[governance] Defund the ITU petition
William Drake
william.drake at uzh.ch
Mon Feb 11 10:07:19 EST 2013
Hi Katim
Did you happen to ask him about how he lost his bid for reelection when the Soviet bloc withdrew support due to fears that other countries would walk? Or about the GAO report http://www.gao.gov/assets/150/142303.pdf detailing his astonishing mismanagement of UNESCO's budget and staff? According to many reports, this included spending 80% of the budget in Paris rather than around the world, and having the top two floors of the building converted into a rent free penthouse for himself. Did you ask how any of these actions helped promote media development or helped the poor in Africa, or anywhere else? He turned UNESCO into an irresistible target for Reagan Administration retribution over the NWICO campaign. While I certainly didn't support the US walking out and taking 25% of the budget with it, I wouldn't paint Mbow as either a martyr or an innocent bystander, either. Sometimes Secretary Generals really do matter, including terrible ones. M'Bow did substantial damage to the organization and its position in the international system that took a long time to undue.
The more recent US pullout is of course an entirely different matter. Nobody in the Obama Administration is contending that the current SG is doing a bad job or that the organization is off the rails. Their hands were tied by the Congress, and they're trying to get them free. The current budget proposal restores the FY 2013 UNESCO assessment and the outstanding balance of the FY 2012 assessment. As you can imagine, the US right is up in arms…
Bill
On Feb 11, 2013, at 12:09 PM, Katim S. Touray <kstouray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> All this talk about UNESCO and the US government reminds me of a night in Dakar, Senegal, in 2003.
>
> I was there for a conference of African intellectuals and on our way by bus to a conference event called dialog among generations, I was lucky enough to sit, by pure accident, next to Dr. Amadou Mahktar Mbow, former Director General of UNESCO. I recall we had a wonderful conversation, mainly on UNESCO's efforts regarding the struggle for the then New International Information Order (remember that one?), and the boycott of the organization by the US. I remember asking him how it feels now that most of his detractors and critics were either long dead or out of office. I leave it to your imagination to guess his reply to my question.
>
> Katim
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Carlos A. Afonso <ca at cafonso.ca> wrote:
> Louis, you are right (sadly). The USA started boycotting Unesco in 1984 (with the argument that Unesco did not adhere to US foreign policy) and did so for about 20 years. In 2011 they found another argument to stop supporting Unesco -- the recognition of Palestine as a Unesco member -- on the grounds that allegiance to Israel is determinant to US foreign policy.
>
> Curiously, though, they did not ask anyone else for support or relied on a public mobilization -- just an executive order was enough, both in '84 and in 2011.
>
> There is in my view no chance of them boycotting the ITU -- like Israel in the case of Palestine, this decision will be determined by the leverage of US telecom industry, not public petitions. Who will feed ITU-T, ITU-R etc, if there is a relevant boycott afer all?
>
> This standards structure, working in partnership with the likes of IEEE, IETF and others, is BTW crucial for the future of spectrum allocation; no other international body exists with the same capability. My view is that as the Internet advances, ITU will be left with the only role of coordination international spectrum allocation policy.
>
> BTW, as a Brazilian gov representative says, those who signed the ITRs will not necessarily follow its determinations (Brazil included), and those who did not sign might follow several of its recommendations. So there would be really no relevant motive for all this fuss around defunding ITU.
>
> frt rgds
>
> --c.a.
>
>
> On 02/10/2013 07:38 PM, Louis Pouzin (well) wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 8:54 PM, Carlos A. Afonso <ca at cafonso.ca> wrote:
>
> ...and let us remind ourselves that *we still need the ITU* !!
>
> --c.a.
>
> ------------
> C. A. Afonso
>
> - - -
>
> Hi,
>
> The USG plays this defunding game with UNESCO when it does not like a vote
> of the UNESCO members. This is presently the case because Palestine was
> admitted as member in 2011. As was predictable UNESCO had to reduce its
> budget, partly in reducing staff, partly in cutting funds for development
> projects, that is reducing its global activities. Victims are primarily
> developing countries. Is the USG expecting that they will vote in US favour
> on the next occasion ?
>
> When developing countries need funding, where could they get some ? China
> or Saudi Arabia are more than willing to "help", in return for some
> political and commercial deals.
>
> Anyway, the defund-the-ITU petition collected hardly 3% of the 25000
> signatures needed for taking off. A non event by world standard, but a
> success by US lobbies standards. They got unending publications references
> in Google, quoting over and again the petition propaganda. Of course the
> flop does not matter, the goal was massively funded noise.
>
> Btw, one may appreciate Google's algorithm relevance, which makes the
> petition (and Google's own position) an overwhelming noise, while non
> aligned viewpoints make a tiny signal with only two references:
>
> http://www.abiresearch.com/blogs/demystifying-itus-role-internet-governance/
>
> http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/01/28/lets-keep-this-dead-horse-alive-so-we-can-beat-it-some-more/
>
> Louis
> - - -
>
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu>
> Date: 10/02/2013 17:28 (GMT-03:00)
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org,Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net>
> Subject: RE: [governance] Defund the ITU petition
>
> Considering all the ways in which the US govt (involuntarily) collects
> tax monies and uses them in ways that oppose my interests, the ITU budget
> is a rounding error. ****
>
> ** **
>
>
> Cannot speak for Adam, but perhaps he was concerned about the
> hyperventilated and distorted manner in which the defund the ITU campaign
> is being carried out. The degree to which the US (and other countries)
> continue to financially support the ITU (and other UN agencies) is a
> legitimate topic of debate and discussion. Indeed, I would like to see a
> calm and pragmatic discussion of what people see as the future role of the
> ITU, and am perfectly willing to entertain “no role” or “a dramatically
> reduced role” as a debatable option. But let’s carry out the discussion in
> a less polarized way, and one that pays attention to basic facts about
> geopolitics and intergovernmental relations. ****
>
> ** **
>
>
>
>
>
>
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