Dhaka, 18th January. Today a group of rights activists criticized the role of UN ESCAP and Government of Bangladesh (GoB), the host country of the on going Asia Pacific LDC conference, as they ignored CSOs participation from a ‘broad spectrum’ and violated the ‘aid memorie’ between GoB and the UNESCAP in organizing this high level meeting of the LDCs from the Asia and Pacific. The organizers claimed this through organizing a press conference in national press club in Dhaka today. They categorically alleged that the organizers have violated the UN General Assembly resolution which emphasized and called for broader spectrum of civil society participation. They claim that, as the organizers invited corporate NGOs as civil society representatives who in fact do not challenge global financial and governance architecture. They also mentioned that in fact ERD of GoB favors the proposition of the international financial institutions and they do not want any criticism in this regard. Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, convener EquityBD, moderated the press conference while Md. Shamsuddoha of EquityBD read out the written statement. Among other organizers, Badurl Alam of La Via Campesina, Ahemd Swapna of VOICE, Sahadat Islam Chowdhuray of PRADIP, Zaid Iqbal of Bangladesh Krisak Federation. Mostafa Kamal Akanda of EquityBD spoke in the press conference.
In the written statement Shamsuddoha put forward specific demand in respect of five thematic cluster of the seminar, which includes immediate debt cancellation of the LDC especially, debt of the earthquake affected Haiti must be cancelled and LDC leaders should raise this demand from here. He also demanded a UN resolution for the establishment of international court on food rights so that there wouldn’t be any protectionism that we observed in 2008 food crisis. LDCs leaders also should demand to keep agriculture out of WTO, duty free and quota free access of LDC products and tangible commitment on aid for trade to strengthen supply side of the LDCs. In respect of climate negotiation the group demanded a separate negotiating block of the LDCs and MVCs (most vulnerable countries) which should be independent from G 77 and China block that is largely dominated by the interest of the advanced developing countries. The LDC country parties should also demand the social, cultural and economic rights of the climate change induced migrants, which has been considering a major threat to the LDCs. The group has also demanded that the whole UN governance structure need to be reconsidered as the present governance mechanism failed to come up with a legally binding commitment from the country parties in Copenhagen to response global popular demand to save the planet.
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