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BERGERAC, France |
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Peoples Congress and Planetafilia agree:
Bergerac, France, September 28th 2012
At the request of many delegates, including the President, other acts and decisions taken at the meeting are given in discussion |
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Tuesday 25, 4 to 7 pm : Self introduction of the delegates and of there actions towards "mundialism " and world citizenship. Together preparation of the meeting objectives to be reached at the end of the session of People's Congress (like our road map) answering those questions :
Together read the different subjects mentionned in the agenda. Discussion and addition of new proposals by the delegates or by world citizens asking the CP for its advice and its involvment Finally a precise agenda for the working days will be set up including specific subjects prepared initially by the delegates and new proposed questions and subjects aiming to the achievment of our commun objectives and goals Wednesday 26 , Thursday 27 and Friday 28 : In the morning the working sessions will be from 9.30 am to 1.00 pm ( Short break at 11 am) In the afternoon from 3.00 pm to 8.00 pm ( short break at 5.30 pm) We will also be able to work in the evening from 9.30 pm to 11 pm if we feel like finishing some work started during the day Items published in the agenda at the delegates request a) - Concerning the internal matters of the People's Congress
b) concerning external activities of the People's Congress :
Friday 28 septembre in the evening, end of the session
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Point of order (Peoples Congress Regulations) c) Working language:
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WELCOMING MESSAGE, by Rob Wheeler My dear friends and fellow delegates of the Peoples Congress, Welcome to Bergerac and the current session of the world's Peoples Congress. Thank you for coming to this important event. The future of the Peoples Congress, at least at this point in time, is really in your hands. You have some incredibly important work to do over the next several days; and I wish I was physically present with you. However, I would be more than happy to join you at any time by email, Skype or phone. Please call me, and the others of us that were not able to come, to get our input and feedback or to help in whatever ways we can. The Peoples Congress has a great and storied history, indeed if anyone wants to take the lead on writing up and distributing this history I believe it would be invaluable indeed. As an urgently important and exemplary model, the Peoples Congress has enormous potential to show the world what is very much needed in the world today; and could begin to do so as soon as we would start to operate like a real congress. We have many excellent delegates which unfortunately still have not managed to develop an active program and to work cooperatively together on specific projects in an effective manner. Still we could fairly easily do so, if we decide that we really want to do this. We share like minded purpose; a noble cause; and there are probably thousands of other activists and organizers that would help us create a really successful campaign if we can agree on what we want to do and would take the steps needed to develop and lead it. A year and a half ago several other delegates asked me if I would be willing to run for President of the Congress. I agreed to do so with the hopes that we could overcome the then existing divide between some of the French and English speaking delegates. However, I also told them that I had many other commitments and couldn't really justify giving the position the time and energy it would need unless we would make a committed effort to take the steps needed to really create an effective program and congress. Well, we have still not managed to do this; but there is no reason that we couldn't begin to do it now. I am encouraged by the number of people who have made the effort to come to this meeting and by the number of others who have responded positively to the invitation even though they/we couldn't come to Bergerac right now. However, I was hoping that there would be more discussion about the proposals that have been suggested by several of the delegates in preparation for the meeting. And I am still hopeful that this discussion will occur now. So, again, the task that we have undertaken and the role that we all indicated we wanted to play in the world when we ran for office is indeed a noble cause. There is no question but that the governments of the world have failed to take the responsible actions needed to solve any number of urgent global problems. They have failed to keep agreement after agreement that has been made. They have failed to put in place a sufficient structure and the processes and procedures of global governance that are very much needed in today's world; and they have failed to act like responsible world citizens. It is thus up to us, the world's people, to call our government leaders to account on this and to insist that a truly effective system and processes of global governance and an international or global rule of law are finally established. If you that are together there in Bergerac are able to develop a serious proposal and campaigns I am willing to continue to serve as President and to take on a much more active leadership role; however if someone else would like to take on these duties and this responsibility - particularly someone that has more time than I - then I would gladly support their candidacy instead. But we really do need someone that can make a serious commitment and that will earnestly do what is required to fully engage the entire group of us, including delegates, ASCOP members and supporters, that speak several languages and are scattered all over the world. In addition, I would be willing to take on some other leadership position instead, if we are able to agree on and commit to an effective program of action, and if the other officers will make a serious commitment to lead the organizing effort as well. It is really up to people like us to show the way; to provide the leadership needed; and to create the institutional models and campaigns required to establish a truly effective, democratic and responsible system of global governance. I wish you well and I hope you will all keep in mind one fundamental understanding; unless we can agree on a specific and workable program of action and decide on and commit to the things needed to carry it out, the Peoples Congress is just not going to amount to much. However, if we can do these things then there is much that we can do to help the world become a much better place. Thank you for coming and I wish you all the best at the meeting. I am at your service, Rob Wheeler Peoples Congress President |
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I........................, delegate to the People's Congress give through this email my proxy to........( M, MRS, MR) ............... He or she will represent me in my votes and my actions taken during the Session of People's Congress in Bergerac France from 26 to 29 Septembre 2012
DATE SIGNATURE
Copy and paste this proxy form and send this to kdp-cdp@googlegroups.com
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The archives of correspondence from kdp-cdp@googlegroups.com are available by this link
Announcement of the date of the session Dear Friends delegates to the Peoples Congress The current world situation at the political ,environmental and financial level is disastrous ..That is why the world citizens ,more than ever must speak up and must get ready to propose new solutions . That is why, after the Brasilia (Brazil ) session in 2007, the Liege (Belgium) session in 2009 and the session in Zagora ( Morocco ) in 2010, the Executive Committee wants to invite you to participate to the next Session that will be held in France from September 26 to 29 ,2012 Thank you in advance for sending us early proposals for new declarations to be put in the Agenda and a list of the objectives that you would like to see accomplished during this session We have already a choice of locations for the coming meeting and we will inform you as soon as one of them is the most convenient for everybody and then we will inform you about the logistics The executive committee will send you also on time a proxy form to sign in case you could not attend the meeting and the proposed agenda We all hope that you will be joining us for this important reunion and we hope that all of you believe that we are entirely devoted to the "mundialist" ideals For the executive committee Liliane Metz Krencker
Invitation Strasbourg August 5, 2012 Dear Delegates to the People's Congress As we already told you in March 2012, a People's Congress Session will take place next Septembre from 26 to 29 th and you are all invited to attend this important meeting After Liège (Belgium) in 2007 , Brasilia (Brasil) in 2009 and Zagora (Morocco) in 2010, this next Session will be organised in France near Bergerac in the Dordogne region . Bergerac is a small town in south France ,90 Km east from the city of Bordeaux In order to avoid costly lodging (hotels are expensive in this touristic region ) and also expenses for a meeting location rental the session will be organised in Liliane 's private residence in the region where you are invited to stay The house is quite large but in case the number of elected delegates is superior to the number of beds available, the neighbours open to "mundialists" ideas will be happy to welcome our delegates The Executive Committee hopes that many of you will be able to join us for this very important meeting The first working session will start on September 26 at 9 am The delegates are invited to arrive in Bergerac Tuesday 25th to meet the other delegates in a very friendly atmosphere However if all the delegates could be present on Monday September 24th our first working session could start on tuesday September 25 th in the afternoon. Thank you in advance for answering quickly and let us know about your participation to the meeting For the Executive Committee,
Rob Wheeler to all Delegates I have also noticed that quite a few other delegates have indicated that they are still interested but will not be able to go as well. With this in mind I have suggested to Liliane that we ought to have a conference call during the meeting so that all of us can participate in one way or another. I know of a conference call service that we can use where we can break up into smaller discussion groups, so I suggest that we use this so that we can have the discussion in both english and french and then report back to the whole group what was said in each discussion and any conclusions or recommendations that were agreed upon. Would you thus please let us know if you would be able to participate in a conference call during this time? I have also suggested that we should make a list of things that each of us would like to do to re-activate the Peoples Congress so that we can begin to discuss this both before and during the meeting in Bergerac. I would like to start this off by making a few suggestions and then I would like to hear what you all think of them. But I am also as interested in reading your suggestions and ideas as well. As Liliane and others have said, the Peoples Congress was once a great organization and network. The organizational model is excellent and we have a lot of great delegates. We really ought to be able to make something special of the Peoples Congress and to have a significant impact on the world if we will all help to do it. Now here are my suggestions. There have been quite a number of proposals made in recent years for creating a more effective and democratic system of global governance, that stand some chance of being successful if we can build enough support for any one of them. I would suggest we develop a campaign, in partnership with the World Alliance to Transform the United Nations (WATUN) along with many others, to support the development of several of them. The ones that I think have the most likelihood of being successful and that we ought to consider are: A) The Andy Strauss/Richard Falk approach of starting a new independent World Parliament initially with a small number of countries in cooperation with civil society which could initially be loosely affiliated with the UN. B) The ParMun proposal put forward by Francisco Plancarte where a given number of delegates get enough supporters to register to be nominated and then once enough delegates get a sufficient number of registrants the Parlemento Mundial is launched, with more delegates getting enough supporters to be accredited all of the time. C) One of the key founders of the Global Ecovillage Network, Ross Jackson, has recently developed a proposal that is quite similar to that of Strauss and Falk, calling for what he calls a GAIAN League, which would also focus on the need for reforming our global financial architecture and economic system along with establishing a new World Parliament with the initial participation of a handful of governments. Ross has written a book about this called Occupy World Street and has initiated a campaign to recruit interested and supportive governments. See: www.occupyworldstreet.org D) A UN Reform and Charter Review Process and Conference: As you are probably aware many people viewed the primary outcome of the Rio+20 process, the negotiated agreement, to be a failure. Part way through the process it was pretty easy to see that this was probably going to happen, and is likely to continue to happen with all UN processes in the coming years, at least until some much needed structural and procedural changes are made - many of which would not even need to be done through Charter amendment but instead simply through General Assembly resolutions. However, I continue to believe that calling for and holding a UN Charter Review Conference would be a great way to discuss them - if we could build enough civil society and committed government support for such a process and conference. Reforming the UN might be the easiest and quickest way to create a much more effective system of global governance, if we could build enough support for it. E) A UN Parliamentary Assembly: KDUN continues to do a great job in advocating for this and I think it is definitely worth considering; but I think that it probably will not be too easy to get enough governments to support an effective enough model of a UNPA to make much of a real difference in the world, at least not until some procedural changes are made in how the UN operates and functions. But when coupled with other efforts to reform and transform the United Nations it might really work. And it has enough support that we should probably support it as well. F) World Democracies League: This is Chris Hamer's proposal for some type of a union of Democratic Countries. Personally I think it would be better to include all countries in our new and more effective model of global governance; however if there are enough Democratic Countries that would be willing to consider this, then I think we should as well. G) Esperanto: While English is fast becoming a, if not the, universal language at least among the educated elite, I know from my travels that only a minority of the people in many if not most countries speak it. With communications now making it even easier for everyone in the world to talk to each other, it would really be helpful if we had another language that everyone could easily and simply learn. Presently Esperanto is probably our best hope for creating such a language. I thus think it would be good to include actually learning and using Esperanto in any type of an effort to create a more effective and democratic system of global governance. Plus, if we include this, we will probably be able to get several million additional supporters fairly easily - most of the Esperanto speakers. In addition, Pierre Calame and the Foundation for the Progress of Humanity, in Paris, have a great proposal for instituting a Charter of Universal Responsibilities as a Third Pillar of Global Governance (along with the UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights). See: www.charter-human-responsibilities.net and http://rio20.net/en/iniciativas/proposal-for-a-charter-of-universal-responsibilities. It would lay out the responsibilities of governments, business, civil society, and our intergovernmental organizations to operate in a more ethical, effective and democratic manner. One of the 14 Peoples Sustainability Treaties developed during the Rio+20 process focuses specifically on calling for such a Charter. I think we ought to support this initiative as a part of our campaign as well. Now in regards to the Campaign itself, we filmed the Side Event in Rio de Janeiro a the Earth Summit Conference that was sponsored by WATUN and co-sponsored by the Peoples Congress. We are hoping to make this into a video that can promote many of the initiatives mentioned above. Unfortunately, however, we are still waiting for our videographer and producer to be paid so that he can do the edit and production work. Pierre Calame, Ross Jackson, and Joel Lungren (our fellow Peoples Congress Delegate and Senator in France) all spoke as did I; and Ursula did an excellent job of translating Joel's presentation into english as he spoke. And we captured all of this on Video and interviewed Ross and Joel as well. If the Peoples Congress agrees to work with WATUN on developing a campaign to support the development of a few of the initiatives listed above then we can produce and use the film to support and advance this campaign as well. By the way, our film producer, Malcom Carter, is one of the best in the business so once he is paid (one of WATUN's officers has been waiting to be paid for a legal case that he won so that he can pay Malcom for his work as well) I know that he will do a terrific job for us. For the past year or two I have also been involved with the development of the Peoples Sustainability Treaties and The Widening Circles processes which are both well underway now and are being combined as was expected. See: http://sustainabilitytreaties.org and http://www.wideningcircle.org I have been fairly active with both of these processes; and have already let everyone know that I/we are interested in drafting a treaty and forming a "circle" and campaign that will focus on creating a more effective and democratic system of global governance. By the way, The Widening Circles process emerged from the Tellus Institute's Great Transition Initiative, which held a dialogue and produced a paper on World Democracy which strongly supports and calls for the creation of a World Parliament. Indeed we specifically discussed Andy Strauss' proposal for creating such a World Parliament for several months, so I know that there is already quite a bit of support for such initiatives. This paper is archived at www.gtinitiative.org/documents/IssuePerspectives/GTI-Perspectives-Global_Democracy.pdf and at: www.buildingglobaldemocracy.org/content/we-people-earth-toward-global-democracy on the website for Building Global Democracy. Please take a look at Building Global Democracy: www.buildingglobaldemocracy.org/content/our-approach I have been on their email list for several years; and I believe they would probably agree to participate, and play a key role in advancing, such a campaign as I am suggesting, along with the Foundation for the Progress of Humanity, and many others from Tellus' Great Transition Initiative, etc. So, I would strongly recommend that we undertake this campaign, that we develop and draft a Peoples Sustainability Treaty on Global Governance, and that we include this as a circle and organizing process through The Widening Circles process, all of which I can facilitate and take the lead on organizing. When coupled with the film that WATUN is producing and that would feature many of these same initiatives we will have and can produce a very strong and effective campaign. I am very interested in hearing what you think about this. I can guarantee you that if there is sufficient interest in doing this that I am willing to take on a key role in helping to organize and lead the effort. Sincerely, Rob Wheeler
The tactic of coalitions, by Chris Hamer I like Rob Wheeler's ideas, up to a few modifications. At recent meetings of the World Federalist Movement, I've learned how effective NGOs can be, if only they work together. There's a proverb about this, which I've forgotten .. The WFM has formed 'Coalitions', first to campaign for an International Criminal Court, and second, to campaign for the Right to Protect, and lo and behold! - they have been successful! The Coalition for the ICC has over 2500 member NGOs, I believe. We should use the same tactics. However, each coalition should have a reasonably well-defined aim. So I would suggest separate coalitions of 1) Groups operating model world parliaments: Peoples Congress, Parlmun, e-parliament, Rasmus Tenbergen, KDUN, Strauss/Falk, Model UN movement .,. there must be several more. They should cooperate, and work out a coomon aim. 2) Groups lobbying for UN reform: WATUN, Shahriar Sharei, .. and again, many more. The WFM certainly should be involved here, even though they rejected a proposal for Article 109 reform at the last Congress, feeling the time is not ripe. 3) I hope/aim to develop a coalition for a World Community of Democratic Nations (not a union, at this stage), together with other lik-minded groups A coalition will always be stronger than its separate members. It will have a chance of attracting funding and supporters, and of generating real momentum towards its goal. Chris Hamer
Ursula Grattapaglia about Esperanto Evidently I am very interested and concerned with Esperanto in our movement. So I submit to you for your best use and distribution the document which I produced with other colleagues for RIO+20 in the name of the Universal Esperanto Association last June in Rio de Janeiro. This info is in several languages (esperanto, chinese, portugues, spanish, french and english). We also have it in russian, japanese and others but I think you will just use french and english. We distributed this info to thousands of interest persons and you can find the ideology of a future sustainable communication and language rights. These must be our arguments! It is a phantasy to sugest to UN officers and staff to learn esperanto, I believe. They use english at this political moment and next maybe chinese, and finished. We world citizens have to be coherent to our ideology of human rights, cultural and linguistic rights. We have to give the good example and only then we can recommend to others. First, I think, we have to learn the language, only than we can suggest to others.... I am always ready to start such a task. I want to thank to Joel Luggern for his idea and would like to correspond with him. Send me his e-mail address, please. Sustainable Communication and Linguistic Rights (The document in pdf
What
is needed, by Rob Wheeler
Dear Chris and Friends, Thank you for your response to my ideas about launching a campaign to support the development of a more effective and democratic system of global governance. You are certainly right that the most effective civil society advocacy campaigns include a coalition or group of organizations, all working together for the same thing. I definitely think that this is what we need and that the Peoples Congress could really be helpful in getting one going. I believe that many if not most of the improvements that have been made to the United Nations have started with civil society advocacy campaigns that have brought together lots of different organizations. I also like your idea of grouping different kinds of organizing efforts together, ie one for establishing a World Parliament, one on UN reform, and one on creating a World Community of Democratic Nations. However I am not sure that it would be such a good idea to have 3 separate coalitions. If possible I think we might be able to have more success by including and supporting all 3 initiatives within one coalition. However, I recognize that different people and organizations do tend to support different approaches. So if it turns out that 3 different groups of people and organizations emerge and each wants to have their own coalition or network, then I think that would be great as well. In any case, what is needed is an organization or organizations like the Peoples Congress, WATUN, etc that will put forward and seriously develop and support a proposal to actually establish several of these international bodies or organizations and means of strengthening and democratizing our system of global governance. Again, the reason I think it makes sense to support more than one is because each of the proposals will attract different people and organizations; and we really can't tell which one might be the easiest and quickest to get established and implemented. If there is serious interest in this idea within the Peoples Congress, then I would be happy to develop a much more specific proposal and begin to work on the actual organizing and outreach processes. Maybe we could begin to work on this both before and during the meeting in Bergerac. I would be happy to spend a couple of hours working on this, by Skype, with those that are in Bergerac. I am wondering who else is interested in or likes this idea? Please let us know. Rob Wheeler
U.N.
and Esperanto by Rob Wheeler
Dear Joel, Ursula and friends, Thank you both for your proposals and suggestions in regards to Esperanto. I believe they are both good ideas; and I would like to support both of them. If we can agree on a common agenda and begin to really do some things as the Peoples Congress, then I would be happy to make a commitment to learn Esperanto. However as much as I would love to finally learn Esperanto, I doubt that we can accomplish much unless our Congress takes some real steps to develop and implement some type of an action agenda. If we do, then I think that learning and beginning to use Esperanto would be a marvelous example that we could provide for the rest of the world and hopefully we could then help to enroll more people and organizations in learning and using the language. But if we don't create and begin to develop some type of a real action agenda, then I doubt that it would be worth the time for us all to learn Esperanto. At the same time I think that calling for the United Nations to make Esperanto one of its official languages and asking its staff to learn and use it is a great idea as well. I doubt very much that the UN would actually agree to do this anytime soon; however, just by making this call and contacting the Secretariat and Missions, etc we can help many people, particularly those representing and working for governments and intergovernmental organizations, to think about this and why such a language might be needed. In addition, by making this call at the UN we can begin to encourage many NGOs at the UN to use Esperanto; and if we learn it ourselves then that will give even more encouragement for others to use it as well. Also, I would love it if more of us from the Peoples Congress would attend and participate in UN processes and activities; and if we do so then we could begin to use Esperanto as a part of the process. I would be happy to help anyone that wants to participate in UN processes and meetings to be able to do so; and I would imagine that Rene would do the same in Geneva. Now, I would ask us to think about why we would want the UN to use Esperanto, given that as far as I know not many people that speak it participate in UN meetings. Personally, I think it would be because we want to provide the world the opportunity, as Ursula suggests, to begin to use Esperanto as the primary secondary language - thus making it easier for all peoples to be able to speak to each other and to quickly learn this language and also enable more people to participate actively in global governance, etc. With this in mind, I suggest that there are several things that we could do to support this idea. One we could start a campaign asking for those that speak Esperanto to encourage high schools and colleges near where they live to teach it. Second, we could work with these people to translate some of the primary UN documents and important papers on global governance into Esperanto and then use these documents and articles as a part of a study course. Three, if we learn the language then we can invite students that learn it as well to come to our meetings and to use the language to discuss anything that we might want with us. Four, if we launch a campaign to establish a World Parliament or more effective and democratic system of global governance and if we learn the language, then we could call for this new body to use Esperanto and include it in our outreach campaign and materials as well, etc. This would be a great way to institute the use of the language. Not only would we call for and model the development of better institutions but we then use a language as well that makes it much easier for people to participate no matter what other primary language they speak. As it is now, if you do not speak english then it is pretty hard to participate in UN and other global governance processes; but we could change this if we could set a good example and begin to learn and use it ourselves. If we learn it, it will also make our own communications within the Peoples Congress much easier as well. So, I hope that we will agree to do something to support and begin to use this language. By the way I would be happy to work with others on drafting a proposal that we could then send to governments, civil society organizations, esperantists, etc. sincerely,
Duncan Graham Who is responsible for the violent, dysfunctional state of the world ? Sept.2012 For varied and diverse crimes of war and acts against humanity with sins/crimes of commission and omission. As leaders of the five Permanent member states, the P5, of the United Nations Security Council they have the responsibility to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. Yet their governments are responsible (SIPRI) for 62% of annual world military expenditures of $1,740 Billion ( not including veteran benefits, destruction of physical and environmental assets) and 77% of world arms exports. They have not signed, or signed and ignored, a series of arms control treaties inter alia. This in a planet where one billion people, says the IMF, go hungry to bed (if they have one) every night. For the fifth world the question is not whether there is life after death but whether there is life in any humane sense before it. This is what passes for a global civilization in 2012 . The P5's culpability for other actions, or lack of, for ecological deterioration, climate change, wildlife to be assessed. The trend to a planetary civilization
That this may create a catalytic spark for change, a flash of intelligence. From Duncan Graham,
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