The Tribunal is a two-day political event that puts in trial the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and its neoliberal globalization design on migration. This event will also highlight the resistances of grassroots migrants against such machinations.
The tribunal will hear testimonies’ from witnesses from migrant grassroots organizations, which actively oppose the GFMD. These are organizations that organized the series of International Assembly of Migrants & Refugees (IAMR) in Manila (2008), Athens (2009), and Mexico City (2010). Presentations of the witnesses will be the position taken by each of the assembly held.
The judges shall be prominent individuals from international organizations concerned with migrant workers. They will formulate the political judgment on the GFMD based on the presentations of the grassroots migrant workers.
The Tribunal will happen around the time of the World Social Forum on Migration.
Posted by admin on 11/19/12
Migrante International
http://migranteinternational.org/?p=2666
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IMA will hold Migrants’ Tribunal on the GFMD
Posted on September 30, 2012
The International Migrants Alliance (IMA) will organize a Tribunal on the GFMD; it will take place November 28-29 in Manila, followed by a mass demonstration on November 30. The events are scheduled for the same week that the World Social Forum on Migration (WSFM) will be held in Manila. This is not the first time that such a tribunal is being organized: An International Tribunal of Conscience (ITC) was held during the WSFM in Quito and the GFMD in Mexico, both in 2010. (See my blog entry here:
But while the previous tribunal addressed violations of migrants rights that occur all over the world, this one is specifically targeting the GFMD. It will “hear testimonies from witnesses from migrant grassroots organizations which actively oppose the GFMD”. This years’ GFMD is actually being held one week before the tribunal (and the WSFM) in Mauritius. To my knowledge, none of the established parallel events (The People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Right (PGA) and The International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees (IAMR)) will take place this year in Mauritius.
This is probably due to logistical reasons and the fact that the Manila events are scheduled just one week after the GFMD. Here, the PGA organizers are very involved in the WSFM, while the IMA that is now behind the tribunal had previously organized the IAMR (sorry about all those acronyms, but those are hard to avoid in social movement research – even more so in Southeast Asia ;)
If I can make it to Manila this year (and I most certainly plan to), I will of course try to cover both events in this blog, so stay tuned…
RADIO: Friday, Nov. 30, 2012 (from 8-9pm) The VOICE Refugee Forum Berlin: Listen to Mbolo Yufanyi live Broadcast Manifestation of THE VOICE and Plataforma on Reboot FM 88,4