ACTU letter on Cambodia
Members of the ACTU executive and other union leaders have written to foreign minister Senator Gareth Evans urging economic aid for Cambodia and the exclusion of the Khmer Rouge from the peace process.
The letter is signed by more than two dozen union leaders, including ACTU president Martin Ferguson, ACTU assistant secretaries Jennie George and Bill Mansfield, and the secretaries of the TLCs of Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia.
Similar in many respects to an appeal launched last month by a range of individuals and groups concerned with Cambodia or human rights, the letter urges the Australian government to seek to have the United Nations declare the Khmer Rouge outside the peace process and to release UN funds for Cambodia which have been blocked since 1976.
It also calls for UN economic and political sanctions against the KR.
The earlier appeal has now been signed by hundreds of individuals and organisations.