By Pavel Antonov Photo: Pavel Antonov DISAPPOINTMENT: Activists said Johannesburg broke peoples’ hopes for a fair world. The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg was a spectacular event, attracting a diverse group of 60,000, including heads of state, government officials, members of international organisations, activists, business people, consultants, artists, musicians, journalists and guests, representing a dizzying array of cultures and languages. At the heart of it all was a gleaming complex of skyscrapers, hotels and shopping malls in Johannesburg called Sandton. The logistics and communication along the seven floors of the Sandton Conference Centre were impressive. United Nations organisers did their best to create order among the 20,000 accredited individuals crowding the halls and corridors of the different buildings. In fact, the whole operation seemed to run too smoothly. The level of grassroots participation allowed there seemed to be much less than what activists experienced at the Earth Summit in Rio, 10 years earlier, and in some sense, it felt like a step backward for public involvement in the process. The situation irked many environmental activists in attendance. Claiming a need for higher security in a world that has grown more sensitive to the threat of terrorism, organisers devised an accreditation system that limited direct contacts between official delegates, activists and the media. The civil society forum for the summit was safely located in the Nasrec complex some 30 kilometres away from the Sandton negotiations. The few officially permitted marches by nongovernmental organisations were strictly monitored and guided by the police, and the street activists could only see the high walls of the Sandton Conference Centre from the back. Non-governmental activists who could get inside tried to make their complaints clear. Consumers International, the Danish 92 Group, Eurodad, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Northern Alliance for Sustainability, Oxfam and WWF were all active inside the Sandton centre, lobbying the negotiators, and alerting the media about the summit s shortcomings. In order to get around UN rules limiting press conferences, NGO activists were handed press releases in the media centre. They also provided an attention-grabbing video opportunity for camera crews by holding a rebellious press briefing before being dispersed by security forces. Barriers and fences And security was everywhere. Armed police, on foot and horseback, were constantly visible. There were at least three or four checkpoints that any outsider needed to pass in order to get close to the conference centre. The special levels of access meant that official delegation members were comparatively isolated. They would only mix with the rest of the crowd at the numerous parallel events, during lunch, or in the pavilions of Ubuntu Village an impressive exhibition area where governments and international organisations presented the best of their sustainability attempts to date. Most of those with NGO accreditation were not allowed to join the delegates members of the so-called Major Groups in UN jargon. These included representatives of civil society, business, the sciences, youth, women, local authorities, indigenous people and farmers. This crowd did meet the summit organisers stated wish to allow for broad public participation, but it was hard for the public to make themselves heard. In the end, the summit produced limited results, bringing strong criticism from activists. The WWF called Johannesburg a World Summit on Shameful Deals. The Friends of the Earth were even harsher: A Betrayal, they charged in a press release. "Apart from some limited commitments to protect our oceans and fish stocks and provide sanitation, the summit will do almost nothing to help reduce our damaging local footprint," said Dr. Claude Martin, Director General of WWF. One of the biggest protests was the disruption of the speech by Colin Powell, the US secretary of state. Activists and developing world delegates drowned Powell's words with booing, accusing his government of serving multinational corporations at the expense of generations present and future. During that moment, those who were dissatisfied with the summit's progress made themselves heard. Unfortunately, such moments were rare in Johannesburg.

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