[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: update on CS emergency plenary

[Robert Guerra]

Ralf:

I agree with your statements 100%

Just like governments, i would encourage the creation of a "like 
minded" civil society group - which is inclusive as possible, 
respects diversity and who's members agree to certain generally 
agreed upon rules of procedure.

Would neutral space of the Goethe institue in Tunisia help for 
subsequent meetings?

regards

Robert

At 4:10 PM +0200 6/25/04, Ralf Bendrath wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>and thanks a lot, Andy, for updating everybody out there on this.
>
>>  In the end, it appeared to be decided that there would be one speaker, a
>>  woman from Africa,  who would leave out the language singling out Tunisia.
>There was no consensus on it. I got no answer to my question why Tunisia
>is not considered an African country, and the Human Rights Caucus
>definitely did not agree on censoring the language on Tunisia.
>
>>  But the question still remains open; when civil society representatives
>>  spoke during the late morning plenary, just before lunch, the human rights
>>  caucus did not present their remarks, because it was clear that no
>>  democratic consensus had been reached on the issue.
>
>>  They will continue the
>>  debate later today, and hopefully strike some kind of agreement so they may
>>  present first thing tomorrow morning during the plenary session.
>We have to seriously think about how to deal with these agents
>provocateurs. Everything was done according to procedures we had during
>WSIS phase one, and the statement was actually not bashing Tunisia, but
>encouraging the true implementation of human rights in all countries
>including Tunisia. (We hope to be able to send out the statement later
>today and also get an English translation.)
>The Tunisians messed up the whole thing, and the chair was obviously not
>capable of moderating in a sufficient manner.
>
>This is really serious.
>If you look at the outcome, the Tunisian close-to-government "NGOs" got
>what they wanted: There was no public civil society statement on human
>rights, and the woman from the Tunisian Human Rights League could not
>speak.
>Keeping in mind that the PrepCom venue looks more like a Las Vegas
>spaceship that landed here in the middle of nowhere than it looks like
>Tunisia, it seems that Tunisia just does not exist in this summit
>process.
>A number of like minded civil society groups are currently discussing to
>form their own structures to make sure that they can speak about all
>issues that are important to them. If we (or rather the Tunisian NGOs
>close to the government) go on like this, we will have a de facto
>censorship. Many of us are not sure anymore if it makes sense to deal
>with everybody, even if it is clear that there are fundamental
>differences on important issues.
>
>Ralf
>
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Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org>
Privaterra - <http://www.privaterra.org>