NGOs ready to fight in Johannesburg

NGOs ready to fight in Johannesburg

A'an Suryana and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali

As the battle for sustainable development remains unresolved
in Bali, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
vowed they would continue the battle, saying that "the fight for
a better agreement would be taken to Johannesburg".

The disappointing results of the Bali talks prompted the NGOs
to vow to keep burning some unresolved and contentious issues
from Bali to be brought up at the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg.

Kim Carstenson, an activist from the World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF), said that pressure from the civil society was
needed to keep alive the spirit of sustainable development so
that the issues would continue to be pursued in the next World
Summit in Johannesburg from August to September.

"As there are some 80 days left before the Johannesburg
summit, we will keep on playing some important issues before the
summit. Public pressure is needed to push governments to respect
the Rio commitment and make it a reality," Carstenson told a news
conference on Friday.

Other NGOs, grouped under Eco-Coalition, joined the news
conference, including Oxfam and Greenpeace International.

They expressed concern that the Bali negotiations had failed
to meet people's expectations, winding down into a foul result
for sustainable development.

The NGOs voiced their disappointment several times over the
U.S.-led coalition of developed countries, whom they accused of
hijacking commitment made by heads of state in Rio de Janeiro 10
years ago.

Remi Parmentier from Greenpeace said that the negotiations in
Bali produced nothing due to hard resistance from the developed
countries to bring forward the Rio commitment.

"Ten years have passed, but we are still reviewing Rio here.
Definitely, we are still in Rio (and not in Bali)," said
Parmentier.

Parmentier said the text produced in Bali was merely a text
void of substance and full of ambitions.

In a release sent to the media, the Friends of the Earth
International joined the chorus, lambasting the United States for
attempting to force through its free trade agenda and doing
everything in its power to prevent an agreement on legally
binding commitments.

Different interests certainly divided the North and the South.

The U.S. and other developed countries insisted that there
should be no time-bound measures to implement the Rio commitment
for sustainable development.

On the other hand, the developing countries, backed by the
NGOs, pushed ahead that the Rio commitment must be guarded with a
fixed time schedule and a monitoring institution to make the
commitment a reality.

Another specific issue that divided the North and South plus
the NGOs was the trade and finance issue.

The NGOs have raised concern that some aid money from
developed countries, which they pledged during the Monterey
conference in Mexico, would come in the form of foreign
investment and trade incentives, rather than pure grants.

The NGOs also expressed concern that agricultural subsidies
were six times the amount of the Monterey aid, and were harming
developing countries, while ironically, developed countries
refused to cut the subsidies.

"The weak political commitment to address the issue will
merely widen disparity between developed and developing
countries," said Antonio Hill from Oxfam.

Knowing that they were being cornered by the majority of
developing countries and the NGOs, the U.S. and its allies such
as Australia and Canada, tried to shift the agenda, pressing
ahead issues of voluntary partnerships, involving public and
private institutions.

The Friends of the Earth International condemned the tactics,
saying that the partnership initiative would not deliver
sustainable development, since it lacked legally binding
commitments.