The network which has been created since January 2003, when a land of the town council in Porto Alegre was occupied by the homeless during the 3rd social forum is today composed of movements of the ‘have nots’ in struggle in the three biggest continents and in ten different countries.

International mutual solidarity, successes and perspectives

Collective actions of mutual international solidarity which have taken place over several months have enabled to support the movements of struggle of the “ have nots ” which are exposed to repression and sometimes to isolation. For instance the occupation of the Japanese tourist office in Paris in October 2004 lead to the end of Police operations to destroy the makeshift shelters put up in Osaka and in Tokyo for sometimes ten years by the Japanese homeless. Negotiations continue with the Japanese authorities.

It was the same for the inhabitants of a self built community in Guyana where after a series of demonstrations in November 2005, the French government stopped its operations. More recently a series of demonstrations organised simultaneously in Paris, in Tokyo and in Lisbon in front of the Brasilian embassies impelled the Brazilian authorities in the state of Paranà to reopen discussions with the inhabitants of a self built community in the suburb of Curitiba. In Sao Paulo, the expulsion of families occupying a vacant building in the centre of town didn’t take place and the federal state took hold of the affair after following closely the events.

The assembly has decided to pursue the iniatives of international mutual solidarity, in particular the support of inhabitants of self built areas of Lisbon and of the gold miners of Morila in Mali. In addition a meeting is envisaged with the inhabitants of the shantytowns of Istanbul and Russian tenants who asked for help from the network during the last Athens Social Forum.

In relation to these concrete results, many requests to join are coming from the grass roots movements of working class areas and rural regions of Eastern Europe and Africa to which the network must respond. There is a great lack of financial and human means to satisfy the requests and the development of the network is more difficult. The assembly calls on all the progressive organisations of the North to strengthen their financial support.

A support action for the stuggle of the sanspapiers in France will be organised in Mali and if possible elsewhere on th 26th of August at the same time as initiatives in Paris, ten years after the eviction of the undocumented migrants of the Saint-Bernard church and one year after the murderous fires in the slums of Paris. Demonstrations in front of embassies of France and other targets are to be prepared.

Developing communications tools

 The No vox internet site in many languages will be put on line soon. a collective of video makers put in place since autumn 2004 will put out a DVD of the NO Vox struggles in many languages in September. That creation will help the network to be known as well on the international scene as on the National. The idea of a “ newspaper of the Sans ” in French was put forward in the spirit of generalising a tool . The idea has to be discussed in all the orgaisations concerned.

The question of communication with the media and the handling of how events are remembered equally has to be discussed.

The Participation of the Networks in The Social Forums

The No Vox network is going to participate in the next social forums, to make the voices of the Sans in struggle heard, to continue the construction of the network and to push for concrete actions to be set up before and during the forums. The World Social forum in Nairobi and North African Social Forum in 2007 will be the opportunity to check on the capacity of the social forum process to press for the mobilisation of the other half of the planet who live in poverty , deprived of the most basic of rights.

Marches towards the G8 in 2007 in June in Germany

The assembly envisages participation in the marches for three weeks to denounce in a public space the attacks on rights and the repression of the social movements. It will equally be the occasion to propose for debate the alternatives put forward by the movements and to construct convergences. At the moment four marches departing from the four corners of Europe are being prepared .

The No Vox network in France call for active participation !

 in the mobilisation of the 26th of August in memory of the murderous fires in the slums of Paris and the expulsion of the St Bernard church occupied in the Summer of 1996 by the Sans Papiers and their support.

to struggle in solidarity against the repression carried out by the government against activists from the social movements, the poor, the precarised and discriminated against.

to strengthen convergences within the social movements

Paris the 9 July 2006