 Tuesday, July 31 - second day'Seems like some people are trying to repeat the worst mistakes of the previous WCARs'
|
EditorialThe heat or maybe the nearly full moon seems to be getting to people. Today showed that some tensions which have been there for a while are breaking loose. In that way the PrepCom is a forbode of what's waiting for us in Durban. No blood was shed but some bitter words were spoken. 'Better words then bullets' is foremost on my mind but that is rather cynical since some of the words are because of bullets, and bombs, and stones and all the other things with which we weird human beings hurt and kill each other. The issue I'm talking about is 'sort of' solved, but still very much present. We are NGOs but we are not free from prejudices, which is sad but unavoidable. No, no positive note for today, I'm afraid. Videobite of the day:
click here to play the RealVideo file. If you don´t have RealPlayer: Today´s happeningsThe NGO briefing started at 9 this morning and mainly dealt with logistics. Accomodation in Durban, transport, etcetera. 355 scholarships have been distributed within the regions and the regional coordinating committees have been selecting the lucky organisations who will get them. This point was also stressed because Sangoco has been inundated by questions about the scholarships. They are not involved in the process of distributing them. For all questions about scholarships, go to your regional coordinating committee. Sangoco uges all participants in the Youth Summit (26 & 27 August in Durban) to confirm thier participation because it is to be held in the Hotel Elangeni Crown Plaza and this venue has a capacity of 400 people. ISC Meeting - morning session This morning the ISC held another meeting. To the amazement of all present Sangoco announced that the last NGO draft declaration and Program of action(POA) had been sent for translation and to the printer already. A heated debate followed in which some ISC members stated that they could not take responsibility for a draft like that since it had been written mainly by Sangoco and a number of caucuses (Caste caucus, Roma & Sinti caucus, Jewish Caucus, Indegenous Caucus) were not satisfied with the way their contributions were either omitted or incorporated in a way with which they could not agree. Sangoco stated that they had asked for members for a drafting committee for weeks now and that they did not get a real response on that, so since time is running out, they decided to produce the draft themselves. Some ISC members said they thought that this was more a Sangoco document than a NGO declaration and that the regional coordinating committees, caucuses and NGOs would not want to put their names to this. Some ISC members even wondered if they should stay on if this was the way the democratic process was going. It was decided to stop the draft from going to the printer and it was proposed to let ISC members sit in subcommitees whcih would have to, if needed, work day and night to make some changes, not to incorporate any additions |
that are missing from the Draft and the POA, but to change fundamental issues and wordings so everybody could be satisfied. This proposal was not received favorably by a number of members and it was decided to talk about this again in the afternoon meeting. By the way, the Latest NGO Draft Declaration and Program of action should be online by now on the WCAR NGO forum website but we are offering it for download here too. (latest version per 31-7-2001.) The latesT version of the Draft NGO Program of action you can find here.
 ISC Meeting - afternoon session During the afternoon session first the matter of the commissions during the NGO Forum was discussed. Since there are only limited translation facilities during the NGO Forum several proposals were made to merge subjects, like education with media, occupied territories with colonialism and Antisemitism with Religious Intolerance. That last one created some upheaval. Shimon Samuels, who represents the Jewish caucus, did not agree with this but could not speak since he was present only as an observer. He is alternate for another ISC member but the rule is that alternates can only speak when the main representative is not there. Funny enough, the main representative did not come to the aid of Samuels. Instead Delia Grigore of the Roma / Sinti / Travellers Caucus did. As an ISC member already said today in the corridors, 'solidarity is as solidarity does'. Delia pleaded for not merging the issues Antisemitism and Religious Intolerance because these are two fundamentally different things. Furthermore, she stated that since all groups like the Dalits, Palestinians, Indigenous People etc. have their own commission so the Jewish people should have equal rights. The chair of the ISC suggested to give Shimon Samuels the floor to hear his advice on that but this developed into a bit of a chaotic situation, it was unclear if the other ISC members agreed with that. Some observers were calling out that this was a shame
and some unseemly remarks were being made. Right at that point the second group to occupy the meeting room came in so the ISC meeting broke up to reconvene in another meeting room, which was in fact an excellent opportunity to 'cool down' a bit.
After the re-start it was decided that Shimon Samuels could speak after all since other non-ISC members had been speaking on several occasions allready, to clarify on specific topics. Samuels stated that he was dissapointed and sad because of the way things were going with the Palestinian and Antisemitism issues. If this was a taste of what could expected in Durban, that would not be good. Furthermore he stated that he would never deny that the Palestinians had rights
and a cause, but that Israël versus the Palestinians had nothing to do whatsoever with Antisemitism. He repeated Delia's plea for not merging the abovementioned subjects. Finally, this proposition was passed. After this ISC members were assigned with the responsibility for the different commissions. On the governmental side... Work on both documents (Declaration and Program of Action) is continuing. The pace is very low. Reports from NGO representatives that are following the delibarations closely will be published tomorrow. |
Quotes of the day:
If you can deal with those west-europeans you can deal with anybody. |
|
Contributions by others:
That's it for today! If you want to submit an article please send it to info@icare.to or hand it to us in person on a disc (If you are here in Geneva, of course). If you need a disc to write your article on, we can provide one for you. We can't accept articles on paper, we simply don't have the time to copy that :-).
Stay informed!You might also consider subscribing to the un-discussion list, a mailing list on which nearly 700 NGOs and individuals worldwide talk about the World Conference and the preparatory process. To subscribe, send e-mail to info@icare.to with in the subject ´subscribe un-discussion´. |