Topics

»  What’s new ?

 Calendar

 Documents

 Media

Facing the need to re-organize the work of our Citizen’s Assembly of the Southern Cone after Carlos Liberona, our general coordinator, passed away, we continue through this document with the following basic working agreements and Action Plan for the 2009 – 2010 period.

1. Team in charge

The General Co-ordination will be exercised by our comrades, Ula Meisner, Alihuen Antileo and Ricardo Jiménez. A representative of the co-ordinations from the other countries will join them: Angela Pino from Argentina, Rodrigo Torres from Bolivia, and Lucía Mariana Alvites from Perú. Comrade Gustavo Marín ill be in charge of the connection with the other sister Citizens’ Assemblies processes around the world and with the Charles Leopold Foundation for Human Process – FPH.

Comrade Alihuen Antileo will have general responsibilities for the execution of the First Citizens’ Assembly in Iquique, in November 2010.

The other responsibilities in terms of work and activities will be defined when time comes.

2. Limitations to the Action Plan

A new regulation in the process of our Assembly establishes that the General Coordination devotes resources to support activities within their objectives and priorities, as proposed by several members of the Assembly.

Rarely do these resources correspond to all or even the majority of the needs; in general, this is minimal support, since the idea is that the organizers get the rest of the support on their own, particularly through alliances with other entities and movements that also provide resources.

Despite all this, we know that having that support from the Assembly is always important for those who make it up and are connected with it. That is why, it is important to point out now that, after Carlos Liberona’s physical disappearance, the Coordination’s capacity to provide that support has been reduced significantly, mainly because as from now we only have the support that the FPH gives us to sustain the main activities of the Assembly, which will be pointed out further on in this document. Only Carlos Liberona had the social asset: credibility, respect and support network which allowed him to add many other sources of support to the Assembly and which were granted to him personally. That social asset is not transferable and, regrettably, has left with him.

However, it is precisely because of the commitment to him - a common, collective commitment - with a historical task that is useful for our Assembly, that we will continue the work from our possibilities.

Thus, we have had to limit our activities in 2009 and 2010 in accordance with the resources actually available for their financing, prioritizing the pending proposals and agreements. We hope that everyone can understand these limitations and actively support this plan.

Anyway, and following Carlos’s example, the Coordination constantly struggles to increase the resources that will allow them to widen the activities and encourages everyone to maximize efforts to do as needed, above all, by taking into account concrete and successful experiences, such as Peru’s experience, where the Assembly is carrying out activities and products and where the general coordination has only granted a third of the resources spent, while the rest have been obtained autonomously and through alliances with other similar entities.

3. Methodological characteristics of the activities

It is of the utmost importance that all the Assembly’s hosts who take part in or relate to any of the activities ask ourselves: How can we achieve a connecting thread which can put together all the activities done? How can we link one meeting with another to make an original social process, which is a sort of strong, consistent social wave ... because a series of events lacking in organic connection does not constitute a new social process.

This is an issue connected with “method”, i.e. with how the new social, political and cultural process that we insist upon is being built during the preparatory process and during the 2010 Assembly itself in Iquique.

A list of various and varied events may not constitute the basis of an assembly’s process. We are facing a new kind of methodological, political, cultural challenge. Of course, this is not about creating a new party. Under no circumstances is that the aim. Nor is it a purely social movement. We know that that is not enough.

How can we create a new consistent, lasting, deeply revolutionary social process at the beginning of this 21st Century?

We do not have all the answers, that’s for sure. But we do have some hints, some methodological mechanisms to start from, while experience and collective thinking provide the rest.

We will make each event a preparation for the 2010 Assembly in Iquique.

An at least two-page proposal and reflection document must be drafted after each meeting or action, in order to change the situation of the medium or issue involved and of the responsibilities towards that medium or issue and towards society in general, which is harder and more significant.

From that, we move on to the creation of the Carte of Responsibilities for the citizens of the Southern Cone in Iquique 2010. Also, at least two delegates from each event, a man and a woman, should be chosen so as to assure gender equality in the representation of the 2010 Assembly in Iquique.

Moreover, we are going to open up a wide debate and proposal record for the Program of activities, topics, etc. for the 2010 Citizens’ Assembly of the Southern Cone in Iquique. We have already outlined how we imagine it so far, but we will enrich it with everyone’s ideas. There is still time, and capacities are plentiful. The Co-ordination, a responsibility of Alihuen, is expecting proposals and is taking down notes.

4. Action Plan 2009 - 2010

4.1.- Until December 2009

In short, the agreements on the activities to perform until December 2009 are as follow:

• a) The institutional relation with Arcis University is maintained as are our offices there, through the Strategic Studies Center - CEDES, whose director is comrade Alihuen. An organizing committee, AYUN publishing, the Chairs and, in general, everything connected with the Assembly are operating there.

• b) Two International Seminars will take place like CEDES at the Universidad Arcis in Santiago de Chile :
  • 1. Security in South American countries (September).
  • 2. Masonic thought in the process of Latin American independence (November).

• c) The following will be published:

• • 1. The magazine Pensamiento Propio (about to publish Nº4).
  • 2. A book by the Indigenous Chair on the Meeting of poems by young indigenous poets (Mapuche and Aymara).
  • 3. A publication about the international meeting of Democratic Militaries that we had on April 2009 (Cuadernos CEDES Series).
  • 4. A publication about the international meeting on Masonic thought and independence (Cuadernos CEDES Series), in preparation.
  • 5. Publication about the Internationl Meeting on Segurity (Cuaderno CEDES Series), in preparation.
  • 6. Publications in Le Monde Diplomatique, Chile, will still be done (In the current issue, there is a two-page article by Carlos Liberona on Governance; soon there will be an article on the meeting of democratic militaries)
  • 7. A publication on the International Meetings on Water and Geopolitics in Cordoba, Argentina.

• d) Four National Women’s Conferences will be organized in each of the countries : In Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina, there will be a National Women’s Conference (a Southern Cone Conference will be organized for next year with delegates representing each of these national Conferences). Each national Co-ordination must decide the date - between now and December - when they will take place.
  
  

4.2.- During 2010

The following regional meetings will take place in 2010:

• 1. Indigenous Mayors
• 2. Ecologists
• 3. Religiosity and spirituality
• 4. Universities and Chairs
• 5. Youth, alternative means of communication and culture
• 6. Southern Cone Women’s Conference

Dates, places and characteristics for these meetings will be agreed upon collectively from now on with everyone interested.

5. The First Citizens’ Assembly of the Southern Cone in Iquique in 2010 (November).

How do we picture the First Citizens’ Assembly in Iquique 2010?

We imagine it as a great two-to-three-day event combined with debate meetings, symbolic acts in public places: Santa María school, where we will paint a great mural and we will present a book on our dear Carlos Liberona, citizen of solidarity, justice and integration; the salt flats, where we will recreate the historical solidarity of our peoples in hopes and sacrifices; at the very Iquique sea, where we will put forward our decision to work out pending territorial issues between our countries justly and in solidarity.... We imagine 300 men and women coming by bus from all four countries, where the very trips become part of the collective activities of the event and where each participant is a sort of delegate representing each network or social strata and is their proposal-carrier. Representatives from sister Assemblies processes will also come from other continents.

We have been discussing and outlining the exact Program since 2007 and we continue doing so collectively, with our activities, experiences, reflections and learning.

What goes beyond 2010?

Whatever follows the year 2010 will be decided during the very Assembly in Iquique. However, logically, this will have a lot to do with the initiatives already on their way and the collective learning thus far obtained.