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<font face="Tahoma">As mentioned </font><br>
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-------- Original Message --------
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<td>[DEBATE] : Maghreb Social Forum Letter on Cosatu-WSF</td>
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<th align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="baseline">Date: </th>
<td>Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:31:46 +0200</td>
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<th align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="baseline">From: </th>
<td>peter waterman <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:p.waterman@inter.nl.net"><p.waterman@inter.nl.net></a></td>
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<th align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="baseline">Reply-To: </th>
<td>debate: SA discussion list <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:debate@debate.kabissa.org"><debate@debate.kabissa.org></a></td>
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<th align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="baseline">To: </th>
<td>debate: SA discussion list <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:debate@debate.kabissa.org"><debate@debate.kabissa.org></a></td>
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<pre>[Peter Waterman Says: This was attached to the WSF IC Liaison Group
Letter just forwarded. Because of the delicacy of the issue, and because
his English is not perfect, I will also forward the French-language
original.]
Now read on...
Dear Friends
I will not be with you for the chat, I'm sorry. But, I like to response
on a few points of a political nature. My English is very poor but I
understood the meaning and essence of Comrade Bheki message.
But I want that our friends and comrades don’t assimilate the social
movement in the Maghreb region with any individual governments.
1.like COSATU, the social movement in the region, is built in its
diversity and its opposition and fight against injustice, against
apartheid, as our colleagues from South Africa, democracy and equality,
against all forms of occupation and for self determination, Peoples is a
peace movement and non-violent and non -Government or even by its
components close to the government.
2. We are not the governments. We are Human Rights defender (Maghreb
Coordination of Human Rights), the Trade unions (Democratic Federation
of labor, Confederation Democratic Confederation of labor, the
Democratic Labor Organization, the General Union of Moroccan Workers and
activists of the Moroccan Union of Labor, SNAPPAP Algeria, the Students
Union of Algeria, the Social Forum Council of Algeria, the Social Forum
Algeria- free, Youth Action Network of Algeria RAJ, the Libyan League
for Human Rights, the Tunisian League of Human Rights, Democratic
Association of Tunisian Women, the 3 major trade unions of Mauritania,
activists, the UGTA Algeria and UGTT Tunisia, youth organizations,
AFPRADESA(sahrawi dynamic), women and men committed to the spirit of the
Charter of Porto Alegre
3. Then how you consider African organizations who participated to the
Maghreb social forum July 2008? Africans (including members of the IC)
from Mali, Togo, South Africa, Benin, Senegal, Cameroon, DRC ...?
4. What about the presence of Sahrawi (including AFPRADESA, activists
within the Forum for Truth and Justice, Sahrawi students who do not
declare their affiliations but they are not necessarily pro-Polisario.
In accordance with the Charter of Porto Alegre, we refused the
participation of parties and governments, and this applies to the RASD
and Polisario.
4. We are not on the positions of States, which failed to find a
solution for over 30 years (whether RASD, Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria,
Tunisia and Libya), we are trying since 2004 to build bridges between
the peoples of the region and beyond chauvinistic divisions inherited
from colonization. This work has long allowed three meetings on the
theme of conflict resolution as an obstacle to the construction of the
Maghreb of peoples: in 2006, January 2008 and July 2008. Sahrawi and
other North Africans activists have participated in these meetings.
These contacts and search for alternative resulted in a call to solve
the Sahara conflict and a charter of Maghreb of peoples. Other meetings
are planned in Algeria, France and Morocco.
5. These actions that we are organizing are not a legitimization of any
government. It is an advocacy for the expansion of fundamental freedoms.
6. Our political arguments to hold the Polycentric World Social Forum in
Morocco in 2006, it’s politically clear for this reason the Moroccan
State has not allowed us to hold it.
7. They are not only the Moroccans applauding to held IC meeting in
Morocco, the whole of the Monitoring Committee of the Maghreb Social
Forum help to organize this events with you and Sahrawi with whom we
work for many years are members of this committee for example the Forum
for Truth and Justice, AFPRADESA (association for the defender of
sahrawi political prisoner). The meeting of the Monitoring Committee of
FSMaghreb, held on 20-21 and 22 March 2009, included in its agenda the
meeting of the IC in Morocco and is preparing to make a significant
political event. We are not concerned with the AU, it is a state
organization but we have to ask for our involvement and our
participation to the African Social Forum and we hope to be able to have
this opportunity to overcome the obstacles and misunderstandings to
build a strong social movement and democratic in Africa.
8. The presence of IC in Morocco is a support to our struggles. I am
sure our friend Behki, coming to Morocco he will be able to find a
dynamic movement, democratic and probably find trade unions and trade
unionists with whom he shared the same values and the same struggles.
With solidarity
Kamal Lahbib
Member of Council of the Maghreb Social Forum
--
* 'Needed: A Global Labour Charter Movement', ESF Malmo Update: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.netzwerkit.de/projekte/waterman/gc">http://www.netzwerkit.de/projekte/waterman/gc</a>
* 'Challenging Empires: The World Social Forum. (2nd Edition, 488 pp). Ordering: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.blackrosebooks.net/wsf.htm">http://www.blackrosebooks.net/wsf.htm</a>
* 'Back in the (Ex-) USSR': <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://zope2.netzwerkit.de/RusRepLatest.pdf">http://zope2.netzwerkit.de/RusRepLatest.pdf</a>
* 'Recovering Internationalism; Creating New Global Solidarity', <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/6439.html">http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/6439.html</a>
* 'Prague 1968: "Workers of the World, Forgive Me!"', <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tni.org/archives/waterman/prague1968.pdf">http://www.tni.org/archives/waterman/prague1968.pdf</a>
* 'A Union Internationalism for the 21stC', <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plutobooks.com/cgi-local/nplutobrows.pl?chkisbn=9780745327563">http://www.plutobooks.com/cgi-local/nplutobrows.pl?chkisbn=9780745327563</a>
* 'International Labour Studies in the UK’, in "Work Organisation Labour and Globalisation", Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 180-200. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.analyticapublications.co.uk/">http://www.analyticapublications.co.uk/</a>
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