By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 28 2006 (IPS)

This year’s meetings of the Sixth World Social Forum in Karachi (Pakistan), Bamako (Mali) and the Venezuelan capital have provided examples of both strengths and weaknesses in dealing with global and regional agendas.

The politicisation of the WSF, and the debate over whether its mission is to provide a space for reflection or a platform for struggle and direct action, were central points of analysis at the Jan. 24-29 gathering in Caracas, alongside discussions of economic, environmental, labour and indigenous peoples’ issues.

“To think that the Forum has no impact on the regional agenda is to underestimate its potential, although this meeting is not designed to bring about immediate results, but rather to help create connections between, and networks of, groups and movements,” Edgardo Lander, of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), told IPS.

One example, according to Lander, is the convergence between environmental organisations and groups opposed to neoliberal free-market globalisation on the issue of water privatisation. The World Assembly of Social Movements at the WSF adopted that view as the foundation of its common position, which was presented at the Mar. 16-22 World Water Forum in Mexico City.

Lander said another noteworthy case was the backing given in Caracas to opponents of Terminator seeds, in their preparations for the Mar. 20-31 Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP8) in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba. Developed by the U.S.-based biotech giant Monsanto, the seeds produce sterile offspring that cannot reproduce, and would make it impossible for farmers to save seeds from their harvests

The aim of the WSF is not “to achieve spectacular results,” said Lander. On the contrary, “the most important thing is for participants to gain skills and confidence in putting forward proposals,” he added.

At the end of the Venezuelan gathering, the WSF international committee met to celebrate the successful attendance of 10,000 people at the Jan. 19-23 phase of the WSF in Bamako, although they criticised several organisational failings there.

The conclusion was accepted, in spite of a warning from Brazilian delegate Moema Viezzer to the effect that the committee “should not involve itself in organisational matters if this means neglecting the political front.”

“A Forum calling itself a ‘global’ event with a ‘social’ focus in contrast to the World Economic Forum held each year in Davos (Switzerland) is an ambitious and complex meeting, and therefore needs to continue to consider its scope and frequency,” Lander said. If the leaders of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or social movements attended every international, regional, sectoral or thematic meeting that concerned them, “we would spend all our time sitting on airplanes,” he joked.

He noted that although attending meetings in Europe is easy, because of the shorter distances involved and the greater abundance of resources, “European social movements are able to mobilise less people than are NGOs in Latin America.”

“Africa has the worst of both worlds: a poor capacity to mobilise people, and long, costly journeys,” which explains why the Forum organisers were so delighted with the attendance at Bamako, he added.

In Lander’s view, “the increasing amount that NGOs and social movements are learning, via the Internet for example, can be partly seen in the way they exchange and share experiences, and make working proposals for joint action.”

“NGOs can now make better decisions about the cost/benefit ratio of participating in these events,” he pointed out.

It was in the political arena that “the most serious difficulty arose, that is, the government’s attempt to influence the Forum,” said environmentalist Frank Bracho, a former Venezuelan ambassador to India, and co-author of a book titled “WSF: The Way to a New World.”

The Forum debated whether it should continue to be mainly an arena for reflection and the exchange of experiences, or should move towards taking up common positions in order to wield political influence. In between were people promoting networks for concrete action, with tolerance for the most extreme views.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez twice addressed groups of Forum participants outside of the official programme. “He tried to use his platform to tell the Forum what it should do,” especially warning that the Forum runs the risk of “becoming a revolutionary tourist event if it does not change,” Bracho told IPS.

The activist criticised the Forum newspaper TerraViva, produced by IPS, because in his view it backed the position that the Forum should become more structured and more involved in political affairs, “and in consequence, should ally itself with certain political powers.”

However, what most annoyed environmentalists like Bracho was the lack of debate in Caracas of “the Venezuelan model of development, which depends on exploiting oil reserves on a large scale,” and that the Assembly of Social Movements merely called for “environmental impact studies” for projects such as the South American gas pipeline to run from Venezuela to Argentina, when “the correct ecological position should be to call into question the entire project itself.”

Lander, on the other hand, maintained that the WSF meeting “held in Venezuela, a country going through a process of change, could not float in a bubble outside of space and time, but must necessarily have been affected by the surrounding reality and debates. Furthermore, most of the activities that took place in Caracas focused on political issues.”

During the first years of the WSF, according to Lander, “the idea of keeping social struggle separate from political struggle was upheld. There was an idea of a ‘pure’ civil society, while political parties were distrusted. But this has been changing.”

“When the WSF was first held (in 2001), the movement against free-market globalisation was in the opposition throughout nearly all of Latin America, but now there are a considerable number of progressive or centre-left governments, and that has changed people’s attitudes.”

“For instance, it cannot be overlooked that (Argentine) President (Néstor) Kirchner’s policies contrast with those of the International Monetary Fund,” Lander said.

Furthermore, “the aggressiveness of the imperialist policy of the United States demands political responses. Social movements have a vision of the world that is, ultimately, also political.”

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