) rally at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) where the 40th Ministerial Meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was being held from July 29 to August 2, 2007.

“The [police] started dismantling our streamers and without allowing us to negotiate, started to disperse us violently, kicking the protesters around and hitting us with truncheons and metal shields,” Aki Nano of the Freedom from Debt Coalition said. “It was as if the policemen were showing off their might for ASEAN leaders to see. Three people were arrested and people got hurt.”

Some 150 activists-members of the Asia-Europe Peoples’ Campaign (AEPC), a network of social movements and NGOs in the Philippines, turned up at the PICC. They protested President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s statement in her opening speech at the Ministerial Meeting that the free trade agreements being negotiated by ASEAN will be the central strategy towards economic integration.

According to the protesters, the EU-ASEAN free trade agreement would only advance the interests of corporations at the expense of people’s needs. “The fast-paced, aggressive, and ambitious liberalisation agenda underpinning these FTAs will threaten jobs and peoples livelihoods [in the Philippines and across the region],” a statement from the AEPC said.

Given their violent dispersal at the rally, some AEPC members expressed concern that it might be an indication of how the state will deal with people’s protests once the Human Security Act will be implemented.

“We were treated like dogs by the police,” Baltazar Martin of the Kilusang Mangingisda (fisherfolk movement) said. “This only shows that the Human Security Act is yet another instrument used by the state against the interest of its own people. Where is the ‘caring and sharing’ that [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] so proudly talked about?”

The AEPC, with members such as the Kilusang Mangingisda and Freedom from Debt Coalition and other civil society organisations, has been actively campaigning against the EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement since it was proposed in May 2007. The Agreement is expected to be completed in the next two years.

Sources:
“Anti-FTA rally at the ASEAN Meeting dispersed violently” from Asia-Europe Peoples Campaign, posted on August 1, 2007, <http://www.movimientos.org/noalca/show_text.php3?key=10536>.
“‘Free trade’ to deepen poverty and inequality in Southeast Asia” from Asia-Europe Peoples Campaign, posted on July 31, 2007, <http://www.apl.org.ph/ps/2007/20070731_free_trade.htm>.