From the 23rd to the 26th of February of 1998, grassroots movements of all continents met in Geneva to launch a worldwide coordination network of resistance to the global market, a new alliance of struggle and solidarity called Peoples' Global Action against 'free' trade and the WTO (PGA). That was the birth of this global tool for communication and coordination for all those who fight the destruction of humanity and the planet by capitalism and build local alternatives to globalisation.

The hallmarks of this alliance are:

1. A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation.
2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings.
3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker;
4. A call to direct action and civil disobedience, support for social movements' struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples' rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism.
5. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy.

PGA is an evolving coordination, and as such it changes with time. For instance, the second hallmark was incorporated at the 2nd PGA conference in Bangalore (India) in order to distance clearly PGA from organisations of the extreme right looking for a political space to spread their xenophobic rejection of globalisation. At the same conference, the character of the network was redefined: its previous focus on 'free' trade agreements (and on the WTO in particular) was broadened, since we reached the consensus that PGA should be a space to communicate and coordinate globally not just against treaties and institutions, but also around the social and environmental issues related to them. An opposition to the capitalist development paradigm in general was made explicit.

The main objectives of PGA are:

1. Inspiring the greatest number of persons, movements, and organisation to act against corporate domination through non-violent civil disobedience and people-oriented constructive actions.
2. Offering an instrument for co-ordination and mutual support at global level for those resisting corporate rule and the capitalist development paradigm.
3. Giving more international projection to the struggles against economic liberalisation and global capitalism.

PGA is a tool for coordination not an organisation. The political analysis and call to action of PGA are reflected in its manifesto, a dynamic, evolving document that will be revised at each PGA conference. PGA has no members and does not have and will not have a juridical personality. No organisation or person represents the PGA, nor does the PGA represent any organisation or person. PGA will limit itself to facilitating coordination and exchange of information between grassroots movements through conferences and means of communication.

The PGA conferences are called by a committee of convenors, formed by organisations and movements from all continents and representing different social sectors (as well as the local organisers of the conference). This committee determines the agenda of the conference, takes decisions regarding participation at the conference and the use of economic resources, decides whether publications may be printed in the name of the PGA, and checks the contents of the PGA's information tools. The committee cannot speak in the name of PGA. Each PGA conference elects the convenors of the next conference.

The roles of the PGA conferences are, at least, to update the manifesto (if necessary), advance the process of global coordination of resistance against capitalism, coordinate worldwide decentralised Global Days of Action and electing a new convenors' committee.

PGA has no economic resources. The funds needed for the conferences and the information media must be raised in a decentralised manner. All funds that are collected for the conference are administered by the convenors' committee. Publications must be self-financing.

Process working groups

The Introduction to the Process Working Group took place Sunday morning with over 25 people. The agenda items included a definition of PGA, a brief PGA history, a look at decisions that need to be taken at this PGA conference, proposals made by EuroDusnie and MRG thus far, other thoughts and ideas about the process, and general clarifications of the issues brought up.

While only one person from EuroDusnie was present, their proposal was presented and can be found in the first conference newspaper. MRG's proposal will be printed in this paper, but they also expressed criticism at the strict and predefined structure for the process debate that has shaped how we discuss these issues.

Additionally, there were many other thoughts that came from people outside of Eurodusnie and MRG. They included a strong sentiment that people have a commitment to the process of how we work together rather than being overly concerned about efficiency (which is a capitalist concept in itself.) To this end there was a strong, but not unanimous, support for consensus.

While many people acknowledged that change in the PGA process is necessary in order to survive as a workable structure, they were still suspicious of change, especially as related to defining additional structures and increased PGA visibility, which may not only lead to bureaucratic tendencies but also to domination and centralisation.

As such there were several proposals to decentralise the European PGA process into regional conferences which would send delegates to a European conference. The European conference would then send delegates to the international PGA conference. There were many variations on this, but they all seem to highlight that such a process would allow for greater participation and access to information on the local level which could make the European level more transparent.

And finally a note from the note-taker - as the meeting lasted for three hours and there were a diversity of thoughts, it would be impossible for this short summary to represent the debate accurately. Furthermore computer problems, time constraints, and article space constraints have made this report very short. The long version of the notes will be posted on the internet.

A summary of the strategy-debates

As can be read in the first edition of the PGAConference Newspaper, the goal of the strategydebates was to address the six following questions:

1. How do we look back on the international mobilisations and days of action, and how will we move forward?
2. What concrete alternatives can we create?
3. How do we relate to more vertical organisations and with the wider society?
4. How do we react to repression?
5. Which new forms of resistance are emerging?
6. How do we organise in a direct democratic way and build up counter power?

The following pages contain selections of the minutes that were taken during the discussions, ordered on subject. Longer versions can be found on the PGA-forum on http://www.all4all.org/en/.

Which new forms of resistance?

Big summits ,mobilisations, action camps, caravans, synchronised decentralised actions, local actions... no tactic lasts forever. The police, media and the state always find ways of taking advantage, so our future strength lies in unpredictability.

One of the biggest issues is the lack of involvement of local people. Also, big summits usually follow the capitalist agenda, letting them choose the time and place. Why should we keep this going anyway? Because mass events can empower these local groups, they provide a stage for discussion and outreach.

First on the agenda were Action camps. Propositions included plans to organise regular and decentralised camps and to recreate the 'UK road protest' camps.

Next up were Caravans. Caravans have the unique ability to connect with existing community groups. It's important to make the caravans slower, giving the participants more time to get involved into the local struggles -like the student caravan did in Chiapas, the Bordercamps did in Tarifa, Poland, Slovenia, Genoa, Frankfurt and the Pblix Theatre Caravan in Palestine.

An anarchist travelling circus was suggested, supposed to kick off in 2003, to lead to the G8 summit in Evian, informing and connecting to local communities in 30 days, 30 places and with 30 actions. 'Sans Titre' has plans for a permanent caravan project in France. The idea is to stay between one and three weeks in each town or countryside space. It should maintain collective tools and vehicles, but the teams of people change every one or two months. This travelling autonomous centre can not only bring people and activities, but also learn from local people and projects.

The importance of decentralised actions. The pga-paradox is that our political philosophy is about decentralisation while we're still into the big actions. We should go back to blocking summits in a decentralised way. We shouldn't be just politically active group in demonstrations, but also socially active on a smaller local scale, connecting to communities (eg- links between the wombles and the radicla dairy in london) In England, the Mayday actions took 6 months of time and energy for just one day. One can't sustain that without creating social centers which have links with communities and getting involved with struggles outside activist struggles. We need to focus more energy on protecting social centers against evictions: protect the few alternative spaces we have and where we can build our actions and local links

Succes and repression. Mass mobilisations can be "successful failures". If the states repres the global protests, it means they're a seen as a threat. But does this really mean that we're threatening the new world order succesfully? The number of prisoners and their suffering are arguments against bmass actions. The question then is: How can we be less predictable for the police? For example: womble tactics, normal demos where a specific group of people, wearing white overalls, move inside the demonstration, challenging the police and causing functional confusion.

Workshop and Roundtable discussion: Beyond Rio+10

At the Rio + 10 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the WTO agenda and particularly the Doha 'development round' have become incorporated in the Rio +10 text, and program. For instance the services needed by the developing world will be offered as privatised services, under the General Agreement in Trade in Services (GATS) and environmental protection for sustainability is being translated into business opportunities for multinationals. The Rio + 10 workshop, with presentations from ASEED and Corporate Watch Observatory explored how the 'sustainable development' concept was taken over , 'greenwash' - how corporations use public relations to 'green ' their image, including having eg a (very small) sustainable energy division , and 'bluewash', i.e.s corporations associating themselves with, through 'partnerships', and thus prostituting, the UN. Corporations are providing the money that the UN itself doesn't have, particularly in view of the US non-payment of its dues.

'Consultations' with NGO's are used by corporations to deflect criticism, and there is an issue of whether NGO's should be allowing themselves to be used like this, for the sake of any difference they may be able to make, or if, like the mining NGO caucus has with the WSSD, they should boycott any such involvement. There is also the question of how we react to NGO's that appear to go along with these processes in Johannesburg, Greenpeace has made an agreement with 60 corporations to pressure Bush in regard to the Kyoto Protocol.

The WSSD is supposed to review countries' progress since the Rio conference. The direction that the process has taken is that 'type 1' - government commitments - haven't worked , so now leave it to 'type 2' -partnerships with corporations. Though there is some resistance to this within some UN agencies, this is the view that is being promoted by the UN leadership.

The workshop discussed whether the UN could ever work effectively , and whether its up to people to reclaim it. The civil society Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue process at the WSSD is worse than useless. What is said is ignored, but it serves to legitimise what's going on. Personal decisions to live in an environmentally sustainable way are not, in them - selves likely to counteract of the corporate takeover of the world. Changes that will make a difference with sustainability e.g. transport planning, are political decisions. Corporations may not be averse to switches to other fuel sources, and may be forced to, but want to be in control of how and when the changes occur so that their profit flows are not inter - rupted.

International mobilisations

How do we look back on international mobilisations and days of action, and how will we move forward?

We had some success with previous mobilisations (Seattle and Prague for example). We got many people talking and thinking about economy, social problems on a large scale; networks were built and widened, which is good for selfconfidence and keeps up motivation. A perk is that 'Anti-globalisation' is seen as cool and fun for the moment, it's aesthetic, and many jump on the wagon because of the fashion.

Summits are ideal to show the resistance by many people taking the streets and by trying to shut down summits, but they don't change a lot on themselves. It's dangerous to overestimate their effect. The workers movement was much bigger and didn't succeed. Some participants even thought mass mobilisations are contraproductive. Numbers are also relative: small groups can also reach a lot. Mass-protests do show the true and repressive face of the capitalist system, as walls around cities get build, people get identified frequently and get their bags searched. We're not stronger than them in this, so the question came up if violence is useful at this moment. Since Genoa and the 11th of September, escalation seemed to stop from both sides: less provocation and repression from cops, and also from our view also less straight forward action. But the repression seems to deepen now: they try to stigmatise us as terrorists, and the establishment divides up between "the good values of the western world" and the others. Therefore, it's very important to stick together in solidarity.

A big question that came up was if you can live as a direct action activist in daily life?

Building bridges to communities, professions (e.g. health workers) integrating into everyday life, building conscience and practical projects in communities. Choices have to be made between working on a daily basis and big mobilisations, although a mixture is possible. In this debate, different kinds of long-term (maybe even permanent) caravans were proposed as a mix of mobilisations and practical working to have a lot of time to build things up, by exchanging knowledge, skills, experiences, to work on more diverse topics, to help people setting up autonomous and social zones... and also make an evolution ourselves (after all, we're still in a consumer mentality ourselves).

In this way, it could be used to build bridges between different islands (communities, cultures, networks, topics,...) on a practical, daily basis (now often already in one city, working together is not obvious) to build up to slowly deconstruct nowadays society, as an alternative on the competitive neo-liberal system , by experiments in education, house, food, production; when it gets visualised people might take it over.

Alternatives?

The meeting was composed of people from nearly every country in Europe and participants from the global south, as well as a broad variety of groups varying from alternative media to selfsustaining farms and anti-racism networks.

After some debate on what kind of issues should be discussed, the main questions hav been formulated as follows:

• how can (local)communities/alternative groups develop and reach regular citizens and avoid marginalisation?
• how to solve financial problems and lack of resources?
• how to avoid ad hoc activities/issues and focus on broader themes?

One of the starting points was the activity of organisations in Europe in relation to the Global South. Amongst other, it was concluded that we cannot copy the structure and themes from groups in say Latin America since the situtions cannot be compared. On the other hand, a participant from the Voice explained that the position of poor and exluded people in Europe is in many ways identical to the ones in 'developing countries'. Hence, all participants stressed the importance of cooperation between various networks and groups, although cooperation should not become a mean in itself. There should be room for a multitude of alternatives and one solution shouldn't be presented as the final goal. Moreover, it has been stressed that people cooperate more easily on specific issues, and thus avoiding the takeover of one group.

This discussion brought us to one of the major points for the working group; the distonction between needs and interests. The answer to the question what the needs and the interests are will define a major part of the strategy. When the basic needs such as food and shelter are not secure, there is hardly any space to focus on specialized ' interest' issues (such as capitalism, patriarchy etc). Whilst talking, participants from western and eastern Europe pointed out that the dismantling of the welfare state led to the situation were activist are busy solving urgent problems (housing for refugees) and dont't have time to reflect on broader issues. This complaint, resulting from experiences in a.o. Germany seemed to beshared by most participants. It is thus very important to try and define what the current needs and interest are and develop seperate strategies for both.

When discussing the reasons why alternative groups are often stuck in a subculture and don't attract a broader part of society, various points came up:

• we are not able to present our views in a siple, clear-cut way. On the other hand, one should not follow the example of Attac giving a simplistic oe-issue alternative as a panacee for global problems.
• the process of coming to certain conclusions is not explained; we should explain why and how communities came to certain conclusions.
• alternative media often focus on breaking news instead of giving a thorough insite of the group and it's ideas;
• there is not enough connection made with local issues like housing problems. Several participants explained how they link global and local issues like privatization. However, it seems increasingly difficult to get in touch with very poor local coomunities.

The funding/resources issue gathered consent that it is a pratical problem, and most participants stated that money should be taken wherever possible. However, when dealing with government funding, one should be aware of the (partial) loss of independency. Moreover, experiences showed that some limits should not be crossed, like using drug-money or funding by corporations that will respectively lead to the destruction of the community or blurr you message.

Talking about the gender aspect, it was noted again that it is not enough to state that woman are being discrimated in alternative movements but a conrete strategy should be defined. Experience shouwed that organsing separate activities was often a practical incentive to become more aware of gender-issues. On the other hand, examples of mixed no-border camps gave the possibility to discuss gender-issues with both and and woman.

In brief, the other conclusions on the debate on marginalized position versus broad outreach described some inspiring exmaples and issues for concern: good examples of communities, the latter being defined as; 'organisations willing to change the values of both individuals and the collective as opposed to result-driven politcal parties':

• food not bombs since they propose easy and concrete activites
• alternative media reporting on non-comercial activities and communities
• important to be self-sufficient

Problems with communities:

• people are afraid to drop their old life
• the omnipresence and strenght of regular media
• people leaving after a few years of activism
• lack of funds and resources

Commercialisation of education and research

Workshop about the strategy, goals and ideals of the anti-commercial academic movement.
LVC, 1-9-'02, 14:30

With the vast increase in student numbers since the late 1960s also came a rise of costs. In stead of subsidizing all these 'young minds', goverments seem to regard 'privatisation' as the only logical solution. By inviting corporations into the schools the money is brought in, but what about the companies' intentions? Isn't their keyword 'profitability'? And aren't there any inevitable consequences, like the disappearance of academic diversity, a reduction of quality, indoor advertising and the exclusion of students in decision-making? Afterall, that's what the European education market calls for.

The workshop got cut short because of a lack of location-time, but the participants regrouped at Las Vegas. There the discussion picked up pace and tackled the most important question: 'How do we stop this?' Andre Klukhuhn, philosopher and co-ordinator of 'Studium Generale' at the University of Utrecht suggested a division of applied, corporate funded, science and fundamental, state-subsidized, science. Others pleaded for creating alternative courses and the forming of a grassroots-network set on turning the next generation of students into a critical one; to prevent them from being subjected by corporate headhunters looking for product-praising research.

Between proposals for long-term projects and direct action (as in: the next day!) there was a clear and hopefull conclusion: the commodification of the educational system may look imminent, but it's nothing a little heart-felt, inspiring and motivating activism can't solve -the only thing we have to do is never give up.

How do we relate to wider society?

There was a discussion about how to engage with the wider society.

Specifically,the issue of the European Social Consulta was broached. It is hoped that the Consulta will provide a space for popular debate, and generate discussion about problems relating to capitalism. There is a discussion about the reformist and NGO dominated European Social Forum in Florence, and the idea of setting up alternative events in the city which could highlight issues like ecology, feminism, and war.

Beyond the ESF and the Consulta, other broader issues were broached. It was agreed that more work needs to be done in communities of color. It was suggested that activists might look into the issue of slave reparations, for example.

It was suggested that activists discuss issues which these communities might identify with, such as poor housing conditions. If activists are able to success fully make the link to day to day issues such as housing, then perhaps later on there will be time to discuss more abstract issues having to do with capitalism.

There was also a discussion about the place of religion and religious organizations operating in the Third World. In Africa, the church's influence is profound. If activists seek to work on issues such as Third World debt, it will be a challenge to find the socially conscious priests, who are often at odds with the larger church hierarchy. One additional organizing difficulty is that many workers living in the Third World or communities of color now labor in informal economies and this must be addressed.

Two issues which were addressed, somewhat marginally, were middle class and working class organizing. It was suggested that working class activists were more effective in talking with their fellow working class than middle class. There was some discussion about organizing middle class whites and talking to them about colonialism in the Third World. Alternatively, one might raise the issue of food security with this middle class bloc.

Proposal by MRG For Process PGA

This is important to clarify that we understand convenor task as only improve communication in network. They will have no more funtions, nor will create structures.

1. Zonal contacts (can be a region, a zone, a workingroup,a city). Does the contact tasks in their territorial level for all the network. Not necesary there will have local pga meetings but they can do. His function It's to make a bridge between regional convenors and people with no access to information and to exchange information at smaller territorial level. People of Each territory has autonomy to choose if they have or not local contact and his local functions. More Global functions are that european conference decided.
    
2. Division of Europe in several regions, for instance: East Europe, Sud-West Europe, North-Central Europe. One (or more, as 1) convenor for each region. Functions, as 1.
    
3. Two continental convenors: One to exchange information with other continental zones on PGA and support global (world) campaigns, another to convene the next european conference and to coordinate the information between all the regional convenors (point 2) at european level. One of each Europe region.
    
4. European Suport group. Is formed by several working groups at the european Level. Can be part of this working groups all the people which are part of the function 1,2 or 3. And also ex-convenors.
    
   His function: tools, fundraising, contacts.
    
5. Global Suport Group and other regions Suport Group. The space to decide about it are the Pga Global meetings or Other regions Pga meeting, anyway, we suggest that for Europe could be part of these suport group the same people that can be part of the european suport Group in contact with the convenor in information exchange at global level.
    
6. European regions will decide if they need an own convenor when they have a convenor that act as european convenor.
    
7. A convenor or a zonal contact is based in a collective that takes de responsability; but they can open their tasks to other people of other collectives in their territory.
    
8. About the Convenorship Changes. In order to facilitate the european coordination we propose that regional and european convenors for Europe changes in each European Metting. Except the European Convenor for the Global Conference that could change every Global Conference. Old Convenors can be part of the support group; and will be convened to the first new convenors meeting.
    
9. Each European conference can be from one year to one year and half after the previos one, depending of the european calendar and of the Global Conferences.
    
10. Nor convenor, nor support groups make unilateral decisions on action days campaigns, nor contents of the Conferences. His function it's to facilitate horizontal decitions making process on and before the conference, to implement conference's decisions, and to share Local coordination work.
     
11. Just After Each European Conference information, contacts, etc. to start working as support group or convenors must be given by current convenors and support group. Information not given will be ignorated by the moment.
     
12. Convenors meetings: Will be meetings between de convenors point 2 and point 3 with the aim of activate the network or to prepare the next conference.
     
    They can invite also the the zonal contacts or the support group depending of the aim and the logistic of the meeting and they must to invite the old convenors to the first european pga convenors meeting.
     
13. Everyone that respect the PGA basic hallmarks and organizative principles have autonomy beyond this 13 principles.

Newsbulletin september 1th 2002
by PEOPLES GLOBAL RADIO

Many people arrived and discussed "strategy" in workshops and the informal corridors. The gender issue was not raised very much in this first day of workshops.

Many participants arrived for the second Conference of PGA Europe in Leiden, The Netherlands. An estimated 400 activistst from many European countries and Israel met each other in the informal corridors and participated in workshops. The first day of workshops was exhausting to some and really worth it for others.

Eastern europe

People from Poland, Czech, Slovakia and Russia met and discussed the preparation of a workshop on the extension of the EUROPEAN UNION in 2004. Next year already, Poland makes visa obligatory for people from Belarussia, Ukraine and Russia. It is expected that also the NATO meetings in Warsaw (24-25 Sept) and Prague (1-2 Nov) will be subject of discussion.

freeshop meeting.

Nine free shop initiatives prepared their workshop of tomorrow. All the Freeshop initiatives organise differently and are located in the french cities Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg,the German cities Dresden, Berlin and Hamburg, Leed (UK) and the Dutch Leiden and Hoenderloo, the first (Dutch) village with a Freeshop. Tomorrow questions will be discussed like whether free shops should be service based or more confronting the consumer attitude.

Rio + 10

At the Rio + 10 workshop the "greenwash" policies of corporations were debated and a new colour was introduced to the laundry program: "Bluewashing", which means influencing the UN. The relation between grassrootst activists and big NGO's was discussed. An interview on this will be broadcasted by PGA radio.

Israel-Palestine

There was unease with the introduction of the Israel-Palestine discussion which was prescribed by some as "repeating allready known information" and "an arabic nationalist lecture on the history of the conflict". Many participants felt a PGA discussion should try develop tools not to join nationalist campaigns.

strategy

Strategy discussions caused quite some frustration amongst participants. Difficult questions were raised like: "how do we reach out to the broader society and avoid being marginalised" and "how to avoid ad hoc activities and focus on broader themes?" Allthough PGA wants to connect struggles it has been stressed in some discussions that people cooperate more easily on specific issues.

Whilst talking, participants from western and eastern Europe pointed out that the dismantling of the welfare state has led to the situation that activist are increasingly busy solving urgent problems like housing for refugees and loose time to reflect on broader issues. "It is thus very important to define what the current needs and interest are. Allthough everybody in the world has the same needs, they can lead to contradictory conclusions in capitalist, patriarchic society", one discussiongroup concluded.

Racist Murder

The PGA conference might be asked to express solidarity with the relatives and friends of Tayman Bahmani who was stabbed to death in Sunderland, UK three days ago. Tayman, a refugee aged 28 from Iran, had often complained of previous racial harrasment but no one responded to his pleas

Tomorrow the 400 activists at the PGA Europe Conference can wake up with a newspaper, totally devoted to the conference. According to a pressrelease, the daily will contain conference proposals, summaries of meetings and .... gossip.

Tonight there will be a debate in Leiden on the influence of globalisation on womens' lives.

Now we will have this bulletin in Dutch (if the computer wouldn't have eaten it all). At 22.00 this bulletin will be repeated

Tomorrow at 20.00 PGA Radio will present an entirely new Bulletin.

short news

The Zapatistas of Chiapas Mexico are currently facing a major crisis. Four of their members have recently been assassinated and massive troop movements in the area are causing great fear within the communities, causing many to flee their homes.

Gossip: The Dutch Prince has been spotted at the editors office with Naomi Klein, who has just been adopted by aliens.