Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

Paralysis at Tonight's Civil Society Meeting

This evening’s content and themes meeting of the civil society caucus degenerated into chaos, as some Tunisian and African NGO representatives overwhelmed the session, preventing chairs Karen Banks and Steve Buckley from leading a discussion on tomorrow’s various civil society speeches to the government plenary. With probably seven or eight Tunisians for every non-Tunisian in the room, they demanded that civil society take an immediate vote on whether language critical of the Tunisian government would be excised from the human rights caucus text.

The Tunisians, who did not participate in the human rights caucus session in which the language was drafted, demanded the right to overrule the text criticizing the Tunisian government, as well as change the speaker to someone they felt represented their view. They argued that a “vote” had been taken earlier in the afternoon during the previous civil society meeting -- rather, it was their supporters shouting acclamation -- and no consistent translation was offered to allow participants to make an informed decision.

For nearly two hours, the audience of nearly 100 people were completely deadlocked, with the Tunisians blocking calls for a discussion proposing that two people – one of their choosing and one chosen by the human rights caucus – be given time to speak tomorrow during the government plenary. On numerous occasions, Karen Banks was shouted down by Tunisian representatives, saying she wasn’t the legitimate chair of the meeting and that the chair that had presided over the chaotic afternoon session return to that position.

Eventually, Renate Bloem arrived, having come back from a meeting with government delegates, and implored the group to attempt to arrive at consensus. She said that if the session continued to be held hostage, it would become impossible for civil society to craft the speeches on other issues that need to be addressed during tomorrow’s plenary.

By this time it was just before 8pm, and the translators were off the clock and left the room. This made it impossible to continue the debate with adequate translation, and it was decided that a plenary to discuss the human rights issue would be convened first thing tomorrow morning so that the Content and Themes group could have an adequate amount of time tonight to plan tomorrow’s other speeches.