El 28 de julio, las actividades del Foro Social de las Américas se suspendieron momentáneamente en Quito. La marcha por la paz y la vida reunió a todos los asistentes de este encuentro continental. Las principales avenidas de Quito fueron copadas por más de 20 mil personas, todas ellas de diferentes nacionalidades, pero la bandera de lucha era la misma...

Marcha por la Paz y la Vida:  http://www.ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2004/07/6199.shtml

Conclusiones 1er FSA de Pueblos Indigenas:  http://www.ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2004/07/6252.shtml
accion neolib:  http://www.ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2004/07/6221.shtml

Ante el Foro Social:  http://www.ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2004/07/6080.shtml


A flyer was distributed at the SFA on Wednesday, July 28th on the secret weapon of financing the social forum.


Organizadores sabotean actos en el FSA

30.07.2004 17:25
Heinz Dietrich denunció en radio La Luna el sabotaje por parte de los organizadores del Foro Social de las Américas a los actos realizados por la Plataforma Internacional de Derechos Humanos.
También se pudo comprobar el sabotaje de los organizadores del FSA a los actos relacionados con el Plan Colombia e IRA.

Heinz Dietrich denunció que los actos de la Plataforma Int. de DDHH fueron sacados del programa impreso de actos del foro, también dijo que salas que estaban reservadas y confirmadas para sus actos a última hora fueron quitadas y cerradas con llave.
Dietrich pidió más transparencia en los próximos foros mundiales y continentales y que sus organizadores no busquen solo beneficiar a las instituciones (ndr: principalmente europeas) que financian el foro.
Lo mejor del foro es el permitir conocerse, encontrarse, compartir entre gente de diversos países que comparten el sueño de construir un mundo mejor.
En fin el foro termina sin permitir llegar a conclusiones consensuadas y democráticas, dejando un amargo sabor en la mayoría de los participantes como ha sido norma en todos los foros sociales que antecedieron, comprobándose una vez más la manipulación ideológica del foro.

Más información en:

FSA sacudido por escándalo (scandal at the SFA):  http://ecuador.indymedia.de/es/2004/07/6251.shtml

Red Voltaire:  http://www.redvoltaire.net


 http://www.ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2004/07/6251.shtml


Cultural Resistance in Festive Opening Ceremony
by Gustavo Gonzalez

Published on Monday, July 26, 2004
by the Inter Press Service
 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0726-05.htm

QUITO - ''Cultural resistance'' marked the huge fiesta that opened the first Social Forum of the Americas Sunday in the Ecuadorian capital, which has drawn at least 8,000 activists, united once again under the slogan ''another world is possible''.

The Sunday through Friday gathering, the first regional edition of the World Social Forum held every year since 2001, is an assembly ''of all the poor,'' Ecuadorian indigenous leader Blanca Chancoso, speaking in the name of the organizing committee, told the immense crowd that packed the San Francisco plaza in colonial Quito.

''From here, I want to invite you all to this enormous 'minga' (communal work), to build this 'other America', which IS possible,'' said Chancoso, at the inauguration of the regional meeting of ''all of our brothers and sisters, from Alaska to Patagonia.''

When the clock struck noon, the people in the square were invited to look towards the east, ''where the sun, the fire of life, comes up,'' raise up their hands, and shout seven times 'Ullallay' -- a Quichua word that refers to ''unconditional love among human beings.''

The ritual, led from the stage by representatives of indigenous peoples from Ecuador's Andes mountain region, like the Otavaleno and Salasaca ethnic groups, was then repeated facing the south, the west and the north.

On the stage, alongside the indigenous representatives, were Argentine writer and Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Brazilian activist Chico Whitaker.

The sound of a giant conch shell, ''which gives order to our lives,'' and the burning of the leaves of sacred plants also formed part of the ceremony, in which the indigenous leaders said their prayers, surrounded by fruit and flowers that were later distributed among the public.

''We have held this ritual asking for the protection of the Pachamama (Mother Earth) so that everything will go well in this Social Forum of the Americas,'' a young Otavaleno woman wearing her ethnic group's traditional black skirt and white embroidered blouse, as well as numerous necklaces and bracelets, told IPS.

Participants from throughout the Americas as well as European countries like Spain, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy are taking part in this week's 300 events, which will include conferences, panels, workshops, debates, artistic performances and cultural activities.

Opposition to ''neo-liberal'' globalization and the future Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and calls for the elimination of an ''unjust and immoral'' foreign debt burden will be central themes at the forum, the organizers said Sunday.

Andrea Borges, one of the leaders of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement (MST), said another of today's big challenges is the fight against the militarization of the continent by the United States, through the installation of bases, as part of the George W. Bush administration's scheme of ''pre-emptive war.''

Rejection of the presence of a U.S. military base in the southern Ecuadorian port of Manta was not only expressed in speeches, but by signs held by the demonstrators and in their chants.

''We are here for life, not for death,'' said Perez Esquivel. ''We are here to fight and to resist, for the dignity of our peoples.''

''Pre-emptive war is a blueprint for death,'' said the Argentine activist and writer, adding that the Bush administration is trying to impose ''one way of thinking'' in the world, which must be met with ''the resistance of our own ways of thinking, looking to our peoples, our cultures, our identity.''

This ''multi-ethnic and multicultural'' forum, in the words of Ecuadorian indigenous leader Leonidas Iza, began to take shape Sunday in the multi-hued varied human landscape in San Francisco plaza.

Women's rights activist Myriam Levere also underlined the role of women's groups in changing an unjust world order based on ''the international and sexual division of labor.''

''Another world is possible, without the patriarchal, market-based society,'' she said.

Environmentalists, members of sexual minorities, trade unionists, grassroots community activists and students formed part of the mosaic of expressions of civil society drawn to Quito from the entire hemisphere.

African-American activists played an important part in the inauguration of the week's events. Jaribu Hill with Mississippi Workers for Human Rights greeted the crowd in English and sang a moving a capella version of a spiritual protesting the exploitation of blacks and
calling for unity.

And she had the demonstrators sing in Spanish ''el pueblo unido jamas sera vencido'' (the people united will never be defeated'').

The music of the Afro-American group 'Tierra Caliente' from the port city of Esmeraldas in the extreme northern part of Ecuador also gave an artistic, as well as festive, touch to Sunday's opening ceremony.

* Social Forum of the Americas

IPS - Inter Press Service

see also:  http://www.portside.org