[WSIS CS-Plenary] An Arab Caucus

Tue Jun 8 09:38:31 BST 2004

Thank you so much for your support. Indeed, the Arab presence was
exceptionally weak unlike any other conference, and I had been going around
in Geneva and before looking for my Arab mates. I never took the initiative
to form a formal caucus for many reasons, but frankly I think it is so
necessary after what I saw at Geneva. And just so everyone knows, even
though I heard so many discussions about language problems etc., there was
no Arabic tranlsation which excluded the two or three Arabic-only speaking
people I knew who attended. It shoudl be noted that Arabic is a formal UN
language.

I know that now there is beginning to be interest and I am very optimistic
about it, and I had been working to generate interest since that time.
Hopefully with the series of meetings I will be organizing, the Arab Caucus
will be off to a good start. And Barmaki you are absolutely correct in
saying that we were all busy with the war and problems in the Middle East.
Please refer to my short article on the issue "Absence of Arab Civil Society
at WSIS" http://www.mengos.net/articles/o4/summitenglish.htm and also to the
page I am working on towards WSIS II:
http://www.mengos.net/technews/wsis-special/wsis-main.htm I have also
translated into Arabic some of the materials that the different caucuses
have been passing around, and you may see for instance the translation of
the position papers on Internet governance by the Press organizations at :
http://www.mengos.net/technews/wsis-special/governancepositionpapgerA.htm I
also looked for UNESCO's translation but found none and am translating that
as well.

In any case, all suggestions are welcome.

I only ask all of you to please tell anyone you know who may be interested
to join the Caucus and help strengthen it. Right now, I have Henrich Boell
Foundation supporting the one-day event in Cairo and then the following
September events in Jordan [the latter will include many from several other
Arab countries including Palestine, Lebanon, etc].

So... thank you all.
Marlyn Tadros

-----Original Message-----
From: Barmaki Amir Hossein [mailto:westasiaregion at hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 03:47 Õ
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: RE: [WSIS CS-Plenary] An Arab Caucus

Dear Friends

I think I should update some of you who maybe were not involved in the whole
process and ex-prepcoms and how we reach to this system of caucuses.

All the groups or families or caucuses were developed during the prepcom 2
with agreement and consultation of the time plenary and an election system.
Each family was supposed to introduce two members for the CSB, one fix and
one alternate.

Unfortunately no one from the Arab region was actively participating there
and we take action and proposed to have a middle east and western Asia
family, which was approved, which includes all Arab countries in that
region.

We try hard to reach many Arab NGOs in the region and also from other
countries and managed to inform many groups and even holding a regional
seminar on WSIS in Kish Island in August 2003.
But to our surprise not much of interest from our Arab colleagues!

So the northern Arab countries affairs was taken by African caucus and
middle east by us, but due to Iraq war and many other political issues, it
seems Arab civil society were very much engaged with many other issues, more
important than WSIS itself. So we simply couldn’t find a lot of interested
groups in our region from the Arab world. We manage to bring some people
from Afghanistan, Iran and Jordan and Turkey to our seminars and also
disseminate a lot of information, but still the presence of the Arab region
in WSIS was very weak, l just saw 1 or 2 from Palestine, mainly related to
government and a few other from Qatar or Jordan.
But the Arab countries in Africa were more active, especially Tunisians,
which the reason is obvious, but still I do not see a lot of activity from
the Arab region. I just remember a Tunisian lady raising the same point in
prepcom 3 and the plenary didn’t accept to change the frame of CSB (Renate
remembers very well I think). The social problems in the Arab region and the
role of governments in keeping the CS weak in those countries is well
reflected in many international reports, including the Arab development
report of UNDP.

So my dear friends, we really encourage and insist that Arab region should
form a caucus and be more active in the process, but its really based on
them, and it shouldn’t be Tunis dominated.

My personal opinion is as the civil society presence and existence in Arab
region is very weak in principle, we are suffering from it also, the reasons
I think you all know, for example human rights issues!

We strongly encourage ITU to take action and to ensure the presence of CS
from all regions in the process, for many CSs this process is a learning and
capacity building process, good for the future of CS in the region. If
someone in Europe cares about Iraq, helping Iraqis is not by denouncing
Americans, is to help Iraqis to form their CS, which we in Iran have some
good plans for it.

With my best regards

Amir Barmaki

>From: djilali benamrane <dbenamrane at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
>To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
>Subject: RE: [WSIS CS-Plenary] An Arab Caucus
>Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2004 15:00:10 -0700 (PDT)
>
>In French bellow !
>Wonderfull initiative !
>Do you need someone from arabic countries, some one
>who practice arabic or some one who can discuss with
>arabic CS to support them and facilitate their
>participation.
>I can propose some names !
>Extraodinaire et inattendue initiative. On veut
>réveiller les arabes et leur société civile pour
>pallier à l'insuffisance de la qualité de leur
>participation à Genève ! Il est vrai qu'à Tunis, pays
>arabe s'il en est cela pourrait faire jaser et faire
>prendre conscience si la participation arabe était
>nulle ou quasi nulle ! les Nations Unies risquent de
>précipiter le processus de transformation ... reste à
>savoir dans quel sens !
>Je demande le profil recherché pour proposer des noms.
>Amitiés
>Djilali
>
>--- INFO <info at virtualactivism.net> wrote:
> > Hello everyone. I am not going to Hammamat
> > unfortunately, but I do have a
> > notification and an invitation to make: we are in
> > the process of beginning
> > [very very very late and I understand that], an Arab
> > Caucus. While there is
> > a North Africa Arab countries and an East Asia Arab
> > countries within the
> > African and Asian caucuses, we believe there is a
> > need for an independent
> > Arab Caucus because of the poor and pathetic
> > representation in Geneva and
> > the lack of information on the process within Arab
> > countries. We are having
> > a very small beginning planning-brainstrming meeting
> > coming up on July 7th
> > in Cairo, followed by a larger one in September in
> > Jordan. We will have a
> > mailing list for the caucus and I will send you the
> > address. If you or
> > anyone is interested in participating, please send
> > me an email at
> > info at mengos.net
> > I had informed Rik earlier, but wanted the whole CS
> > Plenary to know, even
> > though we are still in the very first stages and we
> > do understand we are
> > coming in late. We also believe there is an Arab
> > specificity just like there
> > is in other regions and we need to participate as
> > such, as well as within
> > other caucuses such as the human rights caucus and
> > the gender caucus etc..
> > We will give the CS Plenary the mandate once it is
> > approved by civil society
> > NGOs. The invitation is open for participation to
> > anyone from and within the
> > Arab World.
> > Thank you.
> > Marlyn Tadros
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: west Asia [mailto:westasiaregion at hotmail.com]
> > Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2004 03:11 ã
> > To: Planery WSIS
> > Cc: wellings at epic.org; moncef.achour at itu.int
> > Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] List of NGO reps in
> > Hammamet and question
> > of govt. relation
> >
> >
> > Dear All, Rik
> >
> > Please add the names from West Asia and middle east
> > family as follow to your
> > email list , as participants in Hammamet event.
> >
> > 1- Sohrab Razzaghi erazzaghi at irancsos.net
> > 2-Amir Hossein Barmaki westasiaregion at hotmail.com
> >
> > Both from ICTRC,Iran.
> >
> > Hope to see you all there, thanks a lot
> >
> > regards
> >
> > Amir
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Frannie Wellings" <wellings at epic.org>
> > To: <plenary at wsis-cs.org>
> > Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2004 2:23 AM
> > Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] List of NGO reps in
> > Hammamet and question of
> > govt. relation
> >
> >
> > english/spanish/french
> >
> > Hello Everyone -
> > I'd like to know if anyone on this list and any
> > of the NGO representatives going to Tunisia
> > is/has been a civil society delegate to their
> > government's wsis delegation.  At the Public
> > Voice meeting in DC, there was a discussion of
> > civil society/governmental interaction and
> > strategy to improve that connection.  We'd like
> > to try and get civil society representatives on
> > more government delegations.  It would help to
> > know who on this list has been previously or will
> > be included in their government's delegation in
> > Tunis, or sponsored by their government, or just
> > well-connected to it.
> > Thank you, Frannie
> >
> > Rik - Thanks so much for compiling this list.
> > It's helpful even for those of us who aren't able
> > to go to Tunisia.
> >
> >
> > Hola!
> > Quisiera saber si cualquier persona en esta lista
> > es un delegado civil de la sociedad a la
> > delegación del wsis de su gobierno.  En la
> > reunión Public Voice en Washington, D.C., había
> > una discusión de la interacción civil y de la
> > estrategia de society/governmental para mejorar
> > esa conexión.  Quisiéramos intentar y conseguir
> > representantes civiles de la sociedad en más
> > delegaciones del gobierno.  Ayudaría a saber
> > quién en esta lista ha sido o estará en Túnez
> > incluida en la delegación de su gobierno, o
> > patrocinado por su gobierno, o apenas
> > bien-conectado con él. Muchas Gracias, Frannie
> >
> >
> >
> > Bonjour,
> > Je voudrais savoir si n'importe qui sur cette
> > liste est un délégué civil de société à la
> > délégation du wsis de leur gouvernement.  Lors de
> > la réunion Public Voice dans le Washington, DC,
> > il y avait une discussion d'interaction civile et
> > de stratégie de society/governmental pour
> > améliorer ce raccordement.  Nous voudrions
> > essayer et obtenir les représentants civils de
> > société sur plus de délégations de gouvernement.
> > Il aiderait à savoir qui sur cette liste a été ou
> > sera à Tunis inclus dans la délégation de leur
> > gouvernement, ou commandité par leur
> > gouvernement, ou juste bien-relié à lui. Merci,
> > Frannie
> >
> >
> >
> > At 12:34 PM -0400 06.04.2004, Rik Panganiban wrote:
> > >4 Juin 2004 / 4 June 2004
> > >
> > >Chers Amis / Dear Friends,
> > >
> > >Ici c'est la nouvelle liste des representants
> > d'ONGs pour le juin Prepcom:
> > >
> > >Here is the updated list of NGO representatives
> > >who plan on being at the June WSIS prepcom:
> > >
> > >* Ezendu Ariwa e.ariwa at londonmet.ac.uk
> > >* Karen Banks, APC karenb at gn.apc.org
> > >* Amir Barmaki westasiaregion at hotmail.com
> > >* Djilali Benamrane  dbenamrane at yahoo.com
> > >* Ralf Bendrath, German Civil Society
> > >Coordination Group bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de
> > >* Renata Bloem, CONGO rbloem at ngocongo.org
> > >* Christoph Bruch, Humanistische Union,
> > c.bruch at gmx.de
> > >* Steve Buckley, AMARC steve at commedia.org.uk
> > >* Mavic Cabrera, ISIS International Manila
> > mavic at isiswomen.org
> > >* Andy Carvin, EDC   acarvin at edc.org
> > >* Bertrand de la Chapelle, WSIS-online.net
> > lachapelle at openwsis.org
> > >* Divina Frau-Meigs, IAMCR meigs at wanadoo.fr
> > >* Olga Drossou, German Civil Society
> > >Coordination Group / Heinrich-Boell Foundation
> > >Drossou at BOELL.DE
> > >* Gianluca Eramo, Transnational Radical Party
> > geramo at europarl.eu.int
> > >* Jane Johnson, UNA-Denmark    jane at una.dk
> > >* Esther Joly, AFNET et Ouvaton.coop
> > esther.joly at club-internet.fr
> > >* Hiroshi Kawamura, DAISY Consortium
> > hkawa at attglobal.net
> > >* Viola Krebs, International Conference Volunteers
> > viola at icvolunteers.org
> > >* Angelamaria Loreto, Ius Primi Viri (IPV)
> > >and the Centre on Human Evolution studies
> > >a.loreto at ceu.it
> > >* Francis F. Muguet, International Journal
> > >of Molecular Sciences  muguet at mdpi.org
> > >muguet at mdpi.net
> > >* Dorte Munch, UNA-Denmark  dorte at una.dk
> > >* Tracy Naughton, Media Caucus
> > t.naughton at iafrica.com
> > >* Adalbert Nouga, Village Suisse ONG
> > ong at worldcom.ch
> > >* Rik Panganiban, CONGO / WFM
> > rik.panganiban at ngocongo.org
> > >* Dr.Razzaghi
> > >* Saida, Coordinator Tunisian Civil Society
> > saida.SC at smsitunis2005.tn
> > >* Bruno Salgues, Institut National des
> > >Telecoms France Bruno.Salgues at int-evry.fr
> > >* Joseph Sarr, Président Commission NTIC,
> > >Conseil Régional de Dakar jsarr at refer.sn
> > >* Christine Wenzel, German Civil Society
> > >Coordination Group  christine.wenzel at web.de
> > >
> > >Note that the Civil Society Officer within the
> > >WSIS Secretariat is Mr. Moncef Achour, who can
> > >be reached at:
> >
>=== message truncated ===
>
>
>=====
>Djilali Benamrane : dbenamrane at yahoo.com
>Tél/Fax : (331) 01 45 39 77 02 Paris - France
>Page web sur l'Afrique et la globalisation :
>http://www.multimania.com/djilalibenamrane/
>Groupe de discussion: http://www.egroups.com/list/afriqueglobalization
>
>
>
>
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