[fse-esf] ESF Mobilisation news nr 1 - Special: Ossetian War and European Peace

[Tord Bj ö rk]

ESF Mobilisation news nr 1-2008

Issued by the Nordic Organising Committee Contact Group for Europe and the
World

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Content

Special theme:

Ossetian war and European peace at ESF

CEE Mobilisation news:

All CEE countries comes to ESF

Second allocation from the Solidarity fund

General:

Biggest ESF cultural program ever: 400 activities

Call for information on Western European mobilisation

Call for information on political initiatives to be launched at ESF

Call for information on how different movement mobilise

Greening ESF

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Special theme:


Ossetian war and European peace at ESF

The Georgian attack on the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali and the strong
response from Russia entering South Ossetia and bombing targets and sending
troops into Georgia have caused severe human suffering and political
reactions. It also poses the question whether the ESF process helps
different organisations to take effective political action. ESF is multiple
spaces for discussion and action. Noone can speak in the name of ESF but the
spaces that are there can be used for those interested to take action in
their own name.

The Ossetian war showed that there are at least three ways that ESF provides
spaces for such action. The ESF preparatory process were people meet in
person and have tools for ongoing communication, the seminars and assemblies
bringing up this conflict explicitly at ESF and the way ESF in general is a
civil European effort to promote peace both by opposing militarism and
addressing the causes of war.

Central to making the Caucasus conflicts important at ESF are movements in
both Northern Causasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Here Peace
Committe, Helsinki Citizen Assembly, international solidarity and
environmental groups have taken initiative to come to ESF already before the
Ossetian war. It is too early to know how the war effects their possibilites
to come but the interest is there. The Caucasus region have also been
represented at a European Preparatory Assembly.

At the EPA meetings people from different places and movements can start
trusting each other and take action when it is needed with the help of such
tools as the European mailing list fse-esf.org and the activist news agency
on openesf.net. You can read the contributions on the fse-esf list during
August at http://lists.fse-esf.org/pipermail/fse-esf/2008-August/thread.html
and at this website - http://www.fse-esf.org, you can also subscribe to this
European ESF emaillist. You can read material from European Social Forum
Activists News Agency at:
http://openesf.net/projects/esf-activists-news-network/summary. On the
emaillist and the newsblog people and organisations in both CEE and Western
countries have contributed to the Ossetian war issue.

There will also be a number seminars at ESF were the Caucaus issue will be
explicitly addressed, confirmed by the organisers the last days. Among them
are:

- Undefined situation in Northern Caucasus and solidarity against
proliferation of the conflict.

- No to NATO, no to US bases and nuclear weapons in Europe. Europe for peace
and solidarity.

- Right to self determination:  A new Europe based in peoples rights.

- East-West alliances and relationships.

All these seminars and others that might take up the Caucasian conflicts may
use other acttivites at ESF to bring their case further, whether it is
within the peace tehemes or more general issues. All prposals foraction can
be brought to a final Social Movement Assembly were among other things
campaigning on NATO and its 60 year anniversary next year will be discussed.

More information about the seminars you find on
http://www.esf2008.org/program, easiest is to use the search field at top
right on this website.

But it can also be argued that the whole ESF is a response to the Caucausus
crisis addressing both peace and social and ecological causes to war.


The European Peace Action

The anti-war and peace movement is well coordinated before, during and
hopefully after ESF. Both antiimperialists and pacifists have many
activities organised together. A key actor that have been initiating a wide
range of cooperation among many differnt movement is "The Next European
Peace Action Forum".  This is one of a whole series of workshops, seminars
and activities as well as actions organised outside ESF. One can find more
information on the ESF 2008 web site. Mikael Böök, active in the ESF and WSF
process has also written about the new European Peace Action and how ESF can
become a revival of the strong peace movement in the 1980s and the European
Nuclear Disarmament who gathered thousand of activists every year at
European meetings. Bööks texts you find at:
http://blog.spinellisfootsteps.info

The initiative to the current European Peace Action, which is an emerging
coalition of organisations and networks, was taken by the Swedish network of
activists, which calls itself Ofog. Here is the explanation of the name,
from the website of Ofog:

    "Ofog translates into ”mischief”. But ofog is also a play with words.
“Foga” is a Swedish verb meaning to conform, to obey. But in Swedish, if you
put an O before a word, you turn it into its opposite.
    “Foga” also means, roughly, fixating things together in a decided and
unchangeable form, so in this meaning of the word, when we put the O before,
this is an allusion to our function as a flexible, dynamic network.

The over-reaching theme for the European peace forum in Malmö will be how to
strengthen our resistance against militarisation. The forum will be focussed
on direct action."

You will find the program and lots of action nes and practical information
at the European peace action website. The program at:
http://europeanpeaceaction.org/programme-european-peace-action-forum

Thursday 18 September
Globalisation of Militarism (0930 - 1230)
Resistance to Military Infrastructure
Campaigns Against War Profiteering

Nuclear Weapons (1400 - 1700)
US Nuclear Weapons in Europe and Resistance
New Nuclear Weapons: Nuclear Upgrades in France and the UK
Camping Against Nuclear Weapons and Tracking Nuclear Convoys

Actions Against Militarism, Action Preparation Workshop in advance of the
action day on Friday. (1700 -1800)
The Growing Influence of NATO and the Militarisation of the EU (1800 - 2100)
Partnership for Peace and New NATO Countries
The Lisbon Treaty: Military Aspects, Consequence for the Peace Movement and
Effect on Neutrality
NATO and the EU: Common Command Structures and Excuses for Interventions

Friday 19 September
Actions Against Militarism (All Day)
The EPA forum is an opportunity not just to meet each other, discuss the
issues, network and co-ordinate but also a chance to take action together.
Actions
We will also organise an action in Malmö, open to all. Those who wish to
take action together but haven't come with an affinity group and a specific
plan are welcome to join us in this.
Nonviolence (1400 - 1700)
There will be three workshops in this strand:
Movement Action Plan
Nonviolence tools for campaign development
Planning a nonviolent action

Saturday 20 September
The Militarisation of Space

Sunday 21 September
Co-ordinating our Resistance
Information Sharing ― How EPA will Share Info Within the Network
The Next European Peace Action Forum
Practical skills for direct action


Thus the possibility is there for making ESF a gathering were the Ossetian
war, Caucasian conflicts, the East-West relations and European peace can be
discussed and action emerge.

When ESF activist news asked if there was any response on the US-Polish
anti-missile defence treaty signed in Warsaw on yesterday seen in Moscow as
a threat to Russia the answer came promptly on the fse-esf.org list. - Yes,
we have had two demonstrations in Warsaw today and protests also in other
towns. Organiser: Stop the War Initiative

One picket was organised with one day's notice in front of the Prime
Ministers office when they were signing the deal, and another one later
outside the US embassy when more people could participate after work. There
were anti war acitivists, left wingers, greens  and non-alligned 
individuals. 

Our slogans: No to US bases, No to the missile shield, We've had Moscow - we
don't want Washington.

Anti war regards
Ela
Stop the War Initiative

So the ESF continues to be a multiple space for discussion and action.


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CEE Mobilisation news:

All CEE countries comes to ESF

The NOC European Contact group have now recieved information showing that
all CEE countries will participate at European Social Forum in Malmö. The
biggest delegations will come from Turkey, Hungary and Russia, all with
120-150 people to our knowledge at this stage. All three are very broad
delegations. At the moment the approximate number of participants are
(changes may occur and some especially from Baltic states, Croatia and
Slovenia are uncertain.).

Albania environmentalists 4
Armenia HCA and Armenian Venezuelan friendship society 2
Azerbaijan HCA 2-4
Belarus Belarus Social Forum
Bosnia and Herzegovina 25
Bulgaria 4,
Croatia 15,
Czech Republic ESF coalition bus together with Slovakia 40
Georgia Peace Committe, HCA and environmentalist 3
Estonia agriculture 1,
Kosovo 4,
Latvia Environmentalists 10,
Lithuania 1,
Republic of Macedonia 10,
Moldova NGO minibus 10,
Montenegro HCA and maybe others 1-2,
Poland Feminists, Attac and many others ca 50,
Romania Romanian Social Forum, Attac and NGO 45,
Serbia 10, 
Slovakia together with Czech bus, see above
Slovenia 10, 
Ukraine Social Forum Ukraine and Ukrainian Social Forum 90.

A 72 seater bus will start from Sarajevo with 54 passengers from visa
countries in all former Yugoslavia. We hope that the additional seats can be
used by people in Slovenia and Croatia and if necessary Austria. For more
information joel.borgstrom at esf2008.org


Second allocation from the Solidarity fund

A decision at the Swedish consulate in Istanbul made it clear that the visa
costs for Turkish delegates to ESF will be reduced from 60 euro each to have
visas for free and embassies in Russia and Ukriane have followed suit, Eahc
embassy take their own decision and resources have to be kept in reserve bu
this can be done outside the Solidarity fund budget. This allows for a seond
allocation of money from the solidarity fund which has been presented at the
CEE ESF mailing list and in dialogue with our CEE cooperation partners of in
total more than 11 000 euro. The proposal which already have been started to
be allocated accordingly is the following, changes may occur according to
the wishes of our cooperation partners:

Travels from far away many times exceeding the 100 euro limit in the first
allocation. The first allocation has been announced on the fse-esf.org
mailing list: 

Turkey
Russia East of Moscow, Nothern Caucasus, Siberia.

Proposal Turkey 2 500 euro
Russia 2 500 euro

Sum for far away travels 5 000 euro

Travel by collective transport or other means:

Visa countries
Ukraine 6 more places, 100 euro each for travel, accomodation and food payed
in Malmö, 55 euro) in total 155 euro each x 6 = 930 euro
Former Yugoslavia 10 more places, in total 1 550 euro

Hungary/Romania/Bulgaria

Hungary 15 more places, 100 euro each for travel, 20 for accomodation, in
total 120 each x 20 = 1 800 euro (can be used for more persons paying parts
of the costs themeselves):
Romania 2 more places 100 euro each for travel, 20 for accomodation, in
total 120 each x 2 = 240 euro

Poland

7 more places, ca 40 euro for travel, 10 for accomodation (50%), in total
350 euro.

Sum: for extra places within earlier per person calculation for visa
countries, low and middle income groups: 4 250 euro

In total for far away and additional places according to earlier
estimations: 10 000 euro

Reserve for speial needs 1 500 euro (especially keeping Caucasus in mind).

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General:

Biggest ESF cultural program ever: 400 activities

The cultural program in Malmö will be the largest ever at ESF, hundreds of
concerts, exhibitions, fashion shows, you name it. It has been organised by
ten working groups on music, theatre, dance, litterature/poetry, art,
photography, childrens´s culture, youth culture and choirs. Almost all is
for free for those having an ESF pass, some very few activities cost
entrance fee. The cultural program address political, social and ecological
issues on resistance and searching for alternatives from all over Europe and
the world. The attempt is to reflect the different ESF themes and the focus
on Central and Eastern Europe. More or less all actors participating in the
cultural program commit themselves voluntarily in an effort which has been
possible through a massive mobilisation among cultural activists in Malmö in
cooperation with more than 300 organisations all over the world. The ESF
cultural program includes more than 130 music artists and bands, the biggest
film festival in Malmö ever (with 62 pictures) and a very wide range of
other organised and spontaneous border crossing activities.

More complete information will come soon. Parts of the program can be
studied at these websites:

http://www.panora.nu/main/bilder/ecf_eng_low.pdf, 64 page booklet with much
of the exhibition, film and talk and cinema saloon program.

http://www.myspace.com/esf2008, much of the music program

http://www.esf2008.org/kultur-bekraftade-akter, some overall information.


Call for information on Western European mobilisation

We need information on the Western European mobilisation to inspire each
other and to know better why and how many will come to ESF. Please send
reports on mobilisation, if buses for collective transport are set up,
mobilisation web sites, address to colations organising joint efforts etc.


Call for information on political initiatives to be launched at ESF

There are mny political intiatives for action that will be launched or
promoted further at ESF on issues as water, climate, anti-ziganism, popular
education, anti-NATO, etc. Please inform us if you know of any such
initiative with links to a call or other information if such exists so we
can inform about them jointly.


Call for information on how different movements mobilise

Mobilisation within movements is alos taking place and can be inspiring to
others. We do would like to get information about such mobilisations as well
and spread to others. Here is one example from Friends of the Earth which
also have been disseminated among other movements:

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH GREENING the ESF
Malmö, Sweden, 17-21.09.2008

With at least 24 activities FOE groups goes to action at the European
Social Forum taking place in Malmö 17-21st of September. ESF is a
gathering of multiple spaces in the same place for popular movements
from all of Europe for discussion and action that has taken place
since 2002 in Florence.

Friends of the Earth will take part on all levels mobilising all from
local FoE groups initiating seminars on stopping motorways and
defending public urban spaces to Friends of the Earth International
campaigners. FoE groups have been active at ESF before with many
seminars (see: http://www.foeeurope.org/trade/events/ESF/Index.htm),
but this time the scope is wider. There are the many climate
seminars, how to address the crisis of exploding food prices,
agrofuels, and challenging corporate power. But this time FoE also
takes the lead in seminars on how popular movements can cooperate to
be of importance to peoples daily life and the future of the global
justice movement and how to act against repression of social movements.

And there will also be a lot of action. Via Campesina and Friends of
the Earth Youth organises a joint Youth camp- http://
www.foeeurope.org/youngfoee/Youth%20camp%20ESF.html. Activists in
Malmö occupied the street and delivered ginger cakes to passers by on
the international Climate Day 8th of december last year on what in
Sweden is called Klimatkrock, a tradition to block car traffic for a
while and create culture instead - http://green-blog.org/2007/12/10/
climate-walks. During ESF there will be a new Klimatkrock on Friday
19.9. Next day there is the big ESF demo in need of all FoE
creativity to spread our message for environmental justice, a
demonstration that will end with a big party with Kajsa Lindqvist as
speaker, chair of Friends of the Earth Sweden recently arrested for
attempting to sabotage air traffic at the Malmö air port in a protest
against climate change.

The wide range of actions has been possible due to a broad scope of
cooperation partners with Via Campesina as the most crucial one.
Friends of the Earth and Via Campesina Sweden formed an alliance and
started together with Latin American solidarity groups, FIAN and
Finnish cooperation partners on 17th of April a campaign in support
of the landless movement in Southern Brazil struggling against the
Swedish-Finnish forestry corporation Stora Enso using land for
monoculture plantations. This paved the way for alliances organising
common activities during ESF and will hopefully also help in bring
envrionmental and rural issues into the core of next years campaiging
that will be discussed at the Social Movement Assembly at ESF. In
2009 World Social Forum will take place in Belem in Amazonia with
environment as one of its key issues and the action year will end
with the Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

There will also be 300 cultural activities and 250 seminars and
workshops at ESF - http://www.esf2008.org. Friends of the Earth have
been working on all levels, from being active with the cultural
program to supporting a strong Central and Eastern European
participation. A special newspaper will also be distributed to the
participants to promote our vision made by FoE Sweden and Finland.
What has been especially positive is that indigenous people will be
central, by facilitating the inauguration, as speakers in the broad
seminars intitied by FoE of interest for all popular movements and in
a special seminar on Indigenous Peoples and Planetarian Environmental
Justice.

So come to ESF in Malmö. We hope it will promote the greening of ESF
and strengthen our cooperation with peasants, indigenous people and
all other popular movements.

Ellie Cijvat and Tord Björk,

Miljöförbundet Jordens Vänner/Friends of the Earth Sweden

List of seminars, workshops and activities:

Social Movements - Europe and Global:
Popular movement cooperation dialogue, The global justice movement
yesterday, today, tomorrow, The World Social Forum at Belem and the future
of WSF, Indigenous Peoples and Planetarian Environmental Justice, The
criminalisation and repression of Social Movements,

Food and Agriculture:
Facing the food crisis, Implementing food sovereignty, Exploding Food
Prices: Root causes, beneficiaries of this situation and building new
alliances for access to healthy food for all, Agrofuels will not answer
climate change or climate justice: strategy and action planning,

Climate Change and Energy:
Climate Justice, Organizing the climate change movement and building
alliances, Climate actions Poznan 2008 and Copenhagen 2009, EU climate and
energy policies, Trade Unions, Climate Change and Government Action, Trade
and Climate Change: "Free trade" impasse, Fair Trade alternatives, Radical
Social Change against global warming, Equality, renewable energy and nuclear
power,

Economic Justice:
The role of Europe and European TNCs/capital in destroying labour,
Social and environmental rights globally, Linking campaigns on TNC lobby,
Democracy and "Global Europe" to reclaim the EU economy, Degrowth and social
rebirth - The logical steps to global survival, Resistance to dams,
motorways and other unsustainable infrastructure - social and environmental
struggle, Paper and sugarcane monocultures - north & south experiences,
Struggles to defend urban public spaces and open cities in Europe -
Against speculation,

Other activities:

Cultural programme "The World According to Monsanto": film screening and
discussion

Side activity: Youth Camp by Via Campesina and Young Friends of the
Earth Europe, "Farming a cool planet. Living Alternatives."


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Tord Björk

Coordinator, 
Contact group for Europe and the World, Nordic Organizing Committee ESF 2008

Finlandsgatan 2
291 31 Kristianstad
Sverige/Suede/Sweden
Tel: +46 (0)44 12 32 94 (evenings, sometimes am Thursdays)
Mobile: +46 (0)738 44 68 50 (occasionally)
E-mail: tord.bjork at mjv.se (best way for contacts)

Nordic Organizing Committee: esf2008 at gmail.com, www.esf2008.org