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The 7th World Social Forum will be held in Nairobi, Kenya from January 20th - 25th, 2007 at Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani. This is an important event that will bring the world to Africa. Activists, Social and Labour Movements, Networks, Coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and all corners of Africa will converge in Nairobi, Kenya for five days of cultural resistance and celebration, panels, workshops, symposia, processions, film nights and much more.

Despite the importance that the country's trade union movement attaches to this event, we as leaders in the Trade Union movement have been kept at bay as far as the planning and organization of the event is concerned.

The World Social Forum's anti-capitalist and neo-liberal globalization agenda carries with it the workers' aspirations and it will be a futile exercise for anybody to dare believe that such an event could be organized, planned and executed without its core subjects, namely the workers.

Press Release by Bro. George M. Muchai, COTU(K) Deputy Secretary General, on the forthcoming World Social Forum, 5th November, 2006

Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Press,

The 7th World Social Forum will be held in Nairobi, Kenya from January 20th - 25th, 2007 at Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.

This is an important event that will bring the world to Africa. Activists, Social and Labour Movements, Networks, Coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and all corners of Africa will converge in Nairobi, Kenya for five days of cultural resistance and celebration, panels, workshops, symposia, processions, film nights and much more.

Despite the importance that the country's trade union movement attaches to this event, we as leaders in the Trade Union movement have been kept at bay as far as the planning and organization of the event is concerned.

The World Social Forum's anti-capitalist and neo-liberal
globalization agenda carries with it the workers' aspirations and it will be a futile exercise for anybody to dare believe that such an event could be organized, planned and executed without its core subjects, namely the workers.

Whereas we do not, as the umbrella workers' body, wish to cast aspersions to the importance the event holds for the world workers, it would be prudent that workers ought to take a central role in this event as opposed to the current cat-and-mouse-game that the local organizing committee housed in a local NGO office is playing.

The World Social Forum Secretariat is charged with co-coordinating the Social Forum process working in close collaboration with the International Organizing Committee consisting of 129 organizations globally.

In Africa, the African Social Forum Council co-ordinates the Social Forum process and for the year 2007 forum, the Eastern Africa Organizing Committee is hosting supported by the World Social Forum Kenya Secretariat.

Interestingly, NGOs have hijacked this important process pushing the core stakeholders of the process, namely the workers, to the periphery as they grab the chance for their own selfish ends attracting huge sums of donor funds that have since ended up in individuals' pockets.

These individuals remain elusive to us despite our efforts to reach them and whereas we would not wish to sabotage this event, we demand that it should not be used as a conduit to siphon money from foreign donors for selfish individuals ends but let it be an event creating an opportunity to showcase Africa together with her social and Trade Union movement partners.

The local team of individuals purporting to own the process and who have opted to shut the doors to everybody should own up soonest lest the Kenyan workers will rise up against their underground dealings and with consequences that may cost the forum a great deal.

We understand the amorphous structures that such event elsewhere holds, however, for purposes of achieving its goal and successfully reaching out to all, necessary mobilization is required as opposed to only a click of individuals meeting in hotels purportedly to meet on behalf of the rest with no clear view as to which direction the event should take.

We remain open to consultations and any individual who subscribes to the forum's ideologies is free to join us, but we will not allow a small cartel of self appointed individuals answerable to themselves and their accomplices to take the workers at ransom shifting positions for conveniency purposes at the expense of its' subjects.

To this, we say NO!

Thank you.