Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 9 2005 (IPS) — Indigenous people, women, environmentalists, young people and human rights activists hope their participation in the debate prior to the fourth Summit of the Americas will not be sterile, and that their concerns will be reflected in the documents to be signed by the hemisphere’s presidents.

But they are not optimistic.

After a dozen meetings of civil society groups in the past few months, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) presented a series of recommendations this week to the government delegates meeting in Buenos Aires to complete the drafting of the documents that will be signed by the heads of state and government at the Nov. 4-5 summit in Argentina.

The recommendations were drawn up after the Regional Civil Society Forum, held here Tuesday and Wednesday, and were presented on Thursday to the meeting of government delegates at the Argentine Foreign Ministry.

Represented in the civil society forum were a broad range of environmental and human rights organisations and groups working with issues of concern to young people, women and indigenous people from the entire hemisphere.

The outcome of the discussion process is now in the hands of the government representatives, while the mood of the participating NGOs ranged from low expectations to scepticism.

“There are some who do not believe that civil society will have any impact on the negotiations of the agenda for the hemispheric summit, and the rest of us also have our doubts,” said Javier Mujica, with Peru’s National Human Rights Coordinator.

Referring to the hurdles to real participation in the debate, he complained to IPS that “We are working in the dark, with an old version of the draft declaration and without the draft of the action plan that the governments are discussing. If there is a real intent to respect the principles of transparency and timely access to information, those documents should be made available.”

The Summit of the Americas will be hosted by the Argentine resort city of Mar del Plata, 400 km south of Buenos Aires, under the theme “Creating Jobs to Combat Poverty and Promote Governance”, and will culminate in the signing of a final declaration and action plan.

The main discussion among the governments is on the best way to achieve the agreed on goals. A few countries, led by the United States, defend the free-market model that reigned in the 1990s, while others, headed by Argentina, doubt that these policies have truly benefited the region.

But the region’s NGOs, which are overwhelmingly critical of the free-market policies, have expressed themselves in a fragmented manner. While some groups have joined in the debate to voice their criticism, many others have refused to take part.

That includes a coalition of social, student and labour movements and leftist parties whose actions in connection with the summit preparations have been limited to protesting the planned participation of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Sitting around an enormous table in the Palacio San Martín, where the Argentine Foreign Ministry is located, the representatives of the nations of the Americas listened attentively Thursday to the concerns expressed by the NGOs.

The groups argue that the summit’s final documents must contain a criticism of the “neoliberal” free-market model that predominated in the region in the 1990s. “It must be explicitly mentioned that this model has failed,” and that the liberalisation of trade, privatisations and deregulation of the markets have led to an increase in poverty and unemployment, the NGOs argued.

They also called for a clear definition of “decent work” in the final declaration and action plan, and questioned the expression “investment climate,” which they said could be used to pursue “indiscriminate guarantees for foreign investment.”

In its place, they suggested a reference to the need to encourage “investment consistent with the growth and strengthening of the domestic market.”

The NGOs also set forth demands for gender equality in employment generation policies, and for a focus on the development of indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and young entrepreneurs. Although these questions are contained in the draft declaration, they are dealt with in an “inadequate” fashion, the civil society forum argued.

With respect to “democratic governance”, the NGOs said it was essential to step up the fight against corruption and efforts to strengthen the justice system throughout the hemisphere, and to promote citizen participation as another check and balance, through greater access to information.

In that sense, they called for more effective procedures to ensure that the participation of civil society in these sumits is more than a mere formality, and that it has a real influence on the debates.

But the recommendations were a toned-down version of the criticism, discontent and frustration expressed in the pre-summit civil society gatherings, where many participants have complained about the lack of transparency in the government-level debate.

Cecilia Iglesias, with the Environmental Network Civil Association of Argentina, told IPS that the regional civil society forum was nothing but a “sham exercise of participation,” and warned of the risk that in the final documents, the governments would backslide with regard to commitments on sustainable development already assumed at previous summits.

Moriana Hernández of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women’s Rights (CLADEM) criticised the fact that the draft version of the summit action plan had not been made available, which she saw as a way of denying civil society the possibility to effectively participate in the deliberations.

In her conversation with IPS, she also protested that the NGOs were not allowed to choose the spokespersons in charge of summarising the demands put forth by the civil society forum.

Although they belonged to the participating NGOs, the spokespersons were designated by the organisers of the Summit of the Americas.

These complaints were also voiced by other groups. “We don’t know these spokespersons,” said Víctor Capitán, with the National Organisation of Indigenous Peoples in Argentina.

The spokespersons were named by the Summits of the Americas Secretariat, which forms part of the Organisation of American States (OAS) system.

Although the head of the Secretariat, Luis Alberto Rodríguez, had stated that the NGOs would be able to choose the representatives who would present their views to the government delegates, no arrangements were made for a vote to be held.

IPS spoke with one of the spokespersons, Fabián Perechodnik from the Asociación Conciencia of Argentina. “It’s true that the draft action plan has not been divulged, but that does not mean we cannot make suggestions on what the document should say,” he said in defence of his summary, which was criticised by the NGOs.