Ahmed Shawki, Columbia, South Carolina – Top US labour leaders gathered for a workers' rights rally here responded immediately to the police crackdown on the Asia-Pacific Solidarity Conference in Jakarta.
An international outpouring of support came soon after from other labour leaders, human rights activists, academics and others.
In South Carolina, the March and Rally for Workers Rights and Racial Justice on June 10 drew more than 7000 union members and supporters to defend five dockworkers who are under house arrest and face trial on serious riot charges following a massive police attack on their picket line in the port of Charleston last year.
The predominantly African-American union, the International Longshoremen's Association Local 1422, had been targeted for its role in a massive protest to take down the Confederate flag, a symbol of racism, from the South Carolina state capitol.
At the pre-march rally, Lee Sustar, a journalist for Socialist Worker newspaper, gave a brief speech highlighting the international solidarity action for the five – including the threat of industrial action by Danish and Swedish dockers.
"When I then appealed for solidarity for the detained Indonesian labor activists and their international supporters, everyone cheered", Sustar said.
"Immediately, John Poulsen of Dockers Freeport, Copenhagen, Denmark, came forward to sign the statement, as did Bob Ashton, President, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 500 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada."
The leaders of the South Carolina struggle – including ILA Local 1422 president Kenneth Riley – also signed on, as did Donna DeWitt, the South Carolina president of the US union confederation, the AFL-CIO.
Larry Adams, president of Local 300 of the Laborers International Union (Mail-handler) in New York City, told Sustar, "I am proud to sign".
At the main rally on the steps of the state capitol, AFL-CIO executive vice-president Linda Chavez-Thompson – the third-highest ranking labour official in the United States – also endorsed the statement.
United Mineworkers of America president Cecil Roberts – himself fresh from jail following a sit-in at an employer's office – enthusiastically gave his backing.
Yu Kwang Jun, director of the policy planning department of the Daewoo Auto Workers Union, endorsed the statement following his speech against the repression of labour rights from South Carolina to South Korea.
The labour rally was not the only place in which support for those detained in Indonesia was organised.
A similar statement circulated by several groups in the US and internationally has managed to garner widespread support. Signatures will be collected and the complete list will be sent to the Indonesian authorities.
As a statement by the organisers of the effort said in the most recent appeal: "The safe release of the conference guests is a tremendous victory. But we remain very concerned about the fate of Indonesians who attended the conference, other trade union and democratic activists, and their supporters."
Pickets and press conferences were also held in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Chicago and San Francisco on June 11.
[Ahmed Shawki is the editor of International Socialist Review and a member of the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981).]