‘This war has changed the role of global civil society’, Rafaella Bolini from the Genoa Social Forum told the 4th Assembly of the People’s UN. ‘A little miracle occurred in Perugia. A movement has developed in the name of peace, positive democracy and global justice. Now we must fight for the United Nations because we desperately need a credible international organisation.’
Over 40,000 people marched from Hyde Park to the CND rally in***image1:right*** Trafalgar Square in London to demonstrate their opposition to the bombing of Afghanistan / Photo: Paul Mattson.

The final statement of the Assembly calls for the United Nations to be strengthened and made more democratic with a Parliamentary Assembly and a permanent forum of global civil society. It calls for a system of common security centred on the United Nations with a UN force for international policing and the establishment of the International Criminal Court, which the Americans are still boycotting. And it calls on governments and parliaments to stop the wars in progress and place the UN in the position of exercising its proper functions and powers in implementing its resolutions on the rights of peoples and its role in preventing and ending conflicts.

Now, more than ever, it states, the alternative we face is between building a more just, peaceful and democratic world and being condemned to barbarism, violence, terrorism and war. Peace as proclaimed in Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fundamental right of every person and people. Without peace there cannot be development or democracy. Without justice there cannot be peace which means respect and promotion of human and social rights, a balanced relationship with nature and justice and democracy for all people.

In this UN Decade of Peace, global civil society has to promote the rejection of war and stress that war and terrorism do not provide solutions to the tensions and conflicts which shed blood on the planet. It has to promote the search for political and non-violent solutions to conflicts. What we must do is to have democracies in which all the citizens count ñ so that we can all be citizens who count and are not just counted. It will be a very important step ñ the globalisation of democracy.

The Assembly of the United Nations of the Peoples wants to see a greater role for Europe in reducing global inequalities and creating sustainable human development. It is proposing the establishment of a Forum of Civil Society on Europe, open to organisations of all countries, which would monitor European policies for their effects on the rest of the world. In particular it commits itself to building a different model for the economy which supports and values the economic social and cultural resources of local communities which are often ignored by the market.

The Assembly shows that an alternative does exist, is being made possible by the work of millions of people who reject indifference, of thousands of organisations and groups of civil society who work for change all over the world. The next People’s Assembly will take place in 2003. In the meantime, the development of global civil society continues at the second World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, in Brazil, in February 2002 where, they say, Another World is Being Built’!

The complete final statement is available on the Tavola della Pace website (below).
FURTHER INFORMATION : For further information contact: Tavola della Pace, Via della Viola 1, 06122 Perugia, Italy / Tel: +39 075 5736890 / Fax: +39 075 5721234
WEB SITE : http://​www​.tavoladellapace​.it EMAIL: mpace@​krenet.​it