Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 12:39:30 +0200

Message-Id: <199805011039.MAA27623@elara.glo.be>

To: mjelsma@worldcom.nl

From: encod

Subject: Panel and Coalition talks

Antwerpen, 1 May 1998

Dear Martin and others,

Indeed, it is outrageous that UNDCP is denying a group of NGOs, some of which have consultative status, to hold a panel without support from a government. It is already outrageous that UNDCP is involved at all in the decision on who is allowed to hold a panel on an NGO forum. But then again, considering UNDCP's record in the field of public participation in its own projects, it does not really come as a surprise.

What I would suggest is that when planning a strategy against this decision, we would need to find out quickly if there are other groups in the same situation, in order to agree on a joint strategy. For instance, Drug Consumers from the UK (the John Mordaunt Trust), the French OGD and the Lindesmith Centre, have also been proposing 'critical' panels and it would be interesting to know if they have been admitted. At this moment, the worst that can happen is that people who stand more or less together on one side of the barricade let themselves become divided just in order to obtain short term goals.

Marco, could you find out what happened to the other panel proposals that were likeminded with ours, and which panels have been admitted so far? Then, with the written confirmation of the official denial we could start to send a formal protest to UNDCP, the Vienna and NGO Committees, sending copies to governmental delegations, press etc. We could even use it as a way to gain publicity. My proposal would be to ask for all or nothing: or we are admitted as NGO's without need for governmental support, or we are not admitted. My idea is that in the latter case, the message of what we can say outside the UN building becomes even stronger than what we could ever have said inside: it will then be the message the UN and its Member States did not want to hear at all.

Just one more thing I would like to add to Martin's report on the meeting we had on 23 April. As we all agreed on that both Coalitions are slowly becoming an interesting network of groups (we are well over 100 right now) that are concerned with the same issues allover the world, and the potential this implies, we discussed the possibility to plan future events together.

The ideas that were mentioned were not too concrete yet (a yearly DAY FOR DRUGS PEACE to 'evaluate' the United Nations plan to eliminate both drug supply and demand in 10 years, a series of 'tribunals' to gather denounces against the war on drugs, among others) but we would try to develop them a bit more in New York, on a meeting where representatives of both Coalitions would be present.

Greetings,

Joep Oomen