WSIS in Tunis – They Came, They Talked, They Wimped Out

Michael Hedges - November 17, 2005

“Internet governance” is a defining term: defining the ultimate oxymoron. So when 16,000 delegates descended on Tunis this week the headlines were all about grabbing that tiger by the tail and lifting it from the clutches of the Americans. After three days of reality check a new, simpler message appeared: never mind!

No bolder agenda has ever been put forth by an international body. All the world’s ills can be conquered or resolved by attaching to the internet. The World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS), now meeting in Tunis, is the place to be.

Only a week ago the pre-negotiation posturing elevated internet governance to nearly that of combat. “Stand up to the Americans,” became a rallying cry for every constituent with a bone to pick with the current United States administration. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) ruling the internet and ruled by the US, would be replaced by something else, more fair, more just, more politically correct.

Maybe the ITU would take it over. Or maybe it belonged to the UN. The internet needs regulating. Bring on the rules, the committees, the delegations, the conferences, per diem, travel expenses.

But wait, ICANN doesn’t rule the internet. In assigns domain names and keeps them in order. And it’s been more or less fair in that particular job, even though it does not allow France to keep English content off the web any more than it prevents China from keeping anything off the web. China manages to do that with sophisticated CISCO routers. And the Americans have never threatened to cut off dot ca, Canada’s domain assignment.

None of that discussion reached WSIS’s offical phase, opening Wednesday morning with, among other speeches, a word or two from Swiss President Samuel Schmid. Delegates struck a deal during the less-than-public negotiations to leave internet governance, for the foreseeable future, in the hands of ICANN and the US Commerce Department but agreed set up an Internet Governance Forum to discuss spam, viruses and other internet ills. All observers have noted that the European Union fell oddly silent on the issue after leading the call in September to pull the plug on American control. 

China and Iran, paragons of human rights and freedom of speech, also favored a new internet governance model, just like their models for everything: State control. The EU’s chief complaint about ICANN, notwithstanding the generalized desire to curb US influence, is that disputes must be taken to courts in the US state of California, where ICANN is registered as a not-for-profit corporation.

So WSIS returned to its agenda of digital divide and digital dividend. Well, almost.

“It is,“ said the Swiss President, “quite unacceptable for the United Nations to continue to include among its members states which imprison citizens for the sole reason that they have criticized their government on the internet of the media.” 

Tunisians watching the opening ceremonies on State TV never saw or heard most of Schmid’s remarks, conveniently eclipsed by local commentators. That event along with a few episodes of rousting journalists, including a stabbing, were widely reported outside of Tunsia and managed to set the day’s tone inside. Reuters AlertNet reported that French and Arabic language reports of virtually anything related to the WSIS have been blocked inside Tunisia. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported that journalist Christophe Boltanksi from the French newspaper Liberation had been attacked and stabbed, a Belgian TV crew harassed and French network TV5 withdrew its 2-person team because of “close surveillance by plainclothes agents.” Amnesty International warned journalists and others that they “may be in danger” of attack or intimidation from security forces.

How, indeed, did this country become the site for such an important international Summit with its’ own disgraceful record of media repression?

At least the WSIS agenda is now back on track. Internet governance was barely mentioned when WSIS delegates met for Prepcom 2003 in Geneva. That high-level meeting was largely hijacked by third world delegates, led by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, demanding the first world send money with no questions asked about repressive governments and other such indelicacies. Mugabe continued that crusade in Tunis, blasting the US for dominating the internet.

"We challenge the still undemocratic issue of internet governance, where one or two countries insist on being world policemen on the management and administration of the internet," he said.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan also delivered opening remarks in Tunis, appealing for an end to the digital divide between poor and rich nations. Costs can be lowered, he said, but “the hurdles are more of a political than financial nature.”

The UN does not want to take over the internet, said Annan, voicing practical as well as political realities. And he added, “the US deserves a thank-you for creating the internet and managing it honorably.”

Annan also answered the question of how Tunisia became the summit’s site in his most diplomatic eloquence saying, “putting the spotlight on them…helps push the cause forward.”

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