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World
Social Forum Wraps Up, Annan Concludes Davos Forum
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| Thousands
protesting the U.S.-proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas in Porto
Alegre |
PORTO
ALEGRE, Brazil, Feb. 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Thousands of
participants at the second annual World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil,
concluded their conference Tuesday with hope for justice and worldwide
prosperity. Meanwhile, in New York, U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, called
on business leaders Monday at the World Economic Forum (WEF) to take the lead in
fighting extreme poverty in the Third World.
Many
of the 51,100 participants at the Porto Alegre conference stood hand in hand in
a large circle, leaving the six-day conference ready to build on the slogan
"Another World is Possible."
After
listening to local street children from this southern Brazilian town perform a
rap that condemned social inequality, 1998 Nobel literature laureate Jose
Saramago told a tale of justice to the thousands of people waving white flags
and shouting "Another world is possible if we want it."
"All
governments make promises but when they are elected, they forget the
slums," one youth rapped. "I am going to tell the truth in my rap: if
you are black and poor, you will never succeed the corrupt and murderous police
know nothing but repression."
Aminata
Traori of Mali, summed up the feelings behind the anti-globalization summit
launched last year in protest at the WEF that gathers the world's political and
business elite, which ended in New York Monday with Annan's speech. "Our
hearts are bursting with joy. We leave here full of hope, ready to see the world
rid of the ideology of the IMF, the World Bank and the G8. Another world is
possible!"
Protesters
from 150 countries called for an abandonment of the planned Free Trade Area of
the Americas (FTAA) and released a document calling for "resistance from
neo-liberalism and militarism and support for peace and social justice."
The
forum's website received 500,000 daily hits during the six-day conference, which
proved the importance of interconnectedness to the world's social movements,
said organizers with Rits. Rits is a non-governmental group that was launched
four years ago to help other non-profit groups communicate with each other and
to better utilize the internet and new technology.
Meanwhile,
speaking at the close of the WEF's five-day annual meeting in New York, Kofi
Annan urged "enormously privileged" global business leaders to take
the lead in fighting extreme poverty in the Third World.
"Think
of ways that your company can help mobilize global science and technology to
tackle the interlocking crises of hunger, disease, environmental degradation and
conflict that are holding back the developing world," he told participants.
"The
forces of envy, despair and terror in today's world are stronger than many of us
realized," he said, alluding to the destruction of the city's World Trade
Center in the September 11 attacks.
"Against
them, we must bring a message of solidarity, of mutual respect and, above all,
of hope," he said.
Members
of the world's political and business elite had spent part of the WEF meeting
discussing links between poverty and terrorism, as well as the contribution
which aid, private sector investment and trade could make to development.
Participants
spent the first four days discussing issues such as better market access for
developing countries, official aid, and the role of religion in combating
terrorism, with the final day's discussions centered on business.
Annan
called on governments to raise an extra $50 billion a year in official aid to
help attain U.N. Millennium Summit goals. These goals include halving the number
of people without access to safe drinking water or living on less than a dollar
a day by 2015, ensuring that all children complete primary education, and
halting the spread of AIDS.
He
said the increase in government aid was "an immediate, short-term target,
to be achieved within two or three years," but business should act more
quickly. "In many cases, governments only find the courage and resources to
do the right thing when business takes the lead," he said.
Annan
told his audience they were "enormously privileged, compared to the great
majority of your fellow human beings, both in your standard of living and in the
power and influence that you wield."
Recalling
the speech with which he accepted the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in
December, he said hundreds of millions of people around the world lived under
conditions that many of his audience would consider inhuman.
Annan
urged WEF members not to underestimate the FSM in Porto Alegre, where protestors
had alleged that capitalists were interested only in profit. "That
criticism resonates around the world," he said, and it was up to the
advocates of globalization to prove it wrong "with actions that translate
into concrete results for the downtrodden, exploited and excluded."
A
senior United Nations official said Annan decided to speak at the closing
plenary here "because it is more important and useful for him to address
these fat cats than for him to go to Porto Alegre." Most senior U.N.
officials remained at the WEF, but U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary
Robinson attended both meetings.
In
New York, forum participants - presidents and cabinet ministers, as well as the
heads of the richest companies in the world - agreed that grinding poverty
served as a breeding ground for terrorist violence and had to be eradicated.
They
concluded that globalization was still a viable option for poor countries. If
its detractors - who turned out on Saturday to protest the forum - failed to get
the message, they said, it was because the message itself had not been
adequately explained.
But
thousands of chanting anti-globalization protesters marched through central New
York Saturday to protest the WEF. According to one group, the ANSWER (Act Now to
Stop War and End Racism) coalition, more than 5,000 people joined a
demonstration called by their group that stretched north of the Waldorf Astoria
for five city blocks.
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