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A31 day of action against corporate control of the UN?

Anyone doing anything? | 26.08.2002 16:11

As lobby groups, politicians and mainstream NGO's meet in Johannesburg to decide just how to inflict their corporate led version of 'sustainable development' on the rest of the world, is anyone in the UK direct action movement planning to do anything about it?

Over the last few months several already busy folk tried to do get people interested in doing an action to coincide with the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Nobody showed any interest so nothing more has come of it.
As far as I know no big actions/events are planned in the UK to coincide with Johannesburg.
This seems a bit of a shame.
So if anything is going to happen, people need to do it themselves.

ASEED in the Netherlands have called for an international day of action on August 31st targeting corporate influence on the UN World Summit in Johannesburg.

'Stop big corporations and their lobby groups from influencing the world summit in Johannesburg. Our definition of sustainability is not the same as theirs. Our future is not their future. Join the day of action and organise something locally'

They have compiled a huge amount of background info on how the UN and the World Summit on Sustainable Development has been hijacked by corporations, as well as lots of stuff on events due to happen around the world on A31.

Have a look, be inspired and do something!


'Creative and active for the UN World Summit in Johannesburg'. available on line at  http://www.aseed.net/un-corporated/pdf-files/rheden-report.pdf

UN-corporated website  http://www.aseed.net/un-corporated/uncorp-frameset.htm

A31 Day of action web site  http://www.aseed.net/un-corporated/a31-first.htm

Anyone doing anything?
- Homepage: http://www.aseed.net/un-corporated/a31-first.htm

Comments

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more ideas for A31

26.08.2002 16:58

one easy way to feel like you're doing something useful is to tie in an action you're already doing with what's going on in Johannesburg. It seems that one of the main threads of the UnCorporated stuff is that this conference is going to achieve precisely nothing useful and that people (and NGOs) should give up hoping that the UN will do something useful and accept that its corrupt, or at the very least politically impotent. Instead, its more productive to carry on with your local struggles and highlight all the blah above about the UN being a bit lame. So, if you're going to be doing something anyway, why not give it a little extra topicalness/topicality/tapioca/topography by saying that whilst 65000 people are doing nothing but pushing for privatisation of pretty much everything in the name of sustainable development, you're actually doing something useful.

There's also been a call for solidarity for the people from the Gauteng Landless People’s Movement and others who have been arrested for no good reason by the South African police. The government is doing is best to suppress any freedom of expression right now and there have been violent crack downs on protests around the summit. The call has asked for actions at South African embassies, if anyone fancies.

For more info, check out  http://southafrica.indymedia.org
For the latest news about what's going on in the conference - mainly what NGOs are saying - www.joburgmedia.net
For live internet radio, check out  http://www.diversity-radio.net/

A31

Risingtide action on the 1st?

27.08.2002 12:41

In the latest SchNews is a message about the Brighton "Sunny Day". On September 1st at the Ellipse on Brighton seafront (11-4 pm). Energy saving, climate change, electric bicycles, biodiesel, Brighton's earthship, bands and music.
email:  RTtrad@aol.com

Maybe just make this bigger. Or get some people together and do a small local action. Just be creative.

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