[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Caracas Appeal

[Alfred Kagan]

>FYI



>Here is the full text of the Caracas Appeal and 
>the final report of Table 6 - Defending 
>Knowledge - from the World Gathering of Artists 
>and Intellectuals in Defence of Humanity, held 
>in Caracas from 1-6 December 2004:
>
>CARACAS APPEAL
>
>World Gathering of Intellectuals and Artists in Defence of Humanity
>
>Gathered in Caracas, birthplace of Simon Bolivar, intellectuals and artists
>from fifty-two countries and diverse cultures, all agreed to build a wall of
>resistance against the project of global domination that is being imposed on
>the world today.
>
>We are living in an era in which United Nations decisions are not
>respected, international laws have been broken, and the basic principles of
>non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign nations –and the concept
>of sovereignty itself- has been lost.
>
>The Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war and protection of civilians
>have been violated; detainees are tortured and tormented; an illegal jail has
>been constructed in the usurped territory of Guantanamo Bay. The invasion
>and devastation of Iraq, threats against other nations of the Middle East,
>the ongoing martyrdom of the Palestinian people, and the interventions by
>Super Powers in Africa, reveal the intention to impose through blood and
>fire, a world order based on force.
>
>The objective of many of these aggressions is to appropriate the natural
>reserves of hydrocarbons, minerals, water and other elements of biodiversity
>of the least developed nations. We support the right of the people to
>maintain control over these resources and to repel expropriating
>interventions.
>
>The crimes against the Iraqi people show the extreme complicity between
>the mass media and governments, who meanwhile declare themselves as
>defenders of human rights. The city of Falluja, now being razed, will remain
>a symbol of heroic resistance in a tragic moment of history.
>
>Part of this hegemonic project is the collection 
>of an illegal foreign debt and
>the attempt of economic annexation of Latin America and the Caribbean,
>through the FTAA and other trade and financial accords, damaging
>possibilities for independence and real development. Meanwhile, there is
>increased danger of new forms of intervention and aggression, in the face
>of growing social movements and the process of positive change now
>taking place in the region.
>
>The notions of “pre-emptive war” and “regime change”, proclaimed as
>official doctrine by the government of the United States, is used to threaten
>all countries that do not submit to imperial 
>interests, or that have a specific
>strategic importance. One example is the recent intervention in Haiti.
>
>Today, as never before, it is necessary to mobilize solidarity with Venezuela,
>Cuba, and all popular causes on the continent. We express our solidarity
>with the people of Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and all who resist imperial
>occupation and aggression.
>
>A crucial component of global opposition to imperialist adventures, together
>with those who in Europe, Latin America and other parts of the world have
>stood against the war, is undoubtedly mobilizing the most conscious sectors
>of the US people. We condemn terrorism and oppose the political
>manipulation of the “war against terrorism,” and the fraudulent appropriation
>of values and concepts such as democracy, freedom and human rights.
>We reject that the people’s resistance struggles be defined as terrorism and
>the oppressor’s aggressions be called “war against terror”.
>
>While incalculable financial resources are wasted in the military industrial
>complex, a silent genocide takes place every day due to hunger, extreme
>poverty, curable illnesses and epidemics. The daily suffering of the peoples
>of Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, as a result of the
>policies promoted by the international financial institutions, is ignored by
>those who intend to dominate the world, and the global elites who benefit
>from neo-colonial plunder.
>
>The absence of effective proposals for real solutions to these problems is
>another sign of the dehumanization that characterizes our era.
>
>We join the struggles of workers, farmers and all those exploited of
>excluded: the unemployed, the first indigenous people of original cultures
>(first nation people), people of the African Diaspora, immigrants, women,
>sexual minorities, and children without protection, victims of sex trade.
>
>We support and commit ourselves to the re-vindication of those who
>defend their rights and their identity in the face of the totalitarian and
>homogenizing intentions of neoliberal globalization.
>
>Lacking basic access to food, medicine, electricity, housing and potable
>water, an enormous part of humanity is sacrificed by a system which
>exhausts natural resources and destroys the environment through irrational,
>wasteful consumerism, and puts the survival of the species itself at risk.
>
>The vast majority have limited access to education, excluding them from
>the benefits of new technologies in information and production of
>medicines. The dominant economic system generates the
>commercialization of intellectual production, privatizes it, and turns it into
>an
>instrument to perpetuate the concentration of wealth and the domestication
>of consciousness. We must stop the WTO, in it’s obsession to transform
>the world into commodities by annihilating cultural diversity.
>
>The concentrated ownership of the mass media has made freedom of
>information a fallacy. The power of media, at the service of a hegemonic
>project, distorts the truth, manipulates 
>history, foments discrimination in all
>forms and promotes a resignation to the current 
>state of affairs, presenting it
>as the only possible option.
>
>We need to take the offence through concrete actions. The first of these,
>agreed upon at this summit, will be to creating a “network of networks” of
>information for artistic action, solidarity, coordination and mobilization,
>uniting intellectuals and artists with popular struggles and Social Forums,
>guaranteeing the continuation of these efforts and linking them in an
>international movement “in defence of humanity”.
>
>It is also essential that we work to counteract the propaganda of the
>hegemonic centres and to circulate emancipatory ideas through all
>channels: radio and television, the internet, alternative press, film, media
>and others, to broadcast coverage on projects of development,
>participation and popular education, that they become references in the
>reconstruction of the utopias that have made history.
>
>The Venezuelan reality proves that popular mobilization is capable of giving
>power to the people, promoting and defending massive transformations in
>their interests. We express our gratitude to the Bolivarian government, to
>the people of Venezuela and to President Hugo Chavez for their
>commitment to the future of this international movement.
>
>At this hour of great danger, we reaffirm the conviction that another world is
>not only possible, but necessary. We reaffirm our commitment and make an
>open call to join the struggle for that world with more solidarity, more unity
>and more determination. In defence of humanity, we reaffirm our certainty
>that the people will have the last word.
>
>
>TABLE No 6
>
>IN DEFENSE OF KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL
>
>REPORT
>
>
>1. The Committee considered that knowledge in 
>contemporary times constitutes one of the key 
>tools for the defense of humanity and one of the 
>fundamental means with which to confront 
>problems such as environmental crises and the 
>increase of poverty. It stated with concern that 
>the characteristics of the predominant 
>socioeconomic system are provoking ever greater 
>reliance on marketing, with production 
>increasingly guided by market demands and not by 
>social needs. In the same way, knowledge plays a 
>preponderant role in the development of a new 
>arms race based on robotic techniques, 
>digitization of armaments, and others advances 
>of modern science as well as new technologies in 
>diverse fields, all of which lays the foundation 
>for the resurgence of new forms of fascism on a 
>global scale.
>
>2. The Committee observed that the growing 
>monopolization of wealth and the control of the 
>means of production have caused a brain drain 
>that results in the theft of the intellectual 
>wealth of poor countries and is another form of 
>exploitation by the rich countries. Confronting 
>this problem requires greater state support in 
>the processes of formulating and developing 
>research infrastructures that favor permanent 
>stability and the enrichment of human talent.
>
>3. Bearing in mind the necessary support for 
>development and the search for equity given the 
>deep divide that separates north from south in 
>the access to knowledge, we urgently propose 
>development of expansive programs, promoted by 
>the state, which assure universal access to 
>education at specific levels, including higher 
>education, and an increase in science and 
>technology training. This process should be 
>accompanied by serious critical reflection on 
>the role of science as a transformative tool for 
>our societies and a redesign of institutions 
>charged with the development and production of 
>knowledge that respects cultural diversity and 
>democratic participation.  On the whole, this 
>process will need to be guided by ethical 
>principals, particularly that of social 
>solidarity.
>
>4. The committee’s debates led to the opinion 
>that a break between the two cultures, 
>scientific and technological on the one hand and 
>humanistic on the other, is necessary and 
>affects our ability to act rationally, and to be 
>ethically sensitive to our social commitment in 
>the face of the great challenges of our times. A 
>more integral vision of culture, thought, and 
>intellectual production is required, one that 
>places the development of new theoretical 
>approaches and methodological capabilities that 
>favor the reciprocal enrichment of these fields 
>and their articulation in the defense of 
>humanity.
>5. In this way links must be developed between 
>traditional knowledge and modern science and 
>technology that allow for reciprocal enrichment 
>and the fair evaluation of the former.
>
>6. At present, the laws governing trademarks, 
>patents, and copyright protect knowledge 
>important to the continuity of life on the 
>planet from confiscation and appropriation by 
>transnational capital. These laws must be 
>matters of exhaustive discussion, analyzed, 
>broadly debated, and modified with the aim of 
>assuring this knowledge as collective heritage.
>
>7. The formulation of agendas and strategies for 
>the generation, transmission, and distribution 
>of knowledge must take into account 
>uncertainties and local factors, by 
>strengthening its appropriateness and autonomy 
>while faced with the growing tendency of the 
>academy to link with market interests or 
>appropriate modalities of developed countries.
>
>8. The accelerating increase in the cost of the 
>production of new knowledge increasingly places 
>this activity outside the reach of poor 
>countries. International cooperation is required 
>in order to develop an alternative for dealing 
>collectively with this problem. In turn, science 
>and technology may constitute the necessary 
>developmental base for cooperative production 
>that facilitates regional integration and the 
>reciprocal strengthening of less developed 
>countries.
>
>PROPOSALS
>
>Taking into consideration the previous 
>reflections of the members of Committee 6, we 
>advance the following proposals:
>
>The creation of an international network of 
>information networks, solidarity, coordination, 
>and mobilization that links intellectuals and 
>artists with social forums and popular 
>struggles, and guarantees the continuity of 
>these efforts and their articulation within an 
>international movement for the Defense of 
>Humanity that includes among its systematic 
>objectives the Defense of Knowledge for All.
>
>The expansion of participation within this 
>network of representatives from different 
>science fields as well as from the principal 
>social movements: unions, indigenous peoples; 
>farm workers; students; gender-based, and others 
>to extend the network’s geographic 
>representation.
>
>The strengthening of the mechanisms that ensure 
>collective participation in the formulation of 
>policies that are linked to the development and 
>application of knowledge and the social 
>accountability of intellectual labor.
>
>The condemnation of knowledge used for 
>aggression, the control and destruction of 
>natural resources, and human beings and their 
>cultural heritage.
>
>
>The promotion of a cooperative international 
>program aimed at the formation within the 
>plurality of knowledge and the study of local 
>problems with particular emphasis on the youth 
>sector, and with the firm intention of 
>stimulating human talent and the creation of 
>coherent epistemological perspectives who’s 
>cultural diversity stimulates endogenous 
>development.
>
>The promotion of a process of redefinition of 
>the place and role of higher education, the goal 
>of which is its transformation within an open 
>environment for the creation of knowledge.
>
>The organization of working groups with 
>international representation to promote and 
>develop the free exchange and spread of 
>knowledge with the aim of finding solutions to 
>problems of significant social importance. It is 
>also important to promote the articulation of 
>these groups with alternative media outlets and 
>broadcast effectively everything that concerns 
>the advantages and disadvantages that involve 
>the use of scientific and technological products
>
>The development of scientific and technological 
>parks that cooperate both nationally and 
>internationally under the auspices of the 
>individual states and direct their work toward 
>the support of regional integration.
>
>The promotion of expanded use of open 
>technologies, their sphere of influence and 
>broader access to all social sectors to benefit 
>art, science, technology, and knowledge in 
>general as a means for the greater social 
>development. Instruments like “free 
>(open-source) software”, generic 
>pharmaceuticals, and alternative media must be 
>within the reach of all.
>
>The protection, promotion, and strengthening of 
>public library networks, museums, and other 
>knowledge distribution centers, thereby assuring 
>free access to all social sectors without 
>exclusion. The role of the book as the main 
>bearer of culture must be emphasized.
>
>The promotion of policies that recognize, 
>protect, and promote all languages as 
>contributors to the development of knowledge and 
>as the vectors for its transmission.
>
>John Pateman
>Cuban Libraries Solidarity Group
>19 December 2004
>
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu