[WSIS CS-Plenary] Answer to the North Amercan CS representative

[Dr. Francis MUGUET]

Dear Robert, Coordinator of the North American family,
and representative of this family at the CSB.

You started a personnal confronation with me,
It is regreetable,
The tone of your remarks and your explicit personal suspicion
are quite regreetable.
It is divise, and it is quite reluctantly that I am feeling
compelled to discuss your past behavior, so that further mistrust
shall not be spread among newcomers.
Old timers know you well, but newcomers must be warned.

I was planning to make a more detailed report after the IGF.
and writing this answer now is eating precious time that
could have been better devoted to lobbying.
It is rather stressfull to fight on two fronts.
as I am superbusy.
For information to explain that I could not answer you sooner :
  after the series of UNESCO meeting in Paris,
I flew to Beijing via Moscow ( to save expenses ) on Friday 20,
arriving in Beijing on Saturday 21.
I attended the UNESCO meeting on Sunday.
It was a very successfull meeting ( pls wait for my report
when I will have some time to breathe ).
Civil Society was fully recognized as a stakeholder and my
suggestions concerning themes, as well as procedural issues
already sent for the Paris meetings adopted ( see below )
Then I left Beijing early on Weds 25, to Paris by Moscow
where my luggage get stuck. :-( with my notes of
previous UNESCO meetings.
On Wed. 25 evening the same day, I flew to Barcelona
( with other luggage )
to an OECD expert meeting on Open Educational Ressources,
where I am now.
To add to this, I got a fractured vertebra (sacrum ) in late
august, and it is still painfull to me to be seated for
a long time, so these long trips are a pain to me,
in both senses.
So please understand that I am somewhat
exhausted, and I am running out of patience with your
kind of games.

Concerning the CSB meetings, indeed the report of any CSB meeting
should include the names of CSB members being present.
By the way, all reports never included the list of observers being present.
For the sake of history, it must be recollected that I proposed also
that observers be allowed to speak during the CSB meetings, and this
was accepted under the condition that it should be only during a limited
duration.
Now, continuing for the sake of history, for those who are not familiar
to the WSIS and could hail you as an "hero", it must be reminded that
you tried several times to gain control of the CSB list without the CSB
consent,
that you tried, without the approval of the CSB, to create a CSB web site
at http://wsis-csb.org of which you bougth the domaine name now expired.
This domain was pointing to your wiki at privaterra, you tried also
to organize "secret CSB meetings",( rather ironic, istn't, when you are
trying to call for transparency...  ;-) ! )
All these attempts were not taken too seriously because
they were so ridicule.
During the Prepcom3 and Tunis, you were an active member of
the Canadian delegation, and therefore ( and quite correctly,you must
be commended on this point )
you did not wish to stay as a member of the CSB, and it is unclear
if you quit at this stage. At any rate, no alternate ever existed
( good example of an entranched non inclusive behaviour... )
for the North American family,
This family was therefore no longer represented during
a significant part of the part of the process phase.
Is there was any debate in your family concerning this
topic ?

It would help if you could clarify your current situation :
Are you still a member of a gouvernmental delegation or paid
by a gouvernment as an adviser or
<joke> or by a secret agency </joke> ?

Concerning the plenaries, I do not remember that making
a list of participants has been made on a regular and
compulsory basis, and even less published.

>>From you comments it does seem that you were there - and that's fine,
>>From my view,  it seems like you are acting in your own personal capacity.
>  
>
Then it is your view that must be reviewed.
The suggestions that were adopted during this meeting simply
do not originate from me !.
The first suggestion concerning the finer grain moderation came from
Bertrand.
I added to it that thematic groups and family could also be moderators
at the theme level.
The second suggestion came from Mariame.
It must be underlined that the question de moderators of action lines
was raised during the afternoon session firstly Divina and then Djilali.
Divina could not stay during the evening.

All your paranoia and suspicion is like backstabbing
combatants,  while the Civil Society people
participating to UNESCO meetings, are struggling.

By the way, I am returning the question :
Are you asking all these questions as representative of
the North American family or in your personnal capacity ?
Since you the CSB seems an important issue for you,
no doubt that there was an active and transparent
discussion within the North American civil society that is approving
unanimously your methods.
What were , according to your own words, the processes of consultation,
engagement
and decision making within the North American Civil Society ?

>You mention that there was a discussion where "some suggestions" where
>raised for groups to be "considered" . That is quite vague, in fact
>quite opaque.  I personally, and i think others as well want to know
>what the specific suggestions where, who were making them, and what
>processes of consultation, engagement and decision making were used.
>  
>

The suggestions were approved by unanimous consensus by this
plenary civil society meeting on Oct 18, and that those suggestions
should be sent under the behalf of the CSB to UNESCO in order
to improve their chances of being considered.
It was agreed that theses suggestions might
be supported by oral interventions on the next
day.

These suggestions were later put into diplomatic words the next day
  and sent on October 19
to Axel Plathe with c/c to the CSB executive secretariat
and their elected two liaison officers.

-------------------------------------


On behalf of the Civil Society Bureau
(CSB, http://www.csbureau.org/ )
which is handling procedural issues
according to the established WSIS practices
( http://www.itu.int/wsis/basic/observers.html ),
we are contacting the UNESCO focal points
for the current series of WSIS action lines
meetings, in regards to procedural issues related to those meetings and
their follow-up.

Since the actions lines has been broken into specific themes, along with
cross-cutting themes, it is suggested that moderators could also
be designated at the level of each interest group related to each theme.
This would amount a fine-grained organization at theme levels.
At the theme level, the financial ressource condition enunciated
in the item A6 of the Draft Terms of Reference for functioning of the
Multi-stakeholders Team should not apply, and the Draft Terms of
Reference should be modified to
acknowledge the existence of interest groups at the theme level with a
team of moderators.
During the WSIS prepcom and summit process, the important role of Civil
Society groupings, such as families, caucuses and thematic groups, has
been acknowledged, while a NGO made a contribution on behalf of a
certain WSIS Civil Society grouping.
Therefore, building on the spirit of the WSIS practice, it is suggested
that, at the theme level, WSIS civil society groupings should be allowed
as such to act as co-moderators of a theme.

It is also kindly suggested, that parts of the
text of the Geneva and Tunis Civil
Society declarations,
relevant to each specific action lines, should be
added to the annex of the document
entitled “Working methods of the
multi-stakeholder team”.
The CSB may send you the text of the relevant parts
if needed.

UNESCO has just proposed on the 18 October to enlarge the use of
the collaborative tool Sharepoint.
The use of modern ITCs tools is most welcome.
However, concerns have been raised that
Sharepoint, a proprietary product,
might not be interoperable enough, and
might put people using different operating systems, and/or different
word processor at a disadvantage.
The statement by Axel Plathe that Civil Society could propose yet
another collaborative tool has been noted and appreciated.
Furthermore, it could useful that theme level
co-moderators could also set up collaborative tool servers,
using the same software for the sake of efficiency,
and therefore, the choice of the
collaborative tool should also take
into account this inclusive and enabling need.
---------------------------

The answer by UNESCO was very positive
-----------------------------

Many thanks Francis,

We will take this into account in our report writing and in modifying
the terms of reference.

Axel

---------------------------

The manager of the networking
services  was also contacted and I got a positive answer for next WSIS
civil society meeting at UNESCO.

Therefore the action of the Civil Society present in Paris
was quite effective through the channel of the CSB.
It is fair to say the same results would have
not been obtained without the channel of the CSB.

It helped a lot that Charles Geiger underlined each morning,
(geting better and better each time) the multistakeholder approach and
the role of the CSB as the Civil Society interface for procedural issue.
Adama Samassékou was there on Monday, and it helped also.

Furthermore, we had informal discussions with the ambassador
of a western entity that might tentatively consider financing
travel expenses of about twenty people from less
developed countries.

>I look forward to further details.
>
you got them at the expense of my sleep, and
my work.

>To be honest,

  Your effort in that direction is appreciated

> i don't really know what - if anything - the CSB is doing
>these days.

this is an either an incredible example of blindness or bias.
In fact, it is the reverse, it is because the CSB is now acting
positively, and its executive secretariat doing a marvelous job
of information that it appears as an obstacle to a small set of
well financed people with appetite for power, while this
small set also might be manipulated unwilling by dark and powerfull
interests that wish to get
rid of the Civil Society.
The skewed statistics presented recently by a previously unknown person
are not going to fool anybody.
Is there such a contempt of
Civil Society as to think we are all idiots !
It is not necessary to be a rocket scientist to understand
the gross trap.

> Personally, i think it's a defunct body that needs to be
>killed 

Then, this is the plan...
OK, this is very informative of you
thanks a lot :
  the CSB is killed when we need it most !

>and reconstituted 

and that the most beautifull part of your plan, isn't ?
this is going to be soooooo complicated,
raising soooooooo many philosophical
questions about legitimacies,
raising countless procedural
issues that it would never get ressurected
from the dead !
Resquiescat in Pace !

>with a new mandate given the new reality of the
>post-wsis environment we find ourselves currently in.

Instead, I called for a progressive review process that would
not impair with the efficiency of
  the interface so needed by Civil Society.

>I've called for that process to start - but, entrenched CSB members seem
>to be content in keeping a platform to use for their own personal agendas.

I do not feel to fall in the category of an entrenched person
in a defensive position.
Speaking of agenda : my advocacy has been
always be very clear : Open Access & Free Software
It would help to clarify what is your agenda.

I called a first review process eliminating unactive
families ( as we did at the end of Phase I ) and making a call for new
representatives
for familes that are believed to be important.
To ensure reliabiltiy each family must be represented by team of two persons
( if there both present, then they have just one vote all together ).
May be new regional group might created, since we are no longer obliged
to follow the cold war world division that it is still prevailing in the
UN system.
Furthermore, I called for the creation of national and regional civil
society bureaux, always for procedural issues only,
as the implementation of the
WSIS is now starting at national and regional levels.
I believe we must work in a pragmatic and progressive fashion.

This sounds more reasonnable and safe than your
melodramatic death and resucitation
( pardom me resurrection ) scheme.



Regards

Francis
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-- 
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  Francis F. Muguet  Ph.D
  MDPI  Open Access Journals -  Associate Publisher
  http://www.mdpi.org  muguet at mdpi.net

  Knowledge Networks & Information Society Lab. (KNIS)
  http://www.knis.org  http://www.ensta.fr/~muguet
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