Le Forum Social Mondial de Dakar s’ouvre sur un vent de révoltes

En Egypte, l’heure est grave : demain peut  se jouer le scénario de la guerre civile

La répression extrêmement  violente des manifestants pro démocratie par des voyous encadrés par des éléments de la police secrète et du Parti National Démocratique au pouvoir représente une phase dangereuse de l’évolution politique.

Le régime campe sur ses positions et refuse toutes concessions réelles à une population exaspérée par l’oppression,  l’injustice,  la misère et le mépris dans lequel elle est tenue.

La représentation par la presse française d’une opposition entre pro et anti Moubarak est mensongère. Il s’agit d’une rebellion populaire pour la démocratie que l’on tente de réprimer en mobilisant des nervis et des membres  du pharaonique appareil de répression du régime.

Les arrestations en catimini de jeunes dirigeants de l’opposition populaire et l’interdiction faite  aux journalistes d’exercer leur métier sont les signes les plus révélateurs et ceux d’une escalade dans la répression.

L’heure est grave et le risque d’un bain de sang est réel ; dès lors la mobilisation de toutes et tous les démocrates et la solidarité avec la population égyptienne sont une urgence.

La mise en garde des autorités égyptiennes et leur mise en cause dans tous les débordements doivent être exprimées avec la plus grande fermeté.

Les responsables étatiques et les auteurs de crimes,  en nombre important depuis quelques jours,  doivent être identifiés et poursuivis par la justice internationale.

Il est urgent d’exercer des pressions sur le gouvernement pour qu’il défende les principes intangibles et universel de la démocratie et des droits humains, sur les personnels politiques pour exprimer leur condamnation d’une politique extérieure qui ne cesse de mettre la France en porte à faux avec ses obligations internationales et sur les medias  pour qu’ils respectent les principes déontologiques de leur profession.

Jeudi 3 février

FRANTZ FANON FOUNDATION-FONDATION FRANTZ FANON 
président d'Honneur: Aimé Césaire

Fondationffanon@hotmail.com
www.frantzfanonfoundation-fondationfrantzfanon.com

IMPORTANT 

My email adresse will be changed in 1 month

The new one is  

mfanonmendesfrance@gmail.com

Mireille Fanon-Mendès France

+ 33 686783920
FRANTZ FANON FOUNDATION-FONDATION FRANTZ FANON
président d'Honneur: Aimé Césaire

Fondationffanon@hotmail.com
www.frantzfanonfoundation-fondationfrantzfanon.com

collaboratrice parlementaire du député

Patrick Braouezec

Assembléee nationale
0033 140634968

fax:0033 140634938

To the international climate justice movement and participants at World
Social Forum and ESF Assembly


In Sweden different movements are now cooperating to establish a climate
justice campaign towards COP17 including a petition and a mobilization
to reclaim control over land and food by an alliance of peasants,
solidarity- and environmental movement. We would like to put these
proposals for international cooperation in the relevant discussions
during World Social Forum in Dakar 6-11 of February, the European Social
Forum Assembly in Budapest 4-6 of March and other relevant meetings. As
it may have interest in other countries we would like to hear your
opinion about the proposal.
 
** Climate Justice petition **
 
A petition campaign towards COP17 which we and our cooperation partners
would like to initiate also on an international level, in Europe or
globally. The coalition partners are some 40 environmental, solidarity
and adult education organizations who together in 2010 organized a
campaign with several activities and a petition campaign for global
justice demands. This time the main organization coordinating the
campaign, the Latin America groups (SAL) working closely with popular
movements in Latin America and inspired by the Cochabamba meeting have
proposed to focus solely on climate justice. The proposal at the moment
from the Latin America groups is three demands (the full proposal, see
below):

- Work to aim for a binding international agreement on climate change
should not exceed 1.5 degree warming of the atmosphere

- Take financial responsibility for the rich countries' climate debt to
poor countries

- Just transition of our own societies, industries and agriculture and
not by exporting the problems to other countries by carbon trading.

The translation may not be accurate. FoE Sweden would like to add
forestry in the just transition point and the temperature goal can be
discussed.

There will be a meeting in Sweden about this petition and campaign
proposal on the 11th of February and comments are welcome before and
after this.


Best regards
Ellie Cijvat and Tord Björk
Friends of the Earth Sweden

To the international food sovereignty movement and participants at World
Social Forum and ESF Assembly

 
** Call: Reclaim control over land and food

FoE Sweden has done some work on food sovereignty in a broader
perspective: Building of a movement for a constructive solution to the
social and ecological crisis where we especially focus upon agriculture,
forestry and if possible also fisheries, three areas which in Swedish
are labelled ”naturbruk”, the use of nature.
 
FoE Sweden has had a long term cooperation with both Via Campesina in
Sweden and in Brazil with the landless movement MST. Last year we
initiated a process for building a coalition towards a just transition
of agriculture and forestry with an emphasis of having direct producers
as central in the process. We formulated an appeal which you can find
below for reclaiming control over land and food. This resulted in a
meeting in the periphery of Sweden on the countryside with participants
from a broad range of different peasant organisations, organizations to
protect the forests and environmental and solidarity groups as well as
MPs from two political parties. The meeting became a coming together of
forces addressing also the issue of democracy and how to struggle
against the devastating depopulation of the countryside in most areas of
Sweden. Inspired by the presence of two activists from MST in Brazil it
was decided to hold a new meeting with many peasant and a local rural
development organization as a host in Northern Sweden. This meeting will
take place in april. It has already  received interest from a widening
group of organizations.
 
We see this process as of equal social and environmental importance, and
as a way to bring forward constructive solutions for stopping global
warming and loss of biodiveristy by struggling for a just transition.

Comments are welcome!


 
Best regards
Ellie Cijvat and Tord Björk
Friends of the Earth Sweden

Enclosed:

Call:

Reclaim control over land and food!



The power over food and production in rural areas has shifted from local
producers to large industries, international holding and finance capital
with devastating consequences. Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and
other natural resources are forced to obey other laws than nature.
Consumers and rural people have for too long and too passively adapted
to this development. Natural resources and further processing have been
turned into pawns in a game of Monopoly where the player who has amassed
the most capital wins. This trend must be reversed; as producers, fellow
human beings and consumers, we need to reclaim power over use of the
land and natural resources.
 
The abuse of nature and the prevailing world order
 
Fewer players decide the objectives for the use of nature and processing
of natural products as well as the methods for reaching those
objectives. Economies of scale and technologies are favored without
respect for either tnature, ecological cycles, public health or quality
of life. The result is that natural resources are overexploited and that
the important ecological balance is disturbed, both globally and
locally. The knowledge held by local producers on how humans can adapt
to different natural conditions are lost. The social impact is the
widening gap between those who produce and those who own capital,
between town and country, between North and South.
 
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
 
Large-scale production of food destroys nature and on a global scale
strikes out farmers engaged in family farming. Farmers producing for the
local market and rural workers in North and South live under
deteriorating conditions while large producers are favored.
 
The focus on benefiting large-scale systems continues in every step from
producer to consumer. Local production of food and food craftsmanship is
a form of resistance but can not be more than a niche as the dominant
trend goes in the opposite direction. The transition to massive animal
factories, means not only suffering for the animals, it also entails
high risks of infection and the emergence of dangerous new pandemics.
The nutritional value of food deteriorates and toxins accumulate in our
bodies.
 
Within fishery the current model means over-exploitation in most of the
world. Fish and whales are face extinction or have been severely
decimated, and fewer people can sustain themselves as fishermen. Coastal
fishing is replaced by industrial fishing with the help of government
subsidies and pressure in international negotiations.
 
The same thing has happened in the forestry sector. A highly-centralized
forest industry has gained control over most small-holders' forest and
created ecologically unsustainable monocultures. This model is now being
exported to Africa, Latin America and Asia by Nordic forestry firms.
 
Big companies are assisted by new trade agreements and regulations
suited to their needs and risks. Today's large-scale farming and
forestry are fossil based, resource-intensive and contribute to
increasing emissions from land use change and reduced carbon storage.
The impact is enormous, not least in terms of climate.
 
Without a concerted counter-offensive local populations, rural families
and foresters who manage our natural resources risk losing their
livelihood and ending up in urban slums or becoming isolated in
increasingly depopulated and disadvantaged rural areas. Indigenous
peoples are particularly affected. Their right to manage the land they
have cultivated since ancient times is taken away from them, making it
very difficult for them to maintain their identity and their cultural
heritage, with its wealth of insights into ecological balance and
sustainable uses of plant and animal species. Now they are demanding
that right back, with ever stronger voices.
 
What do we want instead?
 
We need to re-think both our use of natural renewable cycles and finite
resources and how we refine and consume these resources. The necessary
changes must be founded on parity of power between rural, suburban and
inner city areas in helping to shape the culture that affects our needs,
our production skills, knowledge and working conditions.
 
1st The direct producers must get more power and a greater measure of
self-determination over natural resources. Farmers, forestry workers and
other direct producers' knowledge must be recognized. They must
themselves have the right to manage natural resources and influence
political and economic conditions for natural resources.
 
2nd The use of nature must be regulated to a greater extent, in order to
protect natural resources from the abuse by major economic interests .
The deregulation that turns nature into a commodity and causes a
stronger exploitation of natural resources must be stopped.
 
3rd Large companies must be limited in their power, their monopoly must
be broken. Countries themselves must have the right to control their
natural resources. Municipalities and other government-controlled
activities must have the right to select and promote good quality of
food production, from fields and orchards to the plate.
 
4th Producers and consumers must work together across the entire value
chain to protect the environment and public health. The sense of
community and the joy of growing or preparing and eating food together,
as well as interaction between countryside and city are essential to a
good life.
 
The international peasants' movement has opposed the prevailing world
order regarding the use of nature and raises the issue of food
sovereignty. People and countries must have the right to protect their
own food supply, and not, as now, be subjected to terms of trade drafted
by others for their own benefit, and be forced to compete with food
imports at dumped prices. Food sovereignty will ensure access to food
and protect rural livelihoods.
 
Now a movement in the South and North is growing, peasants, fishers,
foresters and other natural farmers have realized that they are victims
of the same system wherever on the globe they are. This is very hopeful,
because now we can finally hope for a global movement to save the world,
the environment, natural resources, food, climate and everyone's right
to decent living conditions and livelihoods. This movement is now joined
by environmental groups, consumers and solidarity movements and all
people who care about the survival of earth and of humanity.
 
This call was developed by Friends of the Earth Sweden (Miljöförbundet
Jordens Vänner), November 2010, www.mjv.se

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