[WSIS CS-Plenary] Repsonse on procedural issue

[Avri Doria]

There has been a suggestion that CS should cease to make spoken or  
written contributions to the drafting and working groups should they  
be defined as 'speak and leave' events.  I disagree with this position.

While I believe that we should make a very strong statement on the  
procedural issue and that we should continue to fight the  
governments' decision to exclude non governmental bodies from now  
until the end of the prepcom, I do not believe that that we should  
stop speaking at the meetings, even if CS is forced to speak and  
leave.  To do so, would in my opinion, be tantamount to cutting off  
our noses to spite our own faces.  We represent many causes and have  
important postions that needs to be aired and  considered.  To turn  
our backs on the speaking opportunities would be seen as a relief by  
many of the governments for it would allow them to discount all of  
the work, and progress, CS has achieved so far.  I think it would be  
preferable for caucuses to continue to continue making their points  
both in person and in writing so that the governments have no excuse  
for ignoring CS issues. I also think it would be good to agree on a  
standard single line statement that would be included at the end of  
every other statement the caucuses made that indicated the CS speaker  
would be leaving under duress at the end of their speaking time and  
indicating that the nature of the closed meetings threatened the  
legitimacy of the entire enterprise.  On finishing their individual  
statement each speaker could then leave without waiting to be asked  
to leave, thus making the protest ongoing and visible.


I do think we should also be working on documents that are parallel  
to the governments' documents.  In committee A I would recommend  
taking the chair's outline and filling in the sections ourselves. So  
that we would have a document with the same form but which was  
written according to CS requirements.  I am not tracking B all that  
carefully, but I expect a similar strategy would also work there.

thanks
a.