[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: Communiqué de Presse de la Société Civile

[djilali benamrane]

In French bellow,
I totally aggree with Ralf comments.
I have not yet red the Press release (is it available
in French ?) but i am not so fare surprised by such a
practice.
It seems that some person do more that what is
relevant. Acting under urgency and pression do not
mean  saying not relevant things on behalf of the
Civile Society !.
Already in Geneva Summit (december 2003), we was
unhappy with this "wood and soft lunguage" of our
"porte parole" : """Many thanks for the government
suiss who hosted the summit, """many thanks for the
availability of our partners, ""many thanks for the
facilities, for smiles and for whatever !
In Prepcom-2, our paper in 10 points as well as in our
discussions with CS Caucuses and WGs underlined that
we was not so happy with the process and the result of
the Prepcom-2....  How the UNTFFM did with CS
designating itself CS representatives is simply
inacceptable and must be clarified for the future...
if the CIVILE SOCIETY official representative think
that we have to feel happy with, ok! we take note and
let's deal differently from now to Tunis.
All the best

Juste un coup de guelle, pour dire bravo à Ralf dont
je partage les commentaires sur le contenu du point de
presse diffusé au nom de la société civile.
Pour notre part, nous n'avons pas arrêté de clamer
notre insatisfaction, maintenant si la représentation
de la SOCIETE CIVILE comme c'est son habitude doit
toujours manifesté sa profonde reconnaissance et sa
satisfaction pour tout et pour rien, il faut faire
avec et s'adapter d'ici Tunis et au-delà.
A bientôt 
--- Ralf Bendrath <bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I am also not happy about the press release, neither
> on the content nor on 
> the procedural side.
> 
> Renata Bloem schrieb:
> > This was not a statement of CONGO.
> But CONGO wrote it, refined it and sent it out,
> without any consultation 
> with the plenary or whomever. Right? Given the fact
> that the final Content 
> & Themes meeting where we collected points for Adina
> to include was on 
> Friday evening, and the press release only was
> published on Wednesday, 
> there would have been enough time to send out a
> first draft for further 
> confirmation. That's how we did it before, like at
> PrepCom3a when I wrote 
> the final CS press statement.
> 
>  > In fact we have not submitted a single sentence
> to it.
> But who wrote it then? The press release does not at
> all reflect the 
> general discussion we had on the state of the
> process etc.
> 
>   "Despite some concerns about WSIS “losing its
> vision” and “moving away
>   from the Geneva Declaration track”, civil society
> entities were
>   generally satisfied with the response by
> governments to their efforts in
>   making the peoples’ voices heard in “bridging the
> digital divide”."
> 
> Here I fully agree with Jean-Louis: We (any
> especially the folks who 
> worked hard on financing issues at the Prepcom) are
> certainly not 
> "satisfied with the response by governments". Quite
> the opposite.
> 
> > Adina was asked to make an amalgam of the
> submissions she had received. 
> > and in order 
> > to avoid any misunderstanding / possible conflicts
> she decided not to 
> > refer to any specific entity / group / caucus, but
> to use more a general 
> > language 
> That is fine, as long as the submissions are still
> somewhere incorporated.
> 
> BUT: I find no single sentence on Human Rights here,
> though the Human 
> Rights Caucus had sumbitted language. Nothing on the
> lack of a Human 
> Rights focus in the summit drafts, nothing on
> Tunisia as the host country, 
> nothing on accreditation problems of NGOs like Human
> Rights in China. But 
> then it mentions accreditation problems in WIPO.
> Why?
> 
> And most of the press release is applauding the
> improvements in the 
> multi-stakeholder process. But were there really
> any? We had our usual 15 
> minutes a day like we had two years ago. On the last
> day we did not even 
> get these. The improvement is only on the substance
> side: They listen to 
> us, because they either have no clue and need our
> input, or they have 
> learned to take us serious. So, if we want to
> applaud anybody for the 
> bigger impact we might have had during this PrepCom,
> it should be 
> ourselves. BTW: Empirical research done on WSIS
> phase one suggests that CS 
> impact is bigger in the early stages and gets
> smaller and smaller towards 
> the end, when all that counts is the government's
> agreement.
> 
> So, to me, this press release looks like somebody
> (if not CONGO, then who 
> else?) wants to play extremely nice and by doing
> this is silencing all 
> more outspoken and critical voices in civil society.
> Fine with me if some 
> groups want to do this, but then they can't claim to
> speak for all civil 
> society.
> 
> I totally agree with Renata: We are lacking a clear
> press structure and 
> really should work on it for PrepCom3.
> 
> But while we don't have an agreed structure, things
> like these have to be 
> done the most careful and inclusive way. And that
> normally includes a 
> feedback loop on the plenary list, even more if
> there are a few days of 
> time. Otherwise, we get a PR disaster like this and
> enlarge the divides 
> between different groups of civil society in the
> WSIS.
> 
> Ralf
> _______________________________________________
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> 

Djilali Benamrane : dbenamrane at yahoo.com
Tel/fax : (227) 75 35 09 BP 11207 - Niamey - Niger
Tél/Fax : (331) 01 45 39 77 02 Paris - France
Page web sur le SMSI (mecanismes de financement) : en cours de construction 
Page web sur l'Afrique et la globalisation : http://www.multimania.com/djilalibenamrane/
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