Report on World Social Forum 2 of Porto Alegre, Brazil:
1)
The World Social Forum of Porto Alegre: "Thousands of Participants,
But Who Is The Enemy?" -- by JULIO TURRA
2)
The Participatory Budget: "Integration into the State Machinery"
-- by ALAN BENJAMIN
3)
A Look at Some of the French Delegates to Porto Alegre 2 -- by
DOMINIQUE FERRE
4)
Hebe de Bonafini, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Speaks Out on WSF 2:
"All we were supposed to talk about was 'putting a human face' on
globalization"
5) Who Pays
the Piper Calls the Tune
**********
1) The World Social Forum of Porto Alegre: "Thousands of
Participants, But Who Is The Enemy?"
By JULIO TURRA
[Note: Julio Turrua is a member of the National Executive
Committee Committee of the United Trade Union Confederation of Brazil
(CUT).]
According to its organizers, more than 50,000 people participated in the
Second World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on January 31
to February 5, 2002. Intellectuals, government ministers, members of
parliament, militants and activists of various movements circulated
within stands filled with editors, NGOs, mayors, state governors,
parties and movements. Among them there were many young people and close
to 2,500 trade unionists.
In the festive climate, people lost themselves among the dozens of
simultaneous presentations, mixed with shows and cultural activities.
On February 1, the CUT held a plenary assembly to discuss the National
Strike it has called for March 21 against the approval by the Congress
of PL 5.483, the so-called "Dornelles Law." [If passed, this
law would revise the country's Labor Code, gutting all industrywide
master collective-bargaining agreements --ed.] At the last minute the
Gigantinho Stadium was not made available to them by the WSF
coordinators, forcing the CUT to hold the plenary under open sky. Close
to 2,000 unionists participated in the plenary, which, however, passed
almost unnoticed among the innumerable activities.
The invasion and robbery that occurred in the national headquarters of
the CUT on February 2 prompted another public activity on Sunday,
February 3, in which unionists from various countries expressed their
solidarity and added their voices to the CUT's demand for an
investigation into those responsible for the attack.
Repercussions of the Open Letter
During these activities of the CUT, an Open Letter was distributed
widely, titled "Is it possible to give a human face to
globalization and war?" Signed by 26 union leaders, it criticized
the World Social Forum and the politics of "civil society"
that are its trademark. [See text of Open Letter in Nov-Dec. 2001 issue
of The Organizer.]
After reading the letter, various trade unionists sought out those who
were distributing it to express their agreement: "Of the hundreds
of pamphlets I received, I thought this one was the most coherent,"
said one union member. Another asked for copies to discuss it with other
union members, saying: "I came here to see how it was and I think
you are right. There are thousands participating, but in the end, who
will decide?"
The Open Letter was also distributed at a rally held in solidarity with
Argentine workers on February 2, and at a march on the February 4
against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The magazine Carta Capital mentioned the Open Letter in an article on
February 6 about the simultaneous Forums in Porto Alegre and New York
(the World Economic, or Davos, Forum) under the title, "Something
in Common." It stated: "The manifesto of the dissident
CUTistas (CUT members) has some truth to it when it reminds us that more
than 70% of the projects approved by the World Bank in the last year
involved Non-Governmental Organizations and civil society. ... They
[that is, the "masters of the world" -- J.T.] very much need
the trade unions, NGOs and movements that are recognized by the people
with whom they work, and that speak their language, share their values
and, in some manner, are capable of representing them."
Complementary Forums
In the same article of Carta Capital, readers were informed that the
businesspeople and governments that met in New York at the World
Economic Forum also addressed the theme of "Reducing poverty and
improving equality" -- one of the issues taken up in various
activities of the WSF in Porto Alegre.
The "Global Unionist Group" -- which was constituted by the
ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions), the ETUC
(European Trade Union Confederation), the CMT (Catholic International
Center for Work), the International Professional Secretariats and the
TUAC, distributed a declaration saying: "The world cannot be
clearly divided into those who are in favor of globalization and those
who are not. ... We will put pressure on the World Economic Forum so
that it will examine the need to globalize social justice. At the same
time, within the WSF we will contribute to the elaboration of
constructive strategies to democratize globalization for the benefit of
the workers."
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Koffi Anan, had his message
read to both forums, insisting that all should share the common concern
of promoting "sustainable development."
Meanwhile, at the closing of the "A World Without War is
Possible" conference, a document was read whose conclusion promoted
the need for an international institution to act as a mediator of
"peaceful solutions" to the conflicts existing on the planet.
The document addedthat such an institution could be the UN itself, once
it had been "democratized."
All these elements combined demonstrate that a bridge was built between
Porto Alegre and Davos/New York, in the name of "globalization with
a human face."
The Rio Grande do Sul newspaper Zero Hora, in an editorial on
February 4, took note of the fact that a "notable conceptual
advance" had taken place at this Second World Social Forum,
stating, "Globalization stopped being a satanic enemy, condemned in
an uncompromising and irrational manner. ... And the globalization that
is to be conquered also gained an adjective: ethical
globalization." This definition, the newspaper reminds us, was
provided by the High Commissioner of Human Rights for the UN, the
ex-president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, who was also present in Porto
Alegre.
Who is the enemy we should fight?
The general tone of the speeches presented by the main figures at
the closing session of the Porto Alegre forum was that, "Finally,
our voices are being heard in New York" -- "We won a space at
the world table" -- "This forum was larger and more purposeful
than the last one."
A final declaration of the World Social Forum, decided on by the small
organizing group, was distributed at the end of the event. It denounced
"neoliberalism, militarism and war."
But, in the end, who is the enemy that we are to fight, who is
responsible for the terrible situation in the world? According to the
WSF declaration, it is the "system based on patriarchy, racism and
violence, that privileges the interests of capital over the needs and
hopes of the people." Rightly understood then, the enemy is not the
system based on the private ownership of the majority of the means of
production (which is not even mentioned) and upon which all the
privileges of capital are based.
In 2003, Porto Alegre will again be the location of the WSF -- again on
the very same dates as the World Economic Forum. The question mentioned
above, raised by the CUTistas in their Open Letter, continues to be
valid: Is it possible to give a human face to globalization and war?
**********
2) The Participatory Budget: 'Integration into the State
Machinery'
By ALAN BENJAMIN
On March 11, The Nation magazine ran a cover story by Marc
Cooper on the Porto Alegre 2 World Social Forum (WSF) titled "From
Protest to Politics." To demonstrate why he feels this WSF can
serve as an example for how to fight back against the global corporate
agenda, Cooper refers repeatedly to the experience of the Workers
Party-led municipality of Porto Alegre and its 13-year efforts to
"democratize the budget."
According to Cooper, the Workers Party administration in Porto Alegre
"is a party that is fully committed to the same principles of
global justice that defined the WSF."
But does this "participatory budget" really represent such
principles, as Cooper and so many others claim? Does it point in the
direction of a fightback against the policies of Global Capitalism? Is
it a step -- as small as it may be -- in the direction of "another
world" ... of a new society?
Or, rather, is it a means to coopt the unions and activists into
implementing the austerity of the "old order"?
In our November-December 2001 issue of The Organizer, we
devoted considerable space to demonstrate the pernicious character of
this so-called "participatory budget." Based on facts and
figures, as well as testimony from unionists and activists in Porto
Alegre, we exposed the 13-year history of the "participatory
budget" and revealed why it is being hailed and used as an example
the world over by the World Bank and the other institutions of
international finance capital.
An interview published recently in O Trabalho newspaper with a
former councilor of the Participatory Budget in the State of Rio Grande
do Sul (whose capital city is Porto Alegre) bolsters our critique of
this process of "participatory austerity."
Otto Weremchuk, who for one year was a Councilor of the Participatory
Budget, contends that "[t]he Participatory Budget is a means to
integrate the leaders of the popular movements into the state
machinery." Weremchuk is currently a member of the Executive
Committee of the PT in his municipality, where he works for CORSAN, the
state garbage collection company.
A horrowing tale
Weremchuk's tale is harrowing. He was elected to the Participatory
Budget Council in his city of Guaiba (in the greater metropolitan region
of Porto Alegre) because he wanted to bring a healthcare clinic to the
50,000 people in his district of Cohab. "We had to do
something," Weremchuk said. "The situation was
catastrophic."
Then followed one year of perpetual Participatory Budget Council
meetings at three different levels: his district, his region and his
entire state. The meetings were continuous and interminable. "It
did not take me long to realize that this was a way to wear down the
delegates and pit them against their own constituencies," Weremchuk
stated.
And the Council meetings were anything but "participatory." It
was more like we "participate," they decide. At all levels,
Weremchuk continued, "the meetings were tightly controlled by a
handful of elected officials. Sť Their main objective was to explain
the 'difficult choices' they had to make as members of the government.
Our meetings, basically, became briefing sessions for the elected
officials."
What budget monies were really under the responsibility of the
Participatory Budget councils, and where do these monies come from?
Weremchuk responded: "Some of the monies are apportioned by the
state and city budgets. But the sums are actually much smaller than we
initially thought, because so much of the money is siphoned off to pay
back the foreign debt." [Ed. Note: In the case of the city
of Porto Alegre, only 17% of the city budget is available for the
Participatory Budget.]
And, gradually, Weremchuk's own illusions in this process began to
dissipate. "At the beginning, participation was spontaneous,"
Weremchuk stated. "There was great expectation that things would
change and longstanding demands would be met under the administration of
the Workers Party. Then more and more people began to realize that this
Participatory Budget process simply opened the door to all forms of
manipulation -- and, in fact, had other aims. The goal was to get us to
accept the budget decisions made by others -- all in the guise that we
had actually participated in these decisions, when this was not the
case."
"Time to leave the charade"
Finally, Weremchuk quit the Participatory Budget councils. "All
the working people in Cohab who had clamored for a healthcare center
felt extremely frustrated by this entire process," he stated.
"I had told them to be patient, that the Participatory Budget would
work -- but nothing ever came of it. It was April 2000 when I decided it
was time for me to leave this Participatory Budget charade."
Weremchuk continued, "The more time went on and nothing was being
done to help us set up our healthcare center -- even though the
sentiment of the people in Cohab for such a center was greater than ever
-- I simply felt crushed. I felt I could be more effective if I
mobilized people independently in the streets for our healthcare
center."
And Weremchuk concluded:
"The leaders of the popular organizations have come to the
conclusion that the Participatory Budget is not a solution. In fact, the
Participatory Budget process is essentially aimed at integrating these
leaders into the machinery of state. It's aimed at destroying these
leaders.
"So we in Cohab have decided to go back to organizing the
community, through neighborhood meetings and mobilizations in the
streets, to demand our healthcare center.
"We have learned from this experience that without an organized and
independent struggle, we will get nowhere!"
**********
3) A Look at Some of the French Delegates to Porto Alegre 2
By DOMINIQUE FERRE
[Note: The following has been abridged from the February 12,
2002 issue of Informations Ouvrieres, the newsweekly of the
French Workers Party.]
Workers and activists, as they evaluate this or that initiative dealing
with the issue of "globalization," will legitimately ask: Does
the actionor event point toward a solution that can help free working
people from the misery, exploitation and oppression they face day in and
day out?
A look at some of the French delegates to Porto Alegre's Second World
Social Forum will help make it clear why this WSF was not such an event.
Among the delegates was a high-level government delegation dispatched by
French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin that
included six government ministers [equivalent to Secretaries of
government Departments in the United States -- ed.] and four top
presidential aides. Also part of the delegation was the mayor of Paris,
three French presidential election candidates, and the general secretary
of the center-right wing RPR political party.
At WSF 2, a lot was said about the foreign debt of the Third World
countries -- a debt which most recently has strangled countries such as
Argentina. Charles Josselin, Minister of Cooperation of France, is the
man directly responsible for dealing with the foreign debt of the
African countries -- in particular that of the former French colonies.
This is a debt, as the readers of Informations Ouvrieres have
learned over the years, whose yearly interest payments -- often
representing 60% or more of constantly shrinking national budgets -- are
literally annihilating entire peoples on the African continent.
Did Mr. Josselin propose that France cancel the debt of the African
countries, currently facing conditions of literal genocide? Not at all.
Josselin, like so many others in Porto Alegre, gave a long-winded speech
about the ills of "neo-liberal globalization." But in the end
he limited himself to proposing the establishment of a tripartite
commission between the French government, the French ambassadors in the
African countries, and representatives of "civil society" to
discuss the matter further.
Marie-Noelle Lienemann, French Minister of Housing, visited many of the
favelas -- or shantytowns -- during her stay in Brazil and had some very
harsh words to say about "liberal globalization." She talked
about the need to regulate the global economy.
But in the meantime, in France, her government has just passed a new law
on housing, the Loi Gayssot, which, according to the text released in
the January 30 issue of the Journal Officiel, represents a major retreat
in all aspects of French housing legislation -- to the point where some
of its basic provisions run counter to the official Housing Code.
French Minister of Education Jack Lang, was not able to be present in
Porto Alegre. But he sent a statement of "profound sympathy and
fraternal solidarity" to the WSF 2 in which denounced the
"increasing danger of having public education come under pressures
of market laws, of the laws of unrestrained liberalism."
Yet today in France, Minister Lang is leading the charge to cut back
public funds for public education. He is opening the door to the
privatizers. In fact, he is directly responsible for sending hundreds of
thousands of high school students to work, free of charge, in factories
and offices across France, all in the name of "technical
formation" -- when in fact this free labor, with virtually no job
training, is being used by the bosses to reduce their labor costs and to
lay off the parents of the very kids in these "apprenticeship"
programs.
So the question is posed: Can any one really take seriously those who,
in forums such as WSF 2, claim to oppose globalization, privatization,
deregulation, war, and the debt that is strangling the oppressed people
of the world -- while in their own country they are directly responsible
for implementing those very same destructive policies?
Daniel Gluckstein, presidential candidate of the French Workers Party,
put it best in a recent interview with France Info Radio when he stated:
"When I hear that four Ministers in the Jospin government and four
leading aides to Jacques Chirac, along with all the representatives of
the traditional parties in France, will be in Porto Alegre to speak
about 'participatory democracy,' I can only think this is a smokescreen
to cover up the fact that they are carrying out the most brutal assault
on democracy in their own country.
"French working people have been mobilizing in increasing numbers
to demand that the government of Chirac-Jospin put a halt to all the job
layoffs. They have called on the government to stop all the
privatization and deregulation measures that are having such a
devastating effect across France. And the government, at every moment,
has refused to carry out the will of the people and meet these
legitimate demands.
"So here we have all these fine government Ministers going off to
Porto Alegre, where they are heralded by everyone as the new converts to
internationalism and opposition to globalization. What a charade! True
internationalism begins by putting a halt to layoffs and cutbacks in
your own country and then working to stop this scourge the world
over."
**********
4) Hebe de Bonafini, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Speaks Out on
WSF 2: "All we were supposed to talk about was 'putting a human
face' on globalization"
[Note: Following are excerpts from a speech by Hebe de
Bonafini, president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, to a mass rally in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, on February 7, 2002. The Mothers of the Plaza
de Mayo have been fighting to bring to justice all those responsible for
the disappearances of tens of thousands of Argentine unionists and
activists during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983.]
Comrades:
We were in Porto Alegre on the occasion of the Second World Social Forum
(WSF). More than 50,000 participated in this weeklong event. There were
large numbers of people from all over the world, including thousands of
youth.
There were three different levels to this WSF. First, there were the
small gatherings of those who were in charge, controlling things. They
were led by the French, mainly from an association called ATTAC, and by
others from a few other countries.
Then there were all the commissions and seminars, where all the
intellectuals, philosophers and thinkers participated.
And then there were the rank-and-file folks. We participated at that
level, and we discussed with all sorts of people. But the fact is that
we were brought to the WSF so we could listen -- not so the
rank-and-file could participate.
Fidel Castro was not invited to participate and nor were the FARC
[Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia]. That's a shame. Nor were the
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo invited.
I went to Porto Alegre because I was invited in a personal capacity by
the Landless Peasants Movement of Brazil, the MST. And it was important
that I was there, because I, along with a few others, was one of the
first ones to put forward our sharp criticisms of this World Social
Forum.
We said that "Social Democracy" and "socialism" are
not the same thing. We said that the European Social Democracy had taken
over and appropriated this WSF. We said that the French organizers
[i.e., ATTAC] and their cohorts could, of course, participate in this
process, but that they should not control it.
We said that in our view, people had flocked to this WSF to fight and
organize against globalization only to find out, when they arrived, that
the organizers had staged the event so that all we were supposed to be
talking about was "putting a human face" on globalization.
The people I spoke to heard a different message: I told them, in
relation to Argentina, that we, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, had
taken over the Plaza de Mayo -- which is just in front of the President
Palace in Buenos Aires -- 25 years ago.
And I said that today, taking up where we left off, hundreds of
thousands of people are assembling regularly and are bringing down the
new wave of country-selling presidents.
And I said it was my hope that some day we would place someone in office
in Argentina with more moral authority than all the mafiosi that have
served as our presidents.
**********
5) Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune
The Financing of ATTAC
[Note: The following is reprinted from the French business
daily Les Echos, France, January 10, 2002. ATTAC is one of the
main organizers of the WSF.]
ATTAC's declared operating budget is 1.3 million Euros. Its income comes
from membership dues, but a large amount comes from donations and
grants. Last year, for example, ATTAC received 300,000 in grants alone.
Among the contributors were the European Commission (of the EU), the
French government's Department of Social Economy, the National Ministry
of Education and Culture and a whole host of local governments.
Some of the Financing of the WSF
According to the daily Le Monde of February 1, 2002, "ATTAC
and Le Monde Diplomatique received 80,000 Euros from the French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help them organize the World Social
Forum."
This is the same Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it should be noted, that
has lined up squarely behind George Bush's so-called "war on
terrorism."
About the Financing of NGOs like ATTAC
(from Les Echos, February 1, 2002)
The financing of the NGOs, whose role is not always transparent, often
comes from multinational corporations who prefer to back them discreetly
so as to be able to use them for their own purposes.
It would appear that these are two opposing ideologies. In fact, more
and more these ideologies are becoming intertwined.
Back to
ILC Newsletter Index Back to
ILC Debate over WSF Index
|
Open World Conference of Workers