Activists seeks alliance against Bush

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Mumbai, India

Antiglobalization activists, including prominent women authors, called on Sunday for global unity against the United States, British imperialism and big businesses during the World Social Forum (WSF) gathering in Mumbai, India.

Around 100,000 activists from 130 countries, including Indonesia, who are participating in the world's largest gathering at the moment, all have one thing in common -- their opposition to U.S. President George W. Bush, who is accused by forum leaders of endangering world security and bending trade rules to satisfy big business.

"The world must stand up against the United States which is dominating the United Nations and has amassed more weapons than the rest of the world combined," AFP quoted Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general and longtime antiwar activist, as saying.

"We have to remove Bush. He has committed a war of aggression," Clark told a crowd of hundreds. "His shock and awe war campaign against Iraq is hi-tech terrorism."

Demonstrators paraded effigies of Bush portraying him as everything from a handcuffed war criminal to a Hindu demon as they packed a wooded exhibition grounds in industrial north Bombay.

U.S. companies were not spared, with activists leading 200 villagers from the southern Indian state of Kerala in smashing up cans of Coca-Cola and accusing the beverage giant of taking resources from parched communities.

Amnesty International used the forum to launch a campaign for corporations to adopt global standards on human rights. The London-based group wants an eventual worldwide treaty governing corporate behavior related to people's rights, particularly in areas of conflict.

"This would apply to all companies. They may or may not follow it, but it would apply to all of them and gives certainty as to what they are not supposed to do," Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan said.

Khan said she hoped the initiative would prevent abuses such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Amnesty says diamond companies have turned a blind eye to state security guards shooting dead unauthorized miners.

Campaigners from across continents danced to drums, bellowed out protest songs and handed out leaflets promoting panel talks and information booths on topics ranging from "the resistance in Iraq" to "breast-feeding in a globalized world."

Indian writer Arundhati Roy and Egyptian Nawal el Sadawi said on Sunday during a discussion, which was attended by The Jakarta Post on "War Against Women, Women Against War" that wars resulted from imperialism and had degraded women's lives in war- torn areas.

Not only wars, they said, but some cultural and religious values were also oppressing women, as well as communities themselves.

"They said women are liberated. But we are not liberated.

There were atrocities against women everywhere, especially in countries that were the scene of wars, like Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. And there were other countries like Egypt that had been invaded economically, said Nawal el Sadawi in a determined voice before an eager audience of thousands.

Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, a leftist and a source of pride for millions of Indians, also expressed her resentment against what she perceived as American and British imperialism in the "so-called" war against terrorism.

"Iraq is no longer a country. It's an asset," Roy said.

She added that the most disturbing thing that was happening to women today was the way in which imperial power was using a corrupted version of feminism to justify war and violence.