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The Summit That [Almost] Never Was
By Alejandro Kirk
Maybe non-governmental organisations are genuinely outraged at the sight of the U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, signing a document together with the traditional bad guys of the international scene. Or perhaps the outrage is just one more in a series of rituals of a ''summit'' that seems to have fallen short of fulfilling even the most timid expectations.
Where more than 1,000 foreign journalists were expected, only 320 had been accredited by Tuesday. And some 700 of the expected 1,600 NGO delegates had received a U.N badge. The Geneva 2000 Civil Society Forum claims a higher registration figure - 3,000 - but the expected crowds have not been filling up the well-equipped meeting halls, shops, libraries, restaurants, and media and communication facilities erected in the Geneva International Conference Centre and the Palais des Nations.
Several ministers of Labour, Planning or Education have replaced most of the chiefs of State and Government who were supposed to explain what they have done in the last five years, to comply with the commitments made at the World's Social Summit in Copenhagen.
That would be an extremely difficult task, no doubt. And by not coming nor sending their senior ministers (like those of Foreign Affairs or Finance), governments are stating what is visible in the corridors: little care.
So far, nobody has even attempted to claim any progress in the situation of the world's poor since 1995, when in great solemnity the world's leaders promised to create an economic environment that would lead to a decline in social inequality. And most of those being blamed for the trend backwards - transnational corporations, financial institutions, capital speculators - do not seem to care much about explaining here what their role has been.
The heavily bracketed document presented by the preparatory committee is being negotiated rather intensely behind closed doors, without a trace of a true agreement on any substantial issue. Diplomatic sources said that by Tuesday evening most of the controversial issues were standing and not much could be expected before Friday, when the deadline will force some kind of an agreement.
Postponement of certain issues could be the magical solution. A U.N. world conference on Financing for Development, to be held next year in Chile, for example, could be chosen as the proper venue to deal with the issue of finance, surely the most divisive of all. After all, as the source stressed, developing countries have already agreed to contribute their part while industrialised countries keep avoiding the key compromise on the so-called Tobin Tax, which would bring some kind of control on the movement of money in international markets. But, ''maybe all that will look different on Friday afternoon'', he said.
Meanwhile, NGO representatives claim to be startled by the ''Better World for All'' report, launched with great fanfare on Monday evening. The report itself, while expressing concern for the unrelenting increase of world poverty since 1995, does not present any alternative to the kind of economic globalisation that most NGOs present in Geneva blame for the situation.
They are angry at Kofi Annan, for putting the U.N.'s name along with those of the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank.
But, as everybody knows by now, the civil society outrage will not this time turn into street violence - probably not even into a passionate disruption of a press conference, or some egg thrown on the head of some foreign personality at the price of a cop's brief beating.
In spite of the determined - and successful -NGO demonstrations in Seattle last year and Washington earlier this year, the 1995 Summit secretary general and current ILO head, Juan Somavia, complained at the start of this conference about the little pressure exerted by civil society for governments to implement the Copenhagen commitments.. Somavia said on Sunday, rather enigmatically, that this was the time when some people should open their hearts and admit that they might not like other human beings to starve, but that they do not really care. Who was he talking about? Did he really expect the president of a rich country to declare in the podium that poverty is none of his/her business? The reply is obvious. The conclusion, probably, too.
In his millenium document, Annan drew probably the most clear shift in the United Nations course since its creation in 1945. If coherently applied, in the future the world body will not attempt to act as a key political actor, granting security for all countries, but as a group of international agencies dedicated to mitigating the adverse effects of a reality it cannot modify.
''Politics is the art of the possible'' former Chilean president Patricio Aylwin used to say when asked why his government, the first democratically-elected in Chile since the bloody military coup of 1973, did not do more to solve the country's burning human rights issues and flagrant social inequalities. He no longer repeats the saying.
Aylwin was one of the main architects of the 1995 Summit and is now in Geneva as one of the outraged for the turn of events since then. At a colloquium with Latin American ambassadors and diplomats in the Geneva-based South Centre, Aylwin declared his dreams for change just ''vanished''. A lifelong follower of Jaques Maritain, he looked defeated, deep inside, by the moral issues at stake, rather than by the technicalities of the political realism he not long ago defended.
On Sunday some 3,000 people (10,000 according to organisers) marched through the streets of Geneva at the rhythm of a street jazz of sorts and African and Latin American music. Except for the usual drunk, the regular stoned, and several dancing lovers, most of the participants looked rather bored. It was a peaceful march and - given the heavy security measures taken by the police - it could not have been otherwise. This time there was no clear enemy and hence no adrenaline to be secreted, no imagination necessary to overcome the police barriers. Even the defenceless McDonald's shop on the route did not suffer any violence except for a half-hearted and failed attempt to burn a couple of paper cups.
Given the relaxed atmosphere, the conference's strict security measures seem a bit out of proportion to many, including the cops who are searching the Geneva-2000 black Swissair backpacks over and over at the Forum. Some of them even complain of having to stand 12 hours and more for not very convincing reasons.
At the well-equipped press rooms, for a change, journalists do not have to fight for computers or phone lines and almost nobody had to stand hours in a queue to get an accreditation. At the village, there is a provincial calm, some good African food, a few books and the nice and happy plastic giants dancing non stop at the beat of the wind. Do they feel abandoned by the masses?
Behind the scenes, however, the feared globalisation process goes on at the usual fast speed. The diplomatic negotiation also goes on at its usual slow speed, to be frenetically increased at the eleventh hour.
And behind a computer screen, on the Fifth Floor of the Palais , a veteran Indian journalist, an uncompromising trade analyst seems to be the last genuine warrior left in the struggle for an International Economic Order. He, for one, is truly disappointed by the scene.
Read TerraViva
The IPS renowned international newspaper will publish a special edition in Geneva, at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (Copenhagen+5). Follow the conference on line day by day from June 26 through July 1, with exclusive reports by a team of 13 IPS journalists from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, North America and Latin America.
A selection of the IPS Coverage from Geneva will also be carried by TerraViva Daily Journal (New York) and TerraViva Europe (Brussels),.
Has the world lived up to its 1996 commitments..?
Solidarity 2000 starting 17th of June!
MS's big summer event Solidarity 2000 will start very soon now, with a week-long variety of debates and arrangements. The activities range from encounters between young people from Balkan, Africa and Central America to big conferences on the planet's social development and environment.
Judge by yourself:
The 1996 Copenhagen Social Summit final report in English, French and Spanish.