Around 50 people met today 21st at the Intercontinental Youth Camp in Porto Alegre in the framework of the Third World Social Forum, to discuss the future and the legacy, of the experience matured in the two editions of the Intercontinental Youth Camp.

Most likely the World Social Forum will take place in India next year and and so it will the Fourth Intercontinental Youth Camp. The movements of Latin America and the Organising Committee of the Youth Camp are calling for a Global Network that maintains the experience of the present organisation and gives continuity of a political and social project that has been shown a clear success.

Clear exigencies have been spelled out by the participants of the meeting. The need of a network of social movements is broadly perceived to coordinate different groups from distant and diverse countries, to enhance the bargaining power and the analytical ability of a
horizontal structure that has its links in as many countries as possible.

The participants so far are mostly from South America (Chilean, Argentinian, Uruguayan, and Brasilian), but at the meeting today a sizeable group of activists from Quebec was present, and activists from Italy, France, the US, Australia, India and two comrades of the Stop The War Society of SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) of the University of London.

The discussion revolved around three main points. The objectives of the network, its structure and the operational management, and the agenda of mobilisation for 2003.

As far as the first point is concerned the matters at stake are the necessity to coordinate the struggles of local movements against the common enemy (the Empire, the powerful of the Earth, neoliberalism) in the wide respect of local identities and political vision and practice.

The idea of a website and a moderated mailing list were proposed to give the network a structure with sharp operational incisiveness.

The agenda proposed placed mobilisation against the war as a top priority; war seen as the instrument of international capital to impose its domination and as an instrument to solve international disputes. The fight against the WTO, the ALCA and the G8 are the other priorities at stake.

An important proposal was articulated by the delegation from Quebec to organise Youth Camps in each country to continue with the successful experiment of the Intercontinental Youth Camps of Porto Alegre. Moreover the idea of camps along strategic borders has been put forward. In particular along the border of US and Mexico and the border of Paraguay, Argentina and Brasil. These camps would emphasise the need to show the hypocrisy of a system that allows free circulation of capital and goods, but not of people (labour).

A new meeting has been called for tomorrow afternoon to discuss the points highlighted today and to start articulating the political position of the movements represented at the youth camp toward the World Social Forum.