by IUF Asia/Pacific | Sep 17, 2025 | Defending Democracy, Human Rights, Peace
The military-controlled Union Election Commission (UEC) declared that only 102 townships out of the country’s 330 townships will be included in the elections starting on 28 December 2025. That is only 31% of the total electoral constituencies.
Why is the other 69% excluded? Because the majority townships were liberated from military rule by the People’s Defence Force (PDF) and Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROs) fighting to restore democracy. In addition, dozens of townships are under attack by the military. The ruling military junta is conducting aerial bombing – including bombing schools and homes – to take back control.
That is also why the so-called voting begins on 28 December 2025 as phase one and continues for two or three months. This is engineered to give the military more time to forcibly take control of more townships.
If the number if townships included by the military-controlled Union Election Commission (UEC) increases beyond 31% before 28 December or during the three-month election period, it is only because the junta has retaken control through military offensives against the people, at great cost to life.
by IUF Asia/Pacific | May 28, 2025 | Campaigns, Defending Democracy, English language, Freedom of Association, Human Rights, Our Union Our Power, Secure Jobs
Tangerang–Hundreds of workers who are members of the Food and Beverage Trade Union Federation (FSBMM) who came from Lampung, West Java, Jakarta, Banten, and Yogyakarta, held a second peaceful protest on May 5, 2025 in front of the Unilever Indonesia head office in BSD. This action was a response to the unilateral layoffs that were legally flawed, carried out by PT. Anugrah Mutu Bersama (PT.AMB) where this company is a Joint Venture company of Unilever that produces Bango Soy Sauce.
In their demands, the workers urged Unilever Indonesia management to reinstate Dani Afgani who is the General Secretary of FSBMM and a worker at PT.AMB and to stop the practice of union busting against workers who are active in union organizations. The action proceeded orderly with security guards, and the workers stated that they were ready to carry out further actions if their demands were not taken seriously.
Hundreds of workers united to demand the cancellation of PT. AMB’s unilateral layoffs which were legally flawed and the reinstatement of FSBMM Secretary General Dani Afgani
by IUF Asia/Pacific | May 28, 2025 | Bahasa Indonesia, Campaigns, Collective Bargaining Rights, Defending Democracy, Freedom of Association, Human Rights, Our Union Our Power, Secure Jobs
Tangerang–Ratusan buruh yang tergabung dalam Federasi Serikat Buruh Makanan dan Minuman (FSBMM) yang datang dari Lampung, Jawa Barat, Jakarta, Banten, dan Yogyakarta, menggelar aksi protes damai kedua pada 5 Mei 2025 di depan kantor pusat Unilever Indonesia di BSD. Aksi ini merupakan respon atas PHK sepihak yang cacat hukum, yang dilakukan oleh PT. Anugrah Mutu Bersama (PT.AMB) dimana perusahaan ini merupakan perusahaan Joint Venture dari Unilever yang memproduksi Kecap Bango.
Dalam tuntutannya, buruh mendesak manajemen Unilever Indonesia untuk memperkerjakan kembali Dani Afgani yang merupakan Sekretaris Umum FSBMM sekaligus pekerja di PT.AMB serta untuk menghentikan praktek union busting terhadap pekerja yang aktif dalam organisasi serikat. Aksi berjalan tertib dengan pengawalan aparat, dan para pekerja menyatakan siap melakukan aksi lanjutan bila tuntutan tidak ditanggapi secara serius.
Ratusan buruh bersatu menuntut pembatalan PHK sepihak PT. AMB yang cacat hukum dan memperkerjakan kembali Sekretaris Umum FSBMM Dani Afgani
by IUF Asia/Pacific | Jun 4, 2024 | Defending Democracy, Human Rights
Left free to respond to, create and manipulate market signals, the rich and powerful who make these unrestrained decisions will inevitably become the free market. And in the “free market”, freedom is eroded.
Hidayat Greenfield
Originally published by REL-UITA May 15, 2024
Markets are signals and the aggregate effects of the decisions made in response to those signals. These decisions include the allocation and reallocation of resources – both private and public. The power to make decisions in response to market signals also means the power to create these signals. Whether people as citizens have the power to make decisions depends on whether there is a democratic, accountable state that allocates resources in the interests of citizens. Whether people as heads of corporations and private industry have the power to make decisions depends on whether the state intervenes, regulates or restricts what they can and cannot do.
In the rapid reallocation of resources, institutions, corporations and people gain or lose access to resources and – if unrestrained – everything becomes a resource: a commodity bought and sold for profit.
If the state does not intervene, regulate or restrict, then it is clear that a handful of the rich and powerful will make all of the decisions of consequence. The state only intervenes at the request of the rich and powerful when they need help – when they have made bad decisions and must be bailed out of the financial crises they created.
The state also intervenes when the people show signs of challenging the power of the rich minority – when the people demand the right to make decisions that fundamentally shape their lives and the future of their children. It is a demand that resources are allocated and reallocated according to the needs of the people and the planet through democratic processes. This is self-determination. This is people’s national sovereignty. It is at this point the politicians representing the rich and powerful, while defending a market free of any state intervention, also summon the powers of a strong state against the people.
A “free market” really means that decisions can be freely made to allocate and reallocate all of the resources in society in response to signals – signals embodying a mix of physical realities and artificial manipulation and speculation – without any intervention by the state. There is no state intervention to ensure that this allocation and reallocation of resources fulfills the needs of the people and the realization of their human rights, including the right to a life worthy of human dignity. There is only state intervention to repress popular protest against the massive theft of public resources.
Left free to respond to, create and manipulate market signals, the rich and powerful who make these unrestrained decisions will inevitably become the free market. And in the “free market”, freedom is eroded.
This is the madness of the free market. This is the madness of Milei.
by IUF Asia/Pacific | May 18, 2024 | Defending Democracy
In Timothy Ryback’s recently published book, Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power, he explains how the establishment (the political and economic ruling elite) allowed Hitler and the Nazi Party to take power, laying the foundations of the Third Reich, with all its devastating consequences. The title of Adam Gopnik’s excellent review of Ryback’s book sums it up perfectly: “The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers – The Nazi leader didn’t seize power; he was given it“ (The New Yorker, March 18, 2024). In the contemporary US context, parallels are drawn to the establishment’s enabling of Donald Trump. This should not be misunderstood as comparing Trump to Hitler. It is the way in which the establishment enables dictators that is key to our understanding of how it happened and why it is happening now.
Throughout history we have countless examples of the establishment enabling dictators and its horrific consequences. Of course under colonialism the colonialists were the establishment, and they enabled brutal dictatorships that oversaw genocide on an unprecedented scale. In the Americas alone, from 1492 to 1600 more than 55 million indigenous people were systemically murdered by Europeans to clear them from their homelands. This 100-year genocide of indigenous people was on a scale so large it caused climate change – a drop in global temperatures.
It is this apocalyptic genocide of indigenous peoples under colonialism (and its continuation after independence) that renders many indigenous peoples “minorities” today. It’s mathematics. Murder enough of any people based on ethnicity or race, and they will become a minority: there will be less of them than the ethnicity or race of people who committed, allowed or ignored this mass murder. The Uyghurs in Xinjiang in northwestern China, for example, are at present still an ethnic majority, but under the the dictatorship of Xi Jinping we are witnessing the Party-state turning them into a minority within the next decade; eradicating their ethnic and religious identity in the process. This is cultural genocide.
Under colonialism the “establishment enablers” included local political and economic elites who prospered through collaboration. They became part of the establishment. After colonialism – in newly independent nations – they became the establishment. This new national (and often nationalistic) establishment enabled new dictators, giving power to them, and denying people the sovereignty (self-determination) they had fought so hard for in their struggle for independence.
External and internal threats to the nation – real or perceived – always played a crucial role in the enabling of dictators and the establishment of authoritarian regimes. So important are these threats as a catalyst to dictatorship that they are often created or fabricated. Made to order. The need to defend the nation against external and internal enemies justified the suspension of rights and freedoms. Dictators (“strong men”) were then handed power to deal with whatever threat the nation faced. Elsewhere I have argued that in the near future, the military or far right could use severe climate events to invoke emergency powers and suspend democracy. (See “The climate crisis, emergencies, and the erosion of democracy” IUF Asia/Pacific May 23, 2023.)
One of the ways in which the establishment in newly independent nations enabled dictators and their authoritarian regimes was through the retention of colonial laws on subversion and disorder. Designed to quell the masses and protect the status quo under colonialism, these laws simply continued to be applied. In several countries democratic leaders did not revoke these laws when they had the opportunity – and some made them even more repressive.
In Myanmar today the military regime of General Min Aung Hlaing uses British colonial laws to arrest Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) activists and trade unionists for causing social disorder or subversion. In the six years prior to the military coup in February 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) did not repeal these oppressive colonial laws, but enhanced them. Colonial laws on disorder and subversion, it seems, are the establishment’s insurance policy against the risk that the people might rise up and attempt to make democracy work. In fact, such laws are extremely useful when enforcing ethnicist and racist policies that determine who “the people” actually are. The tragic consequences of this for 900,000 persecuted and displaced Rohingya are clear.
Another aspect of the way in which dictatorship is enabled is “power-sharing” with fascists, militarists or the extreme right. The logic, it seems, is that by sharing power the fascists, militarists or the extreme right will not take power. But this makes no sense at all. Power-sharing simply enables fascists, militarists and the extreme right. They are ultimately given power and with it comes a mandate from an elected government and/or mainstream political parties. This gives the emergent dictators something essential to retaining power: legitimacy.
Maybe legitimacy is the key to understanding the role of establishment enablers. In the process of taking power dictators have not yet established legal, institutional and ideological control. Even if they are riding a wave of populist support, they are vulnerable to popular challenge. Their legitimacy at this juncture is drawn from the establishment that enables them. Later when dictators turn against the establishment (as they always do), they are already capable of manufacturing legitimacy from within their authoritarian regime and no longer need their enablers.
Whether it is the madness of Milei’s free market revolution in Argentina, the one party “selection” in Bangladesh, or the return of military rule in civilian clothes in Pakistan and Thailand, the devastating impact on democracy and democratic rights is clear. An entire generation may begin to wonder whether voting in elections has any meaning at all.
We are not yet halfway through the greatest year of elections in history. But we are already seeing the devastating consequences of the “establishment enablers” in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Several more countries will see the return of military-backed political parties, the rise of the extreme right or a resurgent fascism. Collaboration, power-sharing, and compromise got us here. Maybe only the resumption of the fight for self-determination, the struggle to realize the sovereignty of the people (all the people) – and hope – can get us out.
Dr Muhammad Hidayat Greenfield, Regional Secretary
by IUF Asia/Pacific | May 2, 2024 | Defending Democracy, Freedom of Association, International Workers' Day
On May 1, the IUF-affiliated Tourism Employees Association of the Maldives [TEAM] and Bodu Kanneli Masveringe Union [BKMU], the Yellowfin Tuna Fishers Union along with other sectoral unions in the Maldives held a rally to celebrate International Workers’ Day and raised demands for proper implementation of Industrial Relations and Occupational Safety and Health Act.
Following 11 years of union struggle in the Maldives, the Industrial Relations Act and Occupational Safety and Health Act officially took effect on January 2, 2024. As a result, the law now recognizes right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, health and safety rights and dignity of workers, a vital tool that all workers in the Maldives can collectively use to build union power to protect and advance their rights, improve wages and working conditions.
“Trade unions are essential for democracy; they advocate for rights to organize and strike as well as human & labour rights and freedoms. Decent work, job security and social stability are vital for the people of the Maldives” – TEAM General Secretary, Mauroof Zakir
Along with that trade unions called for fair pay, greater job security and creation of decent jobs and highlighted that workplace safety must be a priority in all industries. Employers and governments have an obligation towards workers to ensure their human right to safe work and environment.
On May 1, BKMU called for urgent action by the government to ensure that the Yellowfin Tuna Fishers receive fair price for their catch as agreed by the government. BKMU also called for greater government support in promoting sustainable development of the yellowfin tuna industry in ways that would provide greater benefits to fisheries workers and the people of the Maldives. BKMU members engage in pole and line fishing of yellowfin tuna and ensure sustainable catch.
