<div>Dear Laina,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Your questions were absolutely legitimate, both in terms of procedure and spirit, </div>
<div> </div>
<div>In terms of procedure, I understood the show of hands friday evening as an indication of the desire to have a statement strongly critical of what is imposed on us. But it cannot be considered as a decision to walk out completely : there was clearly no unanimity and civil society has no mechanisms to adopt decisions by majority vote at that stage (and I hope never). We need to discuss this in plenary (physical and virtual) on monday.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>In spirit, I fully support most of your comments as well as Avri's and think we should not relinquish our right to speak. We just need to know how to best use it.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>For the rest of your comments about the process and the way we are forced to work, thank you so much for both expressing so clearly your concerns and at the same time trying to move forward.</div>
<div>
<div> </div>
<div>I also thank Ralf very much for his comments that are very up to the point on most of your remarks, particularly on the difficult pace of this PrepCom. Even the "insiders" have difficulty keeping up and , as Ralf rightly said, it is the mechanisms governments are imposing on Civil Society during this PreCom that make our work so hard for "newcomers" and limits our ability to be as pedagogical as we would like to.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I was hoping to have a little more time yesterday to address your concerns, but it was impossible. I will try to send a separate mail today to :</div>
<div>1) give a better background picture and list the main challenges for the benefit of those coming to the process at that stage</div>
<div>2) propose a strategy for sub-Committe B around a rolling document</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Best</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Bertrand</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div><br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/24/05, <b class="gmail_sendername">Laina Raveendran Greene</b> <<a href="mailto:laina@getit.org">laina@getit.org</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">[Please note that by using 'REPLY', your response goes to the entire list. Kindly use individual addresses for responses intended for specific people]
<br><br>Click <a href="http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/">http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/</a> to access automatic translation of this message!<br>_______________________________________<br><br><br>Thanks so much Avri for speaking up and offering another point of view. I
<br>agree with you and and am glad to see another perspective about how best we<br>could be making use of the situation we face, and still try to make a<br>difference. This would also hopefully avoid the unthought of ramifications
<br>to other caucuses, who have come from long and far and may face hardships<br>from this hardline approach.<br><br>Thanks for this input indeed!<br><br>Laina<br><br>-----Original Message-----<br>From: <a href="mailto:plenary-admin@wsis-cs.org">
plenary-admin@wsis-cs.org</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:plenary-admin@wsis-cs.org">plenary-admin@wsis-cs.org</a>] On Behalf<br>Of Avri Doria<br>Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2005 5:50 PM<br>To: Governance; WSIS Plenary<br>Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Repsonse on procedural issue
<br><br>[Please note that by using 'REPLY', your response goes to the entire list.<br>Kindly use individual addresses for responses intended for specific people]<br><br>Click <a href="http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/">http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/
</a> to access automatic translation of<br>this message!<br>_______________________________________<br><br>There has been a suggestion that CS should cease to make spoken or written<br>contributions to the drafting and working groups should they be defined as
<br>'speak and leave' events. I disagree with this position.<br><br>While I believe that we should make a very strong statement on the<br>procedural issue and that we should continue to fight the governments'<br>decision to exclude non governmental bodies from now until the end of the
<br>prepcom, I do not believe that that we should stop speaking at the meetings,<br>even if CS is forced to speak and leave. To do so, would in my opinion, be<br>tantamount to cutting off our noses to spite our own faces. We represent
<br>many causes and have important postions that needs to be aired and<br>considered. To turn our backs on the speaking opportunities would be seen<br>as a relief by many of the governments for it would allow them to discount
<br>all of the work, and progress, CS has achieved so far. I think it would be<br>preferable for caucuses to continue to continue making their points both in<br>person and in writing so that the governments have no excuse for ignoring CS
<br>issues. I also think it would be good to agree on a standard single line<br>statement that would be included at the end of every other statement the<br>caucuses made that indicated the CS speaker would be leaving under duress at
<br>the end of their speaking time and indicating that the nature of the closed<br>meetings threatened the legitimacy of the entire enterprise. On finishing<br>their individual statement each speaker could then leave without waiting to
<br>be asked to leave, thus making the protest ongoing and visible.<br><br><br>I do think we should also be working on documents that are parallel to the<br>governments' documents. In committee A I would recommend taking the chair's
<br>outline and filling in the sections ourselves. So that we would have a<br>document with the same form but which was written according to CS<br>requirements. I am not tracking B all that carefully, but I expect a<br>similar strategy would also work there.
<br><br>thanks<br>a.<br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Plenary mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Plenary@wsis-cs.org">Plenary@wsis-cs.org</a><br><a href="http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary">
http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary</a><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Plenary mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Plenary@wsis-cs.org">Plenary@wsis-cs.org</a><br><a href="http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary">
http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary</a><br></blockquote></div><br>