By IPS Correspondents
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 31 2005 (IPS)

An anti-FTAA march and a series of concerts marked the culmination this Monday of the fifth World Social Forum (WSF), which will be divided from this point forward into a number of simultaneous meetings around the globe.

The giant civil society meet has taken place annually in this southern Brazilian city, with the exception of last year’s fourth WSF, held in Mumbai, India as a means of more fully extending its scope to other regions.

The event has been so successful that its organisers have decided to undertake a radical change in 2006, moving beyond Porto Alegre and holding the largest possible number of parallel forums in "key spots around the world."

"The idea is to take the event to certain significant regions, such as Africa, Asia and eastern Europe," said Brazilian sociologist Cándido Grzybowski, one of the WSF’s founders and organisers.

"It would be important to hold one of these forums in Venezuela, because this would facilitate the participation of groups in the Caribbean," he told IPS.

On Sunday, the WSF Hemispheric Committee approved the proposal of Venezuela as one of the host countries of next year’s events, although the decision still needs to be ratified by the International Committee, which will meet Mar. 31-Apr. 2 in Paris.

As for Africa, there is considerable support for the candidacy of Morocco, while South Korea has been discussed as the venue for an Asian meeting. There is always the possibility of holding more than one forum per continent, however.

All of the forums would be held in January 2006 on the same dates as the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the international business and political elite in the Swiss alpine resort of Davos.

According to the latest official statistics, over 155,000 people from 135 countries participated in this year’s WSF in Porto Alegre, confirming once again the consistent growth in participation from year to year since the first Forum in 2001.

This year’s event encompassed 2,500 activities, carried out with the help of 2,800 volunteers. Every activity was fully run by the group responsible for organising it.

"This Forum stood out because absolutely everything was done by the participating organisations themselves, and because spaces were created for them to join together and organise campaigns," Francisco "Chico" Whitaker, one of the prime movers of the Forum since its inception, and a member of the International Committee, told IPS.

Whitaker also highlighted the decision to adopt 11 key themes, under which all of the discussions and events were grouped, and the creation of a "proposals mural" where the initiatives that emerged in each separate session could be shared with all of the WSF participants. During the five days of activities, a total of 352 ideas were posted.

Whitaker defended the initial concept of the Forum "as a space, not a movement." In doing so, he clearly distanced himself from the public figures who signed the Porto Alegre Manifesto, a document listing 12 demands set forth to the industrialised North, which was seen by its promoters as a means of achieving a "consensus".

The Manifesto cuts to the heart of the debate between those who want to preserve the original nature of the WSF as a space for reflection and the exchange of ideas, and others who believe that the time has come to move on to concrete actions.

"Any actions undertaken must depend on the organisations, not the Forum," said Whitaker. "If a group of well-known figures tries to organise an activity, no one will go. If the organisations do it, people will participate. A proposal only comes to life when it reflects the will of the people," he added.

The Manifesto was signed by Argentine activist and Nobel peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, editor of the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, among others.

Grzybowski commented to IPS that he found the document "somewhat contradictory", because it was said to be focused on action but was actually only a list of ideas. And although he admitted that he agreed with part of its content, he said he differed with the way it was drawn up.

"These are ideas that have traditionally been espoused by the Forum, not those of an enlightened few," he said.

On Monday morning, some 50,000 people marched through the ‘world social territory’, as the organisers of the WSF dubbed the area where it was held, to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and defend "integration with sovereignty".

The march also issued a call for worldwide peace demonstrations on Mar. 19, the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In addition, the organisers said a protest would be held in November in the Argentine city of Mar del Plata, which will host the next Summit of the Americas.

In the demonstration, Brazilian leftist groups once again voiced harsh criticism of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former trade unionist, who they called a "traitor", for his decision to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, among other reasons.

Lula’s presence on the second day of the Jan. 26-31 WSF and that of his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez on Sunday – both of whom were invited to take part in specific activities by civil society organisations – marked a difference with earlier editions of the Forum.

The organisers underscored the significance of presidents taking part in WSF events.

"This year’s Forum was more political than the previous ones. There was a great effort to find the necessary routes to knock on the doors of globalisation," José Luis del Roio, a member of the WSF international committee, told IPS.

Grzybowski agreed. "It is them (the presidents) who attend summits, not us. We need them. I would have liked (Argentine President Néstor) Kirchner and (Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez) Zapatero to have been here too," he said.

The activist downplayed fears that the charismatic, controversial Chávez and the deep political divisions in his country could negatively influence the independence of the social forum, if Venezuela is confirmed as a host country for the 2006 WSF.

"It’s a risk that we also ran here when the PT (Lula’s leftist Workers’ Party) won. But that’s only normal. This is democracy," he added.

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