FREE Baba Jan! A Call from the Youth of Mindanao

Equating activism to terrorism is a bigoted notion among the neo-fascist and authoritarian regimes in different points of the world to justify the use state powers especially the military and police force against the protesters just like what happened to Baba Jan and his 11 companions who have been imprisoned by the authority for being a political activist in Pakistan. 

Baba Jan is a central leader of the left-wing Awami Workers Party - Gilgit Baltistan.  After the landslide incident in Attabad, Hunza that displaced more than 1, 000 villagers, Baba Jan organized the displaced people to lobby to the Pakistan Government for compensation and resettlement. He joined a mobilization to demand for the rights of the affected communities however some of the protesters were shoot to death. As they call for justice for the victims, Baba Jan was arrested, repeatedly tortured and accused as terrorist. Recently, he was sentenced by the Anti-terrorism Court to 40 years of imprisonment.

The petition of Awami Workers Party in Pakistan and the some human rights organization in the Pakistan and other international organizations and personalities for his release has been signed by Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, David Graeber and several others. Among the organizations who demand Justice for Baba Jan are International Socialist, Progressive Youth Front Lahore, National Trade Union Federation and others.

The case of Baba Jan and his fellow activists in Pakistan was similarly what happened during the Martial Law period in the Philippines where massive number of political activists were detained, harassed, sexually abused, tortured, and killed by the state.  This state violence has continued in the Philippines even after Martial Law. Doctor Gery Ortiga and Gloria Capitan, Juvy Capion and her sons were among the environmental activists who were killed in the past few years in the Philippines. In the campaign against drugs syndicate under the administration of President Duterte, the spate of extra judicial killings have gone up victimizing small time alleged drug addicts and pushers. What even more striking are the absence of due process in all these cases but also most of the victims are the young people.

Liga ng Makabagong Kabataan (LMK) [League of Alternative Youth]- a progressive youth organization based in Mindanao, Philippines- believes that in a civilized world, Human Rights must be valued and upheld by the all States at all times and that Baba Jan is just among the numbers of leaders of the oppressed and marginalized sectors in the society whose voices are suppressed. Instead, they are criminalized and persecuted.

In unison with comrades in Pakistan and around the world, the Liga ng Makabagong Kabataan demands for justice to all victims of human rights violation and for the release of Baba Jan and his 11 fellow activists. 

LIGA NG MAKABAGONG KABATAAN- ZamPen- Statement

The Philippines has newly elected its president [last May 2016]- an icon of justice, patriarchy and CHANGE. Together, Filipinos are brought to new-fangled face of “hope and future”, unlike the previous administrations; a face who well-engaged the common people.

Towards Duterte’s first State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 25, Monday, the Liga ng Makabagong Kabataan-ZamPen, thru a Fun Run, invokes and yearns to bring the voice of the grassroots community especially the youth sector, on their insights and demands in lined with his proposed 10-point Socioeconomic Agenda.

In connection with this important event, the group of young people in Mindanao also addresses the undying burden of poverty due to various socioeconomic policies that contradicts to their real needs and demands which are unfortunately still embedded in the present administration:

·         Privitazation of education, and other rightful necessities that are deemed to be publicized

·         Contractualization

·         Decent permanent jobs

·         Direct and indirect resource exploitation of the foreign investors

·         Extra-judicial killings

·         Climate justice

·         Minimum wage

·         Youth participation in the decision making;

With the 10 socioeconomic policies proposed by Pres. Duterte, LMK stands that the above mentioned issues are still impossible to be resolved since these policies are yet patterned from Ramos’, Estrada’s, Arroyo’s and Pnoy’s. We run to support the premises we laid down. 

Misleading, somehow, that although the new administration claims to be different from the previous, yet reenforcing the ‘old practices’- say, Private Public Partnership (PPP) which encourages privatization of education, health, and other public maintainances supposedly.; continuing the macroeconomic and trade policies, promoting labor exchanges, etc. These types of policies can be summed up to the term neoliberalism. 

It has already been proved and experienced that neoliberalism, if contextualized to the local community situations,  has not proved anything to help the grassroots, instead neutralizes them (through media) to their passiveness and vulnerability level. The solutions that the leaders always assert are not suitable to our developing communities, it clearly contributes and elevates the interests of the capitalists.

Therefore, the young people of Zamboanga Peninsula, in solidarity of all the unions with the same cause demands, expresses that OUR FUTURE IS NON-NEGOTIABLE!

We run for a cause! We run for JUSTPEACE!

                Kabataan! Lumaban! Manindigan! Kumilos!

Climate Walk: A Sobriety call for Climate Justice!

Climate change may well be humanity’s greatest challenge.  It is a crisis that must be rapidly addressed if catastrophe is to be averted. Already, the impacts are being felt by millions in the world’s most vulnerable states and marginalized sectors. 

The Philippines has been identified as one of, if not the most, vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change. The extent of the destruction caused by 2012 typhoon Pablo (Bopha) and 2011 typhoon Sendong (Washi) are directly and indirectly caused and worsened by logging and mining. The recent manifestation to this is the onslaught of El Niño that led to the human and food security conflict in Kidapawan, Cotabato Province between the local government and the local farmers demanding for food and aid. The farmers and fisher folks in Zamboanga Peninsula and Lanao Del Norte suffered the dry spell of El Nino as crops failed to produce while fish catch reduced dramatically. The decrease of water level in Lanao Lake and Pulangi River also disrupted the regular power generation of Agus-Pulangi Hydro-Power.

Among those aggravated by large-scale mining, logging, and coal-fired power plants include a rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, increased morbidity and mortality incidences, environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity, contamination of aquifers and water stress, displacement of communities and development aggression in ancestral domain lands.

In response to perpetrators of the ecological crisis, the Liga ng Makabagong Kabataan- Zamboanga Peninsula organized a Climate Walk: A Sobriety calls for Climate Justice from Begong Tigbao, Limas to Maragang Lake last July 15 and 16. The walk served as a local counterpart of the 92-KM Climate Walk organized by Coal Resistance Movement (CoRE) last July 19 to 25, 2015. 

As part of the Campaign for Climate Justice and Sustainable Development, LMK Zampen celebrates the invaluable involvement and vital role of young people in demanding Climate Justice. The organization also stresses the enormous role of the youth to contest and understand the root causes of climate change. The imperative action needed to avert climate change should be based on grassroots-led solutions for the well-being of local communities. The youth understands that the only way to prevent climate change is to change the neo liberal agenda of the government, a corporate-based economy, which stops us from achieving sustainable development and just society.

“What we are facing now served as a great challenge and inspiration to every youth, the future defender of our country that we need to step up our efforts and exercise the power of a collective action to defy the crooked minds of our government”, said Renz Gahum, Secretary General of Alyansa ng Kabataang Mindanao Para sa Kapayapaan (AKMK), which LMK is a proud member of.

Liga ng Makabagong Kabataan Zampen, along with other organizations in Mindanao seeks for Climate Justice Now!  LMK Zampen Youth calls:  NO TO COAL POWER PLANTS! NO TO MINING! NO TO ILLEGAL LOGGING! Perpetrators of climate crisis must pay! 

Kabataan! Lumaban! Manindigan Kumilos!