[E-rundbrief] Info 793 - WSF und WEF 2009 - Final messages

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 793 - WORLD SOCIAL FORUM 2009: Resolution and a Plan
of Action; Herman Dworczak: Bericht vom Abschluss des WSF 2009; WEF: 
Link to
the declaration issued by trade ministers

Bad Ischl, 5.2.2009

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www.begegnungszentrum.at

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WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Resolution and a Plan of Action

Alejandro Kirk

BELEM, Feb 2  (IPS)  - The World Social Forum ended its ninth edition
Sunday in Belém with its "Assembly of assemblies" adopting dozens of
resolutions and proposals to be the subjects of a programme of
mobilisations around the world in 2009.

The 21 thematic assemblies thus broke the apparent WSF taboo on taking
common political stands under pressure from thousands of civil society
groups anxious to seize the opportunity opened by the global economic
crisis to progressive change.

A week of demonstrations and awareness raising will take place between
Mar. 28 and Apr. 4 to press for drastic change in the world's political
balance and urgent measures to stop climate change.

Key target of this initiative is the G-20 summit of industrial countries
scheduled for Apr. 2 in London, taking place in the midst of the
deepening global economic crisis.

G-20 members Argentina and Brazil, both led by progressive governments,
are expected to voice WSF demands such as the disbanding or deep reform
of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization.

March 30, the Palestinian Day of Return to their land, is another
important mark in the program, aimed at imposing a trade boycott,
international sanctions and disinvestment policies, to force Israel to
stop military assaults against Gaza and engage in true peace
negotiations.

Under a light rain on a soaked lawn at Belém's vast Federal Amazonian
Rural University campus, a spokesman of the WSF's Assembly of Social
Movements itemised some of the wider programmatic contents of the
mobilization:

- Nationalisation of banks;

- No reduction of salaries at enterprises hit by the crisis;

- Energy and food sovereignty for the poor;

- Withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq and Afghanistan;

- Sovereignty and autonomy for indigenous peoples;

- Right to land, decent work, education and health for all;

- Democratisation of media and knowledge

On Oct. 12, anniversary of the day on which Spanish conquerors reached
the Americas, another worldwide set of actions will honoor "Mother
Earth" and vindicate the rights of indigenous peoples around the world.

This is the closest the WSF has yet come to becoming a global political
force, a dilemma it has faced since its inception in the city of Porto
Alegre, in southern Brazil, in January 2001 as a counterpoint to the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Foreign correspondents and local media have underlined the sharp
contrast between the vibrant atmosphere in Belém and the somber faces of
corporate bosses and Western leaders in Davos, where Britain's Prime
Minister Gordon Brown went so far as to admit the crisis has no
precedent nor any reliable forecast.

The conservative newspaper Folha de São Paulo, in Brazil's financial
capital, observed Sunday that while the planet might not become the
"extravagant" other world dreamt of in Belém, neither will it remain the
current one, "so many times optimistically celebrated by Davos."

"As economic ultra-liberalism and current international decision-making
mechanisms are both being questioned. Issues so diverse as environmental
imbalances, terrorism, drug-trafficking or ethnic and religious regional
conflicts overwhelm the intervention capacity of one single power or the
exclusive club of most developed countries," says Folha's editorial.

Candido Grzybowsky, head of iBase, a Brazilian NGO, and a key WSF
player, has insisted that on the one hand the crisis has proven -as
tacitly admitted by Western governments- that the many warnings issued
by social movements over the years were right.

Yet, he warned this week in Belém, while this crisis represents a
historical opportunity to democratise states, economies and the
international scene, if not seized it may lead to a capitalist recovery
"even worse" than the fundamentalist paradigm now in pieces.

While exposing different approaches to achieving social justice,
equality and people's participation, the presidents of Bolivia, Brazil,
Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela, meeting in Belém, shared this week the
same persuasion: the crisis must lead to a different global set-up.

Brazil's Luiz Inácio da Silva Lula put the accent on protecting working
people through regulation and promoting heavy state economic investment,
a statement the IMF would have reacted to with threats not long ago.

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, an economist, was bolder: the answer
to the crisis is socialism, he said, through people's control of
political social and economic bodies, backed by a state committed to
become a decentralized channel for democratic participation.

Hugo Chávez, of Venezuela, called for the WSF to go on the offensive now
that the centers of capitalist power seemed to be perplexed and
disoriented.

To organizers, the ninth World Social Forum was both a political and
organizational success.

At a closing press conference on Feb. 1, Grzybowsky told a press
conference that 115,000 people took part, representing social movements,
NGOs or attending as individuals. On top of that, the Youth Camp
received 15,000 youngsters, plus 3,000 children and teenagers. In total,
133,000 people participated, coming from 142 countries, although Brazil
was by far the best represented.

The Amazon basin was an important issue at the ninth WSF; the Forum was
attended by 1,900 indigenous people of 190 ethnic groups and tribes,
plus 1,400 "quilombolas" (descendants of runaway slaves).

Participant organisations numbered 5,808, of which 4,193 from South
America, 489 from Africa, 491 from Europe, 334 from Central America,
155 from North America and 27 from Australia and New Zealand,
Grzybowsky said.

The Brazilian state of Pará, an active supporter of the Forum, invested
11 million dollars in infrastructure (roads, communications and
sanitation), which will now benefit the community, in particular the
slums surrounding the university campuses, spokeswoman Ana Claudia
Cardoso said.

Despite having been dismissed many times by the media as a fading left-
wing carnival of wild dreams, sex and marijuana, with no political
teeth, the WSF seems to be alive and well. Its "teeth" may be the
strength gained just by being together, or, in the words of Friar Betto,
a Brazilian theologian, by "refuelling" for the year ahead.

It has been said that the next WSF will take place in Africa, two years
from now. By then, it is likely that present uncertainties, hopes and
goals will have taken shape for better or for worse.
(END/IPS/LA/WD/HD/IP/IN/CS/WF/II/AK/TG/09)

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----------------------------------------

Bericht vom Abschluss des WSF 2009

Herman Dworczak

2.2.2009

Das Weltsozialforum im brasilianischen Belem im Amazonasdelta, an dem
ueber 130 000 Personen teilnahmen, endete gestern Sonntag mit einem
starken inhaltlichen Paukenschlag . Auf der "assamblea der assambleas"
wurde eine Abschlusserklaerung verabschiedet, die frontal den kriselnden
Kapitalismus attackiert und sarkastisch festhaelt: " Wir sind nicht
bereit fuer die Krise zu bezahlen, die Reichen sollen selbst dafuer
blechen".

Die Krise wird nicht eindimensional oekonomisch definiert: sie umspannt
die nach dem Profitprinzip funktionierende Wirtschaft, erfasst
saemtliche sozialen Beriche, untergraebt die Oeko-Basis, fuehrt zum
Untergang der indigenen Voelker. Diese " Krise der gesamten
Zivilisation" soll gemeinsam und solidarisch ueberwunden werden.

Und viel bestimmter als auf bisherigen Sozialforen wird auf konkrete
Aktionen gedraengt, um diesen Wandel auch in Angriff zu nehmen. Im
Zentrum der praktischen Schritte   fuer dieses Jahr steht eine " globale
Aktionswoche vom 28.Maerz bis zum 4.April ". In ihr werden weltweit die
inhaltlichen Straenge " Mobilisierung gegen die kapitalistische Krise ",
" Solidaritaet mit Palaestina " und " Anti-NATO " zusammengefuehrt.

Im Anschluss an die " assamblea der assambleas ' trafen sich die
oesterreichischen TeilnehmerInnen auf dem Weltsozialforum im Hotel
Sagres im Barrio Rio Braz, um insbesonders darueber zu beraten, was nun
in der Alpenrepublik gemacht werden koennte . Einhellig war die Meinung
, sich in die internationale Aktionswoche einzuklinken und fuer Samstag
den 28.Maerz- moeglichst bundesweit- zu mobilisieren.

Mit herzlichen und solidarischen Gruessen aus Belem

Herman Dworczak

(Aktivist im Austrian Social Forum/ ASF;0043/ 676 / 972 31 10 )

---------------------------------------

Link to the declaration issued by trade ministers meeting at WEF in
Davos, Jan 30, 2009:

http://www.news-service.admin.ch/NSBSubscriber/message/attachments/14786.pdf


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