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02/02/2006:

"World Social Forum: It All Boils Down to Politics"

...The debate on the politicisation of the Forum will continue through the Karachi meet this March and on into Nairobi next year. "It is the peoples and social movements, not the leaders, who must mobilise and exert pressure on the governments, because without mobilisation, nothing can be achieved," said Belgian activist Eric Toussaint, president of the Brussels-based Committee for Cancellation of the Third World Debt.

For her part, Francisca Rodríguez of the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women of Chile, maintained that "the Forum needs to re-examine itself and take a leap forward, because we are refusing to consider political approaches, and that is counterproductive."

"If we don't take this step forward, we will forever be nothing more than social tourists," she stressed.
commondreams.org