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WCAR NGO Forum – Analysis from the organisational point of view(Procedures, Manipulations, Prejudices and
Misunderstandings) Preparatory process NGOs
were invited for the preparations of the WCAR and its NGO Forum since the 1st
PrepCom in May 2000 in Geneva. The first problems occurred already there: the
UNO (Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights) invited all anti-racist
NGOs of the world but neither reimbursed their travel costs nor contributed to
their accommodation cost in Geneva. By this, many NGOs were practically
prevented from attending - especially those from the 2nd and 3rd
world. From about 250 NGO delegates
present there were some 50 US-based ones but only two from the Central and
Eastern Europe (CEE). African NGOs were almost exclusively represented by
their people living and/or working in
Geneva. The
UN-NGO Liaison Unit suggested to set up an NGO steering committee to manage the
preparations on behalf of the NGOs (as was the case in Beijing 1995). This idea
was outright rejected by the present NGOs. There were much more conflicting
issues and mistrust among the NGOs than in the women’s or environmental
movements. Anti-racist and human-rights NGOs did not want to be managed or
steered. After a week of very tough and chaotic negotiations, a broad open
structure was set up. This structure consisted of a larger global political
decision-making body, the Co-ordinating Committee (CC). It has 63 seats
representing all regions and constituencies, and a small Facilitating Team (FT)
charged exclusively with technical tasks (therefore there was no need of
representativity), consisting of 12
persons. Because everyone was aware that it would not be legitimate to elect
the members of the two bodies, some posts were not filled and left open for those
(sub)regions not properly represented at that meeting in Geneva. The
other persons were elected in Geneva only ad interim. It was decided that all
regions should elect or appoint their proper delegates by the 1st
November 2000. No region did this in time. Europe was able to announce its
delegates on the 21st December whilst some other constituencies
elected only their representatives during the 2nd PrepCom in the end
of May 2001. This
was the key argument for the Liaison Office and SANGOCO (charged with the task
to form the Secretariat of the NGO Forum in January 2001) to refuse the whole
NGO structure as too big to communicate with and inflexible. They rejected the
idea of a big political body and insisted to transform the non-political
Facilitating Team into a political decision-making body, the NGO International
Steering Committee (ISC). They had a strong argument: funds were made available
for two meetings of the ISC only, there were no funds for the CC. Some NGOs
from the 3rd World rejected the whole structure – they did not
consider it legitimate because it was set up at the 1st PrepCom in
their (forced) absence. Of
course, all this meant that the ISC had to be set up from point zero because
now it became THE political body and thus different constituencies insisted to
be represented in it. The ISC membership increased to 20 while the only
criterion was to be the delegate of a region or constituency – no
organisational or political skills were required. The last seats in ISC were
filled at the 3rd PrepCom only (at the end of July – one month
before the start of the event!). Some members possessed organisational or
political skills, some members followed only the issues important for their
constituency. The only possibility left to keep the NGO structure broad and
open was to convene the Co-ordinating Committee by the two European members
of the ISC. At its first and last
meeting (on the 27th of July), the CC was renamed 'Joint
Co-ordinating Council' (JCC) but never reconvened, not even during the NGO Forum
in Durban where the majority of its members were present. The
same happened with the drafters who had already done an enormous task, compiling the declarations from all regional
NGO Forums during the preparatory process. Different constituencies insisted to
set up an official drafting committee consisting of delegates of all different
regions and constituencies. It was obvious that a big body would not be able to
work properly and that there were no funds foreseen for the work of such a
body. The whole drafting process started from zero and the European delegate
resigned. Another Drafting Committee of 8 persons was set up in August. Finally,
SANGOCO deprived the ISC of all
organisational competence when it took the role of Secretariat of the ISC – beside
the tasks of the Secretariat of the NGO Forum. Two European delegates (from
UNITED and ENAR) had a very difficult position in the ISC since they were its
only white members. Some other members were extremely sensitive to us – we could be sure that every word that might
have a double meaning was understood in its unwanted meaning and we were
accused of racism. There was a barrier of different organisational methods and
cultural habits. For example, I was making the minutes of all meetings since
May 2000. When the new ISC met for the first time I proposed continuing doing
so, despite the fact that my English was not perfect. Some delegates of SANGOCO
felt this proposal was a white supremacist move, as if I did not have
confidence in the ability of people of colour to do that job properly. So this
task was transferred to SANGOCO/Secretariat of the NGO Forum. The
main problem occurred when the Secretariat presented a Programme of the NGO
Forum to the ISC for approval. It was titled “Final Programme of the NGO Forum”
and the Secretariat told us that it had already been sent to the print shop,
that all chairpersons, rapporteurs and resource persons listed in it had
already been invited and their flight tickets had been paid for (with UN
funds)! The ISC noted that the mix of those “dignitaries” made by the
Secretariat was arbitrary and did not contain the most dedicated and respected
personalities of many groups targeted by racism and related intolerance. The
Draft NGO Declaration by the Secretariat was of a similar kind – it took a
one-sided position in some conflicts (Middle East) and some issues were
(Roma/Sinti) distorted or missing. Since
the delegates of SANGOCO and the Secretariat had already returned home, the ISC
sent two members to South Africa to negotiate on the programme, in order to
make room at least to those personalities known to be going to WCAR anyhow. The
ISC delegates negotiated for two days with all local organisers present managed
to come to a consensus on the programme, after which they went back to Geneva
to report to the ISC. The final programme was made and immediately (on 4th
of August) sent to the Secretariat by e-mail. Durban What
a surprise! The Secretariat printed out and distributed its “Final Programme”
version from July, not the one agreed upon together with ISC in the beginning
of August. This time we decided not to subsequently (ex-post) approve this
'ready-made reality' the ISC was presented with. The ISC rewrote the programme
overnight and distributed it the next morning with an apology to the
participants of the NGO Forum. This evoked a hysterical reaction from some of
the local organisers. One staff member distributed a pamphlet accusing the
whole "reactionary ISC" of undermining the common fight against
racism. At
the same time, the participants were facing a chaotic situation with their
accommodation, registration and repayment of scholarships. Instead of attending
meetings they came for, they were forced to wait in long queues. Despite all
that SANGOCO and the Secretariat did a huge amount of work and were quite
successful in a lot of matters. The main reason of the problems seemed to be
that they mixed up the organisational tasks they were charged with by the HCHR
Office with their own political ambitions. They didn't allow the ISC to take the political
decisions and when they did they often
did not respect those decisions. For
example, nobody consulted the ISC or even informed it in advance of the fact
that Fidel Castro was to speak for two hours at the final ceremony. This was a
political decision. Staff members pretended and demanded to be treated equally
as the elected representatives of the global NGO community. The consequence was
a series of organisational and political problems, since nobody would have been
able to successfully fulfil the organisational and political tasks even if they
were working for 25 hours a day. For the next (world) conference: since the UN also pays the organizing bureau, it
should set rules and regulations for the organizing bureau or structure, eg.
that it should not have any (political) agenda or just be a commercial bureau. The majority of ISC members defended the interests of their own constituency but were not eager to solve the conflicts of other groups. When it became obvious that the NGO community would not reach consensus on the Middle East issue, the ISC should have resigned to its political decision-making role. For example by doing the same as the governments finally did: either reach a consensus or delete the contradictory issues completely, with the result of having a document with some “holes” in it but respected by the whole NGO community and perhaps by governments too. Instead, the ISC came up with a “Solomon’s solution”: Let all victims describe their situation as they see it, in their own language, without interference from others, not even when describing their situation would insult other groups of victims. It is obvious that you cannot come to a coherent and balanced result by that method. Indeed,
even this most important principle was abandoned during the final plenary
session of the NGO Forum on the 1st of September: the Ecumenical
Caucus raised a motion to delete a paragraph from the text drafted by the
Thematic Commission on Anti-Semitism. That motion was carried in a shouting
crowd. In protest, the Jewish NGOs left the meeting without any attempt by the
South African chairperson to call them back and to have their voice heard. The
Roma Caucus then refused to speak and vote. When I (as the “watch-dog” for the
Rules of Procedure on behalf of ISC at that meeting) raised an objection as a
point of order. The chairperson has not put it to vote, influenced by the same
shouting crowd. Finally, he had not put the whole document to the final vote,
explicitly requested by the Rules of Procedure. The procedure was quite strange
because dozens of amendments to the draft were put to a vote and approved
without having been read or tabled at all. By
the way, the Secretariat together with some ISC member wrote and distributed to
the participants another set of the Rules of Procedure then the ones approved
immediately before that by the ISC. None of those were followed but for the
rule of 5 minutes’ speaking time per caucus. I
sought a remedy at the next ISC meeting on the 2nd September. The
ISC was in a position to decide on this point of order by undoing the illegal
change (the deletion of § 14 on Anti-Semitism). This would have not been a
purely procedural but a political decision so the ISC found another “Solomon’s
solution”. Instead of a judging that the Rules of Procedures had been breached
the ISC said that “for different reasons at that meeting, a different
process emerged which has not been foreseen but it does not necessarily mean a
violation of the Rules of Procedure. It considers the final NGO
documents as adopted by the final plenary session but agrees to accompany it
with a cover text explaining that the documents include the voice of victims
and therefore they may reflect contradictory opinions.” I warned that this decision would probably
cause great political damage to the whole document and movement. Despite
that, some ISC members (without having informed the others) and even
non-members entered the closed working session of the Drafting Committee and
demanded not only to delete or change the aforementioned cover text but also to
change the already adopted NGO document in the section on Anti-Semitism. After
some attempts at discussion, the Drafting Committee felt so much intimidated
that it left the workplace. The invaders then took the finalisation of the NGO
document in their own hands. The
Eastern and Central Europe NGO Caucus reacted on this development by distancing
itself from the whole NGO document containing hate language. Altogether 70 NGOs
(also from Western Europe and Northern America) signed that protest
declaration. The Secretary General of the WCAR, Ms. Mary Robinson, announced
that for the first time in the history of the UN summits, she would not be able
to commend the NGO document to the governments. The NGO Declaration and Programme of Action After
having spoken with many activists, I believe that it would not be wise to
refuse the whole document because of several paragraphs showing a clear
intolerance and disrespect to others (including to UN resolutions). Too many
groups of victims see their key issues (e.g. reparations for slave trade and
colonialism) included after long years of fight for this kind of recognition
(e.g. the Dalits). Refusing the Declaration would deepen the gaps in the
anti-racist movement. Neither
is it possible to accept the hate-mongers’
claims for respect of their language. It is not possible to change the document but it might be good to use its other parts (e.g. Education)
when the opportunity is there. The contradictory parts concerning the Middle
East cannot eventually be used in the conflict – its parties unfortunately use
much “stronger” arguments than words. The world has seen it immediately after
the WCAR. Respecting
the right of victims to be heard, I see the main problem in the language used
in the paragraphs 162, 418, 419, 424 and 425 of the NGO Declaration and
Programme of Action – sections Palestine and Palestinians: §
162: We declare Israel as a racist, apartheid state… Generally, one can speak about a racist or apartheid government or regime. To declare a state as a racist entity could mean (and many participants of the NGO Forum are sure that this is the purpose of the language used) that this entity has no right to exist. §
418: … call for the reinstitution of UN resolution
3379 determining the practices of Zionism as racist practices… This is a counterproductive demand for the whole anti-racist movement.§ 419: Call for the establishment of a war crimes tribunal to investigate and bring to justice those who may be guilty of war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing and the crime of Apartheid… Genocide and ethnic cleansing are terms of the international law. Whoever visited Auschwitz or Rwanda knows that this was incomparable with what is happening in Palestine (not denying the crimes committed by the Israeli government but their quantity is incomparable). Everyone should agree with placing this paragraph as general, not singling out Israel. § 424: …Call upon the international community to impose a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state as in the case of South Africa which means the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, … Practically the whole NGO community and many governments have recognised that blockades are not successful and that they cause suffering of ordinary people, not changing the minds of the governments. § 425: Condemnation of those
states who are supporting, aiding and abetting the Israeli Apartheid state and
its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity including ethnic
cleansing, acts of genocide. The same as to § 419. The
globalisation of capital has social and environmental consequences – all
anti-globalisation activists know that. Indeed, the NGO document speaks only
about the social ones (as a source of racism). The environmental impacts (e.g.
the refusal of the Kyoto protocol by the USA) are misinterpreted as isolated
“environmental racism” which in fact has very little to do with real racism.
This may divide us from our natural allies. Follow up
I
was afraid that the governments would not be able to produce a consented
declaration and programme of action. My most important dream (besides to
contribute to a consistent and balanced NGO document) was that a global network
of anti-racist and human-rights NGOs would be set up in Durban – after the
environmental NGOs had done so in Rio de Janeiro, social NGOs had done in
Copenhagen and women’s NGOs in Beijing. None of the networks has a
central secretariat as far as I know. The relations among those NGOs are not
ideal but they feel the necessity to discuss the global issues instead of
fighting each other. They fight for common goals while respecting the plurality
of the movements as well as the different ways and strategies of other NGOs in
order to achieve the common goals. Unfortunately,
this is not the case with the anti-racist NGOs. There was lots of mistrust and
disrespect from the first moment of the preparatory process. I strongly
believed that relations would improve during the NGO Forum when people would
come together, get to know each other and speak with each other. Instead, some
people came to win over “the others” or to push forward their particular cause.
In this atmosphere, no attempt to organize a broad discussion on the future of
the movement was made. Many ISC members got frustrated, seeing the fights and
worsening relations between people and groups during the NGO Forum. All
of us would probably agree that another conference (“Durban +5”) accompanied by
an NGO Forum is needed to strengthen and deepen the fight against the scourge
of racism as well as to fill the gaps between the governments and between the
NGOs. I already asked the Czech government to offer Prague as its venue. The
mandate of the ISC has expired. Nobody has been mandated to serve as a “central
committee” of the movement (if it still is a movement). We have a very
difficult task before us to build up mutual trust and respect among NGOs if we
want to create a global network during the preparatory process of the next
conference. To achieve this, we have to work on a regional basis. The regional
representations should communicate and co-operate with each other frequently.
Mutual support is very important while not imposing the Western culture or “US
democracy” on the other regions but rather listening to their concerns. If
the United Nations want to see such a movement they have to support it
financially not only from their budget but also by encouraging big donors to do
so. Instead of founding an official structure with a strong center and paid
staff which in this phase could hardly gain the trust of the whole movement, I
would advise to have the necessary tasks decentralized. This means that some
experienced NGO/network should keep the dissemination of information, another
should update the databases, another one should organise fund raising for the
necessary tasks, etc. There would be nobody entitled to speak on behalf of the
whole movement and no secretariat to speak in the name of non-existing or non-operational bodies. It
would be good to concentrate on the National Action Plans in between, i.e. to
lobby for their adoption by each and every government and for their
implementation in co-operation with NGOs. By doing that, we could improve our
positions in our societies as well as towards the governments and UNO. Prague, 22nd September 2001 Mirek Prokes, UNITED
for Intercultural Action |
