Dear colleagues,

While it is unfortunate that I cannot be with you in San Jose, I would like to put forward a request for your solidarity.

Recent years have seen an extraordinary number of extra-judicial killings in the Philippines. Reports indicate that approximately 290 persons have been killed since 2004: peasants, workers, church people, journalists, lawyers, activists, over 70 of them are women. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, these killings are preventable, "but will only stop if the local and international community publicly condemn and pressure the government of the Philippines into taking action."

The artists and scientists of this international community, who I assume are committed to the principles of life and that biological endowment of life force, I hope will be able to make a declaration through the PRNMS/ISEA06 among its numerous important agendas, to demand a stop to the killings in the Philippines. We are responsible for the consequences of our actions and inactions, and whether we like it or not, we pursue our careers upon the cost of others across the globe.

But to this end, instead of the customary signing of petitions, I would be more interested in a more introspective process. Thus, I would like to seek a clear personal re-affirmation among the artists and scientists of this network that their work shall and will always be committed to changes supportive of life and life force across the globe. If the Gaia theory is true, or at least as it is not contested that life and the physical environment significantly influence one another, then it is only a matter of time that the death of a peasant farmer in the Philippines will manifest itself in the death of the Bay Area.

Recently, we have failed in Iraq and we are failing again in Lebanon. The destruction of life should be stopped.

With best wishes to the Summit,

Fatima Lasay
Co-Chair, Education Working Group, Pacific Rim New Media Summit (PRNMS 2006)
Korakora http://www.korakora.org/