Reciban un cordial saludo en la ocasión de invitarles, en nombre del Capítulo Venezolano del Club de Roma, al foro que a propósito del libro VENEZUELA REPETICIONES Y RUPTURAS, La reconquista de la convivencia democrática, se efectuará el martes 20 de mayo a las 11:00 a.m. en el Auditorio Fundación Polar. (Universidad Metropolitana)

El evento contará con la intervención de los autores del libro, entre quienes se encuentran Rafael Arraiz L, quien expondrá el tema “La democracia venezolana: Un joropo que no cesa”; el doctor Arnoldo Gabaldón disertará sobre “Los retos de las nuevas variables: sustentabilidad ecológica”, y el doctor Marco Tulio Bruni Celli hablará sobre “Los partidos políticos y la democracia en Venezuela”.

¡Contamos con su presencia!

Gladys Vázquez M. Coordinadora de Comunicaciones Dirección de Relaciones Institucionales Universidad Metropolitana Telf. 241.51.74 Ext. 388

Informe del Capítulo Venezolano del Club de Roma

¿Qué hacer ante la situación que vive Venezuela hoy? ¿Cómo reconstruir el país e insertarlo en la modernidad? ¿Cómo reconquistar la cohesión social? ¿Cómo lograr un proceso de amnistía y de unidad nacional sin renunciar a las libertades democráticas? ¿Cómo ceder y promover la tolerancia en medio de ideologías encontradas? ¿Cómo incorporar al proceso de desarrollo a todos esos venezolanos que han permanecido marginados del mismo?

Estas y otras muchas preguntas parecen haber motivado al Capítulo Venezolano del Club de Roma a la realización del proyecto VENEZUELA, DEMOCRACIA Y LIBERTAD, El Proyecto histórico de una nación, que cuenta con el auspicio del programa Venezuela: Iniciativa para la Construcción de Confianza financiado por la Agencia para el Desarrollo Internacional de los EE.UU. (USAID).

Este proyecto incluye la publicación del libro VENEZUELA REPETICIONES Y RUPTURAS, La reconquista de la convivencia democrática. Este Informe del Capítulo Venezolano del Club de Roma, intenta evaluar desde el ángulo cultural, político, social, económico y antropológico, la trayectoria histórica de la convivencia democrática en Venezuela y de los posibles escenarios que podrían incidir en la realidad inmediata y mediata del país.

María Ramírez Ribes, miembro del Club de Roma, presidenta y fundadora del Capítulo, tiene a su cargo la compilación de este aporte y los textos de las distintas áreas están a cargo de dieciocho autores venezolanos.

Este libro, será presentado y debatido en el foro “Venezuela Repeticiones y Rupturas” que se efectuará en la Universidad Metropolitana el próximo martes 20 de mayo a las 11:00 a.m. en el Auditorio Fundación Polar con los ponentes y autores del libro: Rafael Arraiz L, quien expondrá el tema “La democracia venezolana: Un joropo que no cesa”; el doctor Arnoldo Gabaldón disertará sobre “Los retos de las nuevas variables: sustentabilidad ecológica”, y el doctor Marco Tulio Bruni Celli hablará sobre “Los partidos políticos y la democracia en Venezuela”.

La entrada a este y otros foros que estarán realizándose en la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (Caracas), el martes 27 mayo y, en Universidad del Zulia (Maracaibo), el jueves 29, así como en otras ciudades del interior del país, durante el mes de junio, es libre.

VENEZUELA REPETICIONES Y RUPTURAS, La reconquista de la convivencia democrática pretende ir más allá de los sucesos actuales al profundizar en las razones que han conducido a la situación actual, así como presentar material de reflexión hacia salidas innovadoras más cónsonas con la necesidad de convivencia a que aspira el país; salidas que impliquen la reconquista de esa verdadera cohesión social en comunión con la responsabilidad y alejada de todo tipo de dependencias.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, May 08, 2003 By: Daniel Burnett

Date: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 4:40 PM From: Daniel Burnett dburnett1@nyc.rr.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: More thoughts on education

Dear Editor: I was pleased to see the letter by Mr. Campbell regarding how to reform the Venezuelan educational system. In my original letter on this subject I noted that my ideas were not exhaustive and that there would be many other ways in which to improve the educational system. In fact it was my hope to provoke a discussion on this subject where in others would contribute their ideas. On this score, Mr. Campbell's letter did not disappoint as he put forth a number of very helpful proposals.

The main idea put forth by Mr. Campbell was creating a two track educational system where there would be not only traditional "academic" schools but also more technically oriented vocational schools. I believe that this in an excellent idea and one which I completely overlooked in my original letter.

As Mr. Campbell pointed out, there are a great many students who are uninterested by a regular academic curriculum. Further, traditional secondary school curriculums have as their main purpose preparing students for university studies in spite of the fact that most students never go on to study in a university. Therefore such schools poorly serve many students by driving many to abandon school altogether and by leaving the large number who graduate but don't want to attend a university ill prepared for the labor market.

So creating vocational schools where students would hopefully be more motivated and learning practical skills would definitely be helpful. In the United States vocational schools were heavily used for the past 40 or 50 years. Of late they have been in decline but I think that is more the general decline in the quality of secondary than anything else. However, community colleges, which are the equivalent of vocational schools at the university level, have been quite successful and have been expanded. These community colleges offer a wide range of educational programs but concentrate on very specific technical training.

For example, in the city where I am from, Rochester, New York, the main industries are photographic equipment, optics, and machine tools. And guess what almost all the programs at the local community college pertain to ... photographic equipment, optics, and machine tools. The relationship between the community college and industry is very close. College administrators frequently consult with local industry to see what their needs are and gear their educational programs accordingly.

For example, in the late 1990s the Rochester area had a bunch of companies start up in the new area of Photonics. These companies needed employees trained to work in cleanrooms and with sophisticated etching equipment similar to what semiconductor manufacturers use. The response of the community college was to build its own cleanrooms. Area companies helped supply the needed equipment and loaned the college engineers to do the teaching.

The community college got new equipment and a valuable new educational program, companies got the type of well trained employees that they needed and, not least, a significant number of people got excellent training and well paying jobs. To some having such a close relationship between private industry and a public college may seem inappropriate. But looking at the results, it is a win-win-win situation for everyone involved. Given the demonstrated success of these types of institutions Venezuela may wish to devote some of its resources to creating similar types of colleges.

Another form of this collaboration between industry and universities is the co-op programs that many universities have. At one local university, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the academic calendar is made of three trimesters. For two of these trimesters students attend normal classes. During the third trimester they must work as an intern at local company in a field related to their area of study.

This benefits the students in several ways. It gives them practical experience in their chosen field. Also, they make contacts in industry which greatly aid their job search once they graduate ... in fact many times the companies where they intern wind up hiring them into full-time positions once they graduate. And it also helps the students economically in that they earn money to help support their studies. This program has been used by the university for about 20 years now and has proven very successful. These types of programs could be implemented in Venezuela and I believe they would be equally successful there.

Starting primary schooling at the age of 6 instead of 7 is also an excellent idea. First it would allow the education to be accelerated and allow for the development of the vocational tract that Mr. Campbell proposes. Additionally it would help families that are headed by either a single parent or where both parents work by alleviating childcare problems. Further, many studies conducted in the US have consistently shown that early childhood educational efforts are the most effective ones.

There are a few points were I am not in complete agreement with Mr. Campbell. For example, Mr. Campbell is in favor of leaving current fees that some schools have in place. He also questions the whether it is practical to implement nation wide exams for all grades and subjects.

In general, I am against any fees or tuition being charged for any level of education. Primary and secondary education should be both universal and compulsory which rules out charging fees for it. Further, we need to keep in mind that in a country with as much poverty as Venezuela even the most nominal fees are likely to be too high for many families.

University level education will indeed have to be rationed as there are limited resources. However, I believe that university education should be reserved for those who most merit it and show they will take full advantage of it. The way determine who those people are is through performance on entrance exams, not by how much money their parents have.

That brings me back to our second area of disagreement ... standardized testing. Mr. Campbell's main objection seems to be that it would cost a lot. However, if it is implemented on a nation wide basis, which is what I propose, the cost of it relative to the overall cost of the educational system would be small.

Mr. Campbell also says that nationwide tests would require a standard nationwide curriculum. That is also precisely what I propose. A nation wide curriculum would be beneficial for various reasons but the main benefit is that it reduces bureaucracy and saves money.

Why should every state in Venezuela be wasting resources devising its own curriculum?

Is there any difference between what primary school students in Lara and students in Bolivar should be learning?

Of course not. And as I mentioned in my original letter the state of New York (with a population of 19 million) has a standardized curriculum so Venezuela (with a population of 24 million) shouldn't have any problem implementing one.

But there is a much more important reason why I think standardized testing is absolutely crucial and cannot be postponed as Mr. Campbell proposes. In any undertaking there must be ways to measure success and failure. When running a company it is profit or lack thereof that indicates success or failure; in health care system it is the life expectancy of the population that tells us if the health care system is well run or not; if you are running police department you measure murder rates and other crime statistics to see how effective your policing is.

In education the main question is how much are the students learning. And the best way of measuring that is through exams. The educational reforms that Mr. Campbell and I are proposing would require that increased resources be dedicated to education. Of course, in Venezuela financial resources are very limited and therefore extremely precious and not to be squandered.

For that reason, there must be some ensuring that those resources are used effectively and not wasted.

If you fly a plane with no instruments to tell you how fast you are going, what your altitude is, or what direction you are traveling in you are said to be "flying blind." Well, without regular exams you are you are "educating blind" ... you will simply have no way of knowing if you are going in the direction that you want to go in.

The fact is, regular examinations are the best way of determining if educational reforms are working. If they are indeed working we will see that reflected in significantly improved performance on these exams. If they are not working that too will be reflected in the student's performance on the exams and we will know we have to change course and try something else. The point is if we are doing something wrong the sooner we find out the better.

This is why testing must be implemented right from the beginning. If we wait until some years on to implement it we may find we have wasted much time and money on ineffective educational reforms without even realizing it. I know that I have belabored this point to such an extent that most readers are probably tired of hearing about it. My reason for being so insistent on it though is that without such a testing scheme all other reforms, now matter how well intentioned, will likely fail. For this reason I would definitely ask that Mr. Campbell reconsider his position on this point.

Mr. Campbell also took exception to my saying that most parents don't have significant educational aspirations for their children. However, that isn't what I said in my original letter. My point actually was that most children's educational attainment does not surpass that of their parents. And that is most definitely true throughout in the US, England, Germany, Venezuela, indeed throughout the world.

Most professionals with a high level of education come from families where their parents had a high level of education. On the other end, most children who drop out of school without completing their primary education have parents who did not complete their primary education. Of course, there are certainly exceptions to this ... children of illiterate parents who come to have doctorates and children of professionals who never complete their formal education ... but as a general point it is true.

It is for that reason that countries like Venezuela, where the majority of the population has a relatively low educational level, need to come of up innovative plans to get poor families to put more of an emphasis on education. That was the impetus behind my idea of keeping schools open additional hours and providing three free meals to all students. The idea is to make sure children spend most of their day in a place where education and studying is being promoted.

I would like to add an additional point regarding free meals in schools. Reflecting on it a little more I now realize this program is even more important than I originally indicated. The reason is this: as I have pointed out in other letters the time for any economic development plan to work is likely to be long ... decades not years.

During the first ten or fifteen years, most all of the population will actually see their standard of living go down. The poor will also be hard hit as there will be almost no new public works that benefit them ... no new public housing, no new paved roads and sewer system, and no new hospitals.

The reason for that is that the government will need to devote all of those resources funding new companies in building up their industrial infrastructure. So the program of free meals for all schoolchildren will be important in that it will be pretty much the only way in which the government will be showing that it has not abandoned them.

It will be the one tangible thing given by the government to the most marginalized sections of society that will show that it values them and that they will have a place in the "new" Venezuela. So although it will be a costly program to carry out I think it is very worthwhile as it will serve multiple purposes.

A final point that bears mentioning is that for educational reform to have success the economy must also be successfully reformed and the country must enter a period of sustained growth.

Education and the economy are very much intertwined.

Without a skilled workforce the economy will not be able to grow. But without a growing economy it will be impossible to sustain improvements in the educational system.

Students will not continue to exert themselves in their studies if after studying for many years to become engineers or scientists there are no jobs that utilize their hard earned skills.

Young people must not only be given the opportunity to study ... they must be given a reason to study.

Estimados/as amigos/as:

La Fundación Liderazgo y Visión quiere compartir con ustedes el próximo artículo de Gerver Torres que será publicado en El Universal este sábado 17 de mayo. ¿Quiere colaborar con nosotros? Replique este artículo, envíelo a sus familiares y amigos. Entre a nuestro sitio en internet, www.liderazgoyvision.org, y forme parte de Un sueño para Venezuela.

El premio de Moisés Naim Ocurrió un mediodía de primavera. Fue en el Waldorf Astoria de New York, donde una multitud de más de dos mil almas acudió a celebrar la entrega del “Oscar” de las revistas norteamericanas.

En una de las categorías, cinco grandes publicaciones se disputaban el premio: New Yorker, Atlantic, Harpers, xxx y Foreing Policy, ésta ultima, dirigida por nuestro compatriota Moisés Naim. Entre emociones y suspiros, llegaron las mágicas palabras: “y… el premio es para ..“Foreign Policy”.

Según el jurado se trataba de un reconocimiento a la extraordinaria calidad de la publicación, a la capacidad del equipo editor en lograr que un tema tan difícil como la política internacional, se convirtiese en algo atractivo para el ciudadano común.

Ciertamente, Moisés ha transformado la referida publicación, de un material académico, más bien pesado, en una revista vibrante, de interés para mucha gente, que esta en vías hoy de publicarse en chino y ruso, entre otras lenguas.

El premio de Moisés me genera dos reflexiones. La primera sobre el acto mismo de premiar.

Hay sociedades que premian continuamente a la gente por cualquier logro. Otras, como la nuestra premian poco o nada. En Venezuela, muy pocos compatriotas son premiados alguna vez en su vida, no importa cuales sean sus logros.

Cual es el problema con esto? Que una sociedad que no premia es una sociedad indiferente al esfuerzo y al mérito y que por tanto no los promueve; es una sociedad que no estimula los comportamientos deseables en sus miembros; porque cuando se establece un premio, se están definiendo y promoviendo las conductas deseables en la sociedad.

El que premia, esta diciendo cual conducta es la conducta a seguir y está por tanto modelando la sociedad.

Una sociedad que no premia, es la otra cara de una sociedad que no castiga. Impunidad ante el delito e indiferencia ante el éxito son dos caras de la misma moneda.

La otra reflexión es sobre la competencia.

Los venezolanos tendemos a pensar que la competencia es un asunto de empresas, productos, tecnología o servicios pero no de personas. En realidad, quien compite es la gente, algunas veces en la forma de productos o servicios, pero es siempre la gente.

Cuando se enfrentan productos, quien compite en verdad es la gente que los produce. Cuando competimos con el resto del mundo, lo que está compitiendo en última instancia es la calidad de la gente. De allí, lo crucial de la inversión en la gente.

Felicitaciones Moisés.

Gerver Torres

Contáctenos: Página web: Correo-e: INFO Teléfonos: (0212) 574.1568 - 5918 o *SUEÑO (Telcel o Movilnet) Dirección: Av. Andrés Eloy Blanco, Edif. Cámara de Comercio de Caracas, Piso 7, ofic. 7-A, Los Caobos, Caracas.

<a href=www.sun-sentinel.com>SunSentinel.com Posted May 8 2003

It isn't often you get to see a live political science experiment, but that is what we're about to witness in Iraq as the first interim Iraqi government is formed from the different factional leaders in the country. What American advisers and this Iraqi interim government will attempt to answer is the most fundamental question facing the Arab world and many developing countries: How do you get from here to there? How do you go from a brutal authoritarian regime to a decent, accountable, democratizing society, without ending up with an Iranian-style theocracy or chaos?

Interestingly enough, what the smartest experts in the democracy field all seem to agree on is that this interim Iraqi authority should not focus on holding national elections -- the hardware of democracy. Elections should come last. Instead, it must start with the software -- building, brick by brick, the institutions of a free society -- so that when people do get to vote, when national power is up for grabs, they have a range of choices and can be assured that there will be a rotation of power.

"The heart of building liberal democracy is building the institutions of liberty, not holding a quick election," observes Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International, whose smart and timely new best seller, The Future of Freedom, addresses this exact problem. "Building the institutions of democracy is not 50 percent of the job. It is 90 percent of the job. It was in Western history. It was for East Asia, and it will be so for Iraq."

This means, argues Zakaria, concentrating first and foremost on building the "institutions of liberty": a functioning judicial system, a free press, free speech, economic reform, civic institutions and multiple political parties, all anchored in a constitution that has the support, and input, of the main political forces in the nation.

"Elections are an important virtue of governance," notes Zakaria, "but they are not the only virtue … Economic, civil and religious liberties are at the core of human autonomy and dignity. If a government with limited democracy steadily expands these freedoms, it should not be branded a dictatorship." A decent, gradually democratizing government in Iraq, concludes Zakaria, could "provide a better environment for life, liberty and happiness" for Iraqis than illiberal democracies, like Russia or Venezuela, do for their people.

The challenge for the U.S. will be to build such a foundation of liberty in a country with virtually no legacy of it at all. Under ideal conditions, that will take years -- and it is not clear the Bush team is ready to invest that degree of time, money and people.

Staying power is essential because Iraq under Saddam Hussein exhibited the same "distorted political landscape" of so many of its Arab neighbors, says Larry Diamond, the noted democracy specialist at Stanford's Hoover Institution: that is, a voiceless, disempowered, moderate political center -- both secular and religious -- squeezed between the iron fist of the patriarchal state and the grass-roots alternative of illiberal, intolerant Muslim fundamentalists.

With Hussein's iron fist now removed, the U.S. must help an authentically Iraqi moderate center emerge and sink roots, and not just allow illiberal Islamists to fill the void. This means, Diamond says, "bringing in the technical advisers and recruiting Iraqis committed to the rule of law, who can gradually build the software of democracy" -- from independent courts to countercorruption and audit agencies to an independent press to independent parties -- and then give Iraqis time to learn how to use such tools, while slowly working up from local to national elections.

And don't kid yourself: Some kind of multinational peacekeeping force (a NATO-Arab force?) will have to be present for years, while a new Iraqi military, able to defend Iraq's new institutions, is constructed.

"It is possible -- just possible -- that Iraq could gradually develop into a democracy," argues Diamond. But it will cost "billions of dollars over a number of years. We must not repeat the mistakes of our postwar engagement with Afghanistan, which has been ad hoc, haphazard, inadequately funded, tardy in reconstruction and utterly unwilling to deploy and utilize the military force necessary to secure the new political order." Write to Thomas L. Friedman at The New York Times, 229 W. 43rd St., New York, NY 10036.

scoop.co.nz Wednesday, 7 May 2003, 7:21 pm Press Release: US State Department

Strengthening Democracy: A Review of OAS Actions in 2002

Ambassador Peter DeShazo, U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the OAS Remarks to a Special Session of the Permanent Council on Democracy Washington, DC April 29, 2003

Ambassador Peter DeShazo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A little over a year ago, still in the aftermath of September 11, we determined that we wanted to keep the issue of Follow-Up to the Democratic Charter as a permanent item on the agenda of the Permanent Council. We did so because we recognized the great significance of this document for us, and for the citizens of this Hemisphere in promoting and defending their right to democracy. In doing so, we reaffirmed our obligation, as representatives of the democracies of this Hemisphere, to promote and defend that right. Gradually, we have come to realize that the Charter stipulates not only the democratic values that we hold in common, but provides the essential tools that the Organization (Organization of American States, OAS) has to prevent or address threats to democracy.

We meet today under General Assembly Resolution AG/RES. 1907 to "review actions undertaken by the Organization in calendar year 2002 to promote and strengthen democracy, in order to determine such additional actions as may be deemed appropriate." In fact, the Democratic Charter is the spirit of the OAS , and virtually everything that the Organization did in the year 2002 was done in the spirit of the Democratic Charter.

We also should overcome the hesitation of using Article 17 of the Democratic Charter. In fact, every time a member state makes a request for technical assistance from the OAS, such as technical electoral assistance, strengthening institutions, promoting dialogue and conflict resolution, or leadership training, in essence it invokes the Democratic Charter.

We have two questions before us today.

First, what did we do in the year 2002 to promote and strengthen democracy? We can look at our efforts in two categories:

The first category is technical assistance or promotion of a democratic culture by the organs and entities of the OAS. The long-awaited inventory of democratic activities in the Organization that we have before us today is an impressive list. There is indeed a lot going on in the area of democracy, and not just in the work of the UPD (Unit for the Promotion of Democracy). I wonder if there was anyone in the Secretariat, let alone any of the Permanent Representatives, who was aware of all that the Organization is doing in this area. The level of technical activity is very reassuring.

Our delegation commends the UPD for putting this chart together, and all of the organs and entities that provided the information. We hope this will prove to be a catalyst for even greater coordination throughout the Organization in the future. To facilitate this, I propose that we make this very informative report an annual part of our review in preparation for the General Assembly each year. While we in the Permanent Council and our ministers in the General Assembly give the policy orientation for the Organization, it is in the daily implementation of these activities that we will make progress in promoting and defending democratic institutions, practice, and culture.

The second category of what we did in 2002 is more political in nature. Clearly, the Permanent Council has become more proactive in lending solidarity to member states, as we did in the case of Venezuela, Haiti, and Bolivia. Clearly, we are recognizing the need to speak up when the rights of the Hemisphere's citizens are being violated, as we did yesterday in the discussion on Cuba. Clearly, when representatives of OAS member states traveled to Seoul, Korea, in November 2002 to meet with member states of the Community of Democracy from other parts of the world we were promoting our values of democracy and the instrument we drafted to promote it. The meeting June 5-6 in Miami between OAS members of the Community of Democracies and members of the African Union-NEPAD is another such proactive initiative to share our values.

Clearly, when the Secretary General offers assistance to the Government of Bolivia to help resolve conflicts in that country or speaks out in support of the Government of Nicaragua's anti-corruption efforts, he is representing our democratic values. As the Permanent Council considers and votes on a resolution defending human rights in Cuba, we will be projecting those fundamental values.

The second question we have before us today is: What more can we do or should we be doing?

I am sure that all of us could come up with a long list of projects and activities we would like to see developed by the Organization were there only sufficient money and time to do it all. But I have a few concrete proposals to make:

1. One of the strongest ways we have of supporting those organs and entities of the Organization that are actively promoting democracy is to fund them adequately. We talk about providing increased financial support for the inter-American human rights system. We need to ensure that we are also providing adequate financial support for the democracy programs of the UPD and other organs and entities of the Organization. Without an increase next year to the regular Program-Budget, it will be difficult to maintain at current levels, let alone enhance support, for these essential democracy programs. Each member and observer state should consider making voluntary contributions to these collective programs. My government has approved a substantial increase in what we will contribute to democracy activities this year. Frankly, we hope these additional funds will leverage greater contributions from other donors.

2. We should actively seek ways to promote a democratic culture in the Americas based on our shared values. There are many ways we can do this:

• We should urge our Education Ministers to make a commitment at their August meeting to incorporate civic education, including the Inter-American Democratic Charter, into the curriculum of each of our countries. * Last year's special session on Women in the Political Process was highly successful and attracted outstanding speakers. I propose that the Permanent Council, following on the Education Ministerial and with the help of the UPD and the Unit for Social Development and Education, consider holding a Special Session in September on "Promoting a Democratic Culture Through Civic Education."

3. Inter-parliamentary exchanges are useful: Representatives of the U.S. and Venezuelan legislatures have been meeting for the last year to learn more about each other's methods and understand more their differences. We should encourage more such practical exchanges.

4. Horizontal cooperation is productive: Brazil and Paraguay have shown us the way with their pilot program to share Brazil's electronic voting machines and software for the Paraguayan elections held this past Sunday. Peru is inviting members of the Rio Group to share best practices and experiences in the area of political party reform. The Inter-American Forum on Political Parties is encouraging greater sharing of experiences among the current and future leaders of our countries, and we should encourage these efforts. We should make horizontal cooperation a strong element of political party reform.

5. An annual evaluation of democracy activities is essential: We have discussed follow-up activities to the Democratic Charter at least 6 times since we adopted it on September 11, 2001. I propose that we hold an annual session of the Permanent Council as we are doing today to evaluate the level of activity in the previous year. To prepare for this session, we should ask the UPD to provide us with an updated inventory of activities each year. The results of this session should be included in our report to the General Session on the promotion of democracy and follow-up to the Democratic Charter.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[End]

Released on April 29, 2003