Len Cooper

Len Cooper

ILPS Second Assembly

The Second International Assembly (SIA) of the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) was held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, on Nov 10-14, 2004. Peter Murphy at- tended as an observer for the SEARCH Foundation.

There were seven attending from Australia altogether, representing Migrante and Gabriela Australia, two Filipino organisations, Australia Asia Worker Links and the CEPU Telecommunications Division.

ILPS is made up of mass organisations, and political parties are not allowed to be members.

The outgoing chairperson, Crispin Beltran of the Philippines, made a realistic and critical report to the opening session about the achievements and the limitations of the ILPS work since it was launched at the first assembly in May 2001. He called for more organisational development, and continuing effort to work in a broad, non-sectarian way. The number of participating organizations of the ILPS increased dramatically from 218 to 329. Despite the denial of visa application of delegates, 239 delegates from 32 countries participated in the assembly. They came from: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, Hongkong-China, India, In- donesia Iran

The general declaration of the SIA, "Advance the Peoples' Solidarity and Struggle for Liberation and Democracy Against Imperialist Plunder and War", was the focus of a serious breakdown in the conference. The circulated draft was amended just before the conference opened, to remove references to solidarity with Cuba, North Korea and China and to a formulation about 'contradictions'. When this was challenged from the floor, the session was adjourned without explanation, and did not reconvene for over 24 hours. The delegations which had insisted on the deletions never argued their case to the conference. A totally new text was negotiated to reach agreement, but this was negotiated outside the plenary. The result was a breach of the democratic values of ILPS and a big problem for its new International Coordinating Committee to address.

The assembly elected 27 regular members and 8 alternate members of the International Coordinating Committee (ICC). Thirty one percent of those elected to the ICC are women. Len Cooper from the CEPU Telecommunications Division in Australia is on the ICC. The ICC elected exiled Filipino Prof Jose Maria Sison as its new chairperson.