ABOUT THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL FORUM

3. WHAT ARE THE ISSUES THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL FORUM IS DEALING WITH?
The RSF has in view the peacefully, democratically, and constitutionally solving of social problems in Romania.
According to the RSF Charter, the RSF focus mainly on gathering together the Romanian society into such a structural mass that become unitary through its diversity, become active and aware of itself and of its value, importance and force. We want a social structure that would be endowed with the capability of guiding in the future the Romanian society on a truly European line of social, political, moral, cultural and economic resuscitation as meant by Tudor Vladimirescu: ‘The Homeland is the People, not the gangs of looters’.
The Motto of the RSF clearly explains our Creed: ‘For a Better Life, in a Better Country, in a Better World’.

4. WHICH IS THE POLITICAL ORIENTATION OF THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL FORUM?
The fundamental difference between social and political actors is that the first, (though they may be involved in the same struggle against the political factors in order to achieve or defend certain social rights) unlike the latter, do not get involved in the struggle for political power, and limit themselves to the realm of attaining social rights.
The RSF is by definition a social movement that does not represent the interests of any political party, and so much the more, nor of any military structure.
The RSF can never turn itself into any structure of such kind (see the RSF and WSF Charter).
Therefore no political and no military structure can be RSF member.
According to Principles no.8 and no.9 in the Porto Alegre WSF Charter of Principles (Brazil 2001) (see chapter ‘Links’), politicians and Government representatives who accept the lines of the WSF Charter and of the RSF Charter may be invited to participate at the RSF reunions and actions either as common individuals, or as representatives of the local administration. They may even participate in the RSF process as long as they share its principles and aims, and honestly wish to support this process in Romania.
Consequently, politicians and high officials can not pose as initiators of any ‘Social Forum’-like social movement because they would get into flagrant contradiction with the provisions and spirit of the WSF Charter and would go beyond their responsibilities and competence by interfering ‘from above’ into the organization of the social field.
As the very name of NGO suggests, the social field should be non-governmental and free of high officials.
The RSF firmly rejects all forms of totalitarianism and dictatorship, the extremism of any sort, the separatism/sectarianism, the Revanchardism, xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism.
The RSF firmly rejects both war and terrorism as so-called means of solving conflicts.
The RSF firmly rejects the restriction and the infringement of human liberties and rights, as well as social injustice and poverty.
Being a progressive social/civil structure, the RSF promotes a left-wing policy.

5. HOW CAN THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL FORUM ACHIEVE ITS AIMS WITHOUT HAVING BEEN REGISTERED AS AN ORGANIZATION?
Social Fora are not structures which are legally registered, but this does not imply the fact that they are not legal.
The composing elements of the Romanian Social Forum, be they NGOs, Trade Unions, or common individuals are themselves legally registered in Romania.
Thus, it comes according to the Constitutional right to free association, that they can reunite themselves within the frame of a European-type open space, under the generic name of Romanian Social Forum.
The vectors composing the Romanian Social Forum (Trade Unions, NGOs, students’ organizations, individuals, etc) express themselves and take action having accepted by consensus the principle ‘Unity through Diversity, Solidarity through Independence’.
Consequently, the RSF attains its objectives by social means and methods such as: conferences, reunions, marches, demonstrations, cultural and artistic activities, and so on and so forth, which are legally organized by the vector-elements that compose the whole entity as partners. The RSF may use the Mass-Media means for attaining its targets, as well.

6. WHAT IMPORTANT ACTIONS HAS THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL FORUM ORGANIZED?
On 20^th of March 2004 the RSF was the sole newly emerging social movement in Romania that organized a National Peace Conference in Aiud.
On 15^th of May 2004 the RSF organized in Alba-Iulia the RSF Preparatory Assembly with the theme ‘Preparation of the RSF Proposals for the ESF-3 in London’. The vent gathered together representatives of more than 30 NGOs throughout the country, as well as representatives of regional Trade Unions.
Dr. Endre Simo from Hungary, Coordinator of the HSF CWG, participated at the event as ESF observer and reporter.
Both the aforementioned events had positive echoes in the Media and at international level. Dr. Endre Simo presented a Report to the ESF Coordination (see chapter ‘Documents’).
Beginning with mid-March 2004, a Program of Education against juvenile violence and delinquency was started, with students and for students, in the frame of the Technical College of Aiud.
The program proved to be a success not only through the interest it raised, but also through the concrete activities (debates, cultural programs, literary creation contests, etc), through the mobilization of the positive energies of the adolescent students, and particularly through the beneficial educational effects it produced.
Delegates of the RSF Initiative Committee at all the EPAs have represented the RSF at international level – which is not the case with the persons, and lately with the neo-liberal big guns and Secret Services, who pose as sectarian organizers of parallel ‘RSF’s.
Our proves consist not only of photographs and documents, but also of the constructive hard work we have doing and which can be acknowledged by the ESF Coordination.
Since April 2004 up to October 2004, the RSF engaged in a major and continual effort in order to centralize the proposals sent by various NGOs and Trade Unions composing it, to forward them to the UK ESF Coordination, and to get them registered with the ESF-3 Program.
The final result would be the first active Romanian participation at the European Social Forum – the ESF-3 in London – the first of this kind in the history of the social movements in Romania.

7. WHO, AND HOW, CAN BECOME AN RSF MEMBER?
Any Romanian citizen who consents to the RSF Charter and to the Principles of the Porto Alegre WSF Charter, and freely expresses his/her intention in this respect, can be a member of the Romanian Social Forum.
Any Trade Union, or Trade Union Confederation, that consent to and acknowledge the aforementioned, and legally decides to officially join the RSF expressing their intention in written form by signing a Protocol of Partnership, can become an active partner in the frame of the Romanian Social Forum.
Any NGO that consent to and acknowledge the aforementioned, and legally decides to officially join the RSF expressing their intention in written form by signing a Protocol of Partnership, can become an active partner in the frame of the Romanian Social Forum.
Protocols of Partnership are subject and object of negotiation between the RSF Coordinating Committee and any particular social partner.
The RSF Charter clearly points out those who can not be RSF members.
Contact intentions can be registered at chapter ‘Contact’.

8. WHAT ARE THE FINANCIAL SOURCES OF THE RSF?
As the RSF is not an organization by itself, it follows that it does not have its own funds, or financial balance sheet, or accountancy.
The funding are built up from the financial support of the partners composing the RSF (Trade Unions, NGOs, individuals, etc) with their legal acceptance, and on the grounds of the Protocols of Partnership previously signed, according to the RSF Charter.
The funding are meant to be used for the organization of various activities.
Each organization would justify their own expenditure according to the Law, and following the practical patterns in the ESF process, as well as in other Social Fora throughout Europe.

9. ARE THERE MORE RSFs IN ROMANIA?
There is but only one Social Forum in Romania, the same way as there is only one European Social Forum (ESF), and only one World Social Forum (WSF).
The Romanian Social Forum is the one which has been being active in the frame of the ESF process, it is known and acknowledged as such in this field, and in the Media, and it is able to prove all these by hard work, documents, and contacts.
All those who have turned into a job of theirs the launching of one ‘RSF’ after another in the capital city, only feed their own ego, and their masters’ ego with vain chimeras which can no longer deceive the common sense of the Romanians, or the public opinion.
Our arguments consist of the constructive activity we have done according to the Porto Alegre Charter ever since the beginning of the year 2004. They consist of the results we have achieved (see the internal events we organized and the external ones at which we participated), of the international acknowledgement of the RSF Initiative Committee as part of the ESF process, as well as of the logic of common sense grounded on deeds.
The RSF Initiative Committee launched on the 26^th of January 2004 a public Call inviting all the progressive social forces in Romania to gather into a united common front within the frame of the RSF so as to achieve our common goals (see chapter ‘Documents’). Thus we proved that we observe the ESF Principle of Inclusiveness.
Yet, the first ‘answer’ turned out to be a most appalling one.
Cretu Constantin, vice-president of the Socialist Alliance Party (PAS), formerly Socialist Party of Workers (PSM) which, at its turn was the direct follower of the former communist party (PCR) of Dictator Ceausescu, and his group in Bucharest attempted to repeatedly pose as the very authors of the aforementioned document so as to grab and steal our work – instead of honestly and democratically join our already existing initiative.
Through such an attitude they proved that they rather apply the principle of exclusion – which is a rejected principle in the ESF.
This also proves the interest of some groups to grab the RSF Initiative from its very beginning, most likely with the purpose of using it as a tool of controlling the civil society in Romania.
At that time, they need the RSF as means of creating a favourable political image for some, and, eventually, they want to turn the RSF into a mass of electoral maneuvers engaged in a manipulated manner in the political struggle for Power.
These individuals and groups having their base in the capital city and, seemingly, having a serious but obscure financial support, have constructed their own phantom websites with domain names focused on the phrase ‘Romanian social forum’ only meant to deceive and disrupt public opinion.
This is how the false impression that there may exist more Social Fora in Romania has been created.
It is notorious that blocking a domain name and constructing a website are in first place matters of finance and logistics, not necessarily covered in real life.
Real cases in the early 90s, at the beginning of the www age, when various obscure individuals posed either as well-known organizations and firm, or as celebrities, blocking websites bearing their names, became of public notoriety.
The electronic universe of the www is full of the masked and phantom-domains that have absolutely no real life cover.
On the 4^th of April 2004, Cretu Constantin and a some Bazga Nicolae (self-entitled president of ATTAC Romania – an NGO that has never been legally registered with the Ministry of Justice, thus being a phantom structure) attempted to turn the open space of the RSF into a politicized NGO. They blocked the brand name ‘Romanian Social Forum’ with the Ministry of Justice. This ‘RSF’ was intended to be the private property of the Association ‘Genius of the Carpathians’ (!) led by the first.
Through this action they flagrantly trespassed the very essence of the WSF and ESF.
Firstly because a representative of the staff of a political party posed as organizer of the Forum (which is primarily a social movement, not a political one). Secondly because they attempted organizing a social movement in an abnormal way and in the dictatorial anachronistic style before 1989 namely ‘from above’. Thirdly because a legally non-existent NGO (the self-entitled group ‘ATTAC Romania’) posed as RSF organizer. And lastly because they attempted to turn the RSF into the exclusive property of a group of individuals.
The attempt was unmasked at the ESF international level and doomed.
The two so-called ‘RSF’s – Cretu Constantin’s ‘RSF’, and Bazga Nicolae’s ‘RSF’ - are nothing but two facets of the same sordid reality.
The very fact that there is not one, but two ‘RSF’s located in the capital city, ‘RSF’s apparently emerging without knowing about each other’s existence, proves their true nature.
The fact of the matter is that there are documents proving that the two ‘RSF’s worked closely together against the Romanian Social Forum.
Even more, we are informed that a new maneuver of establishing a third ‘RSF’, again in Bucharest (!), is on the move. This time, most likely the masters of the previously failed ‘RSF’s, are the ones staging the show. The reason is that the political and diplomatic power structures can not accept the fact that they are not in the control and in the command of the social movement in Romania.
The ultimate goal of all these parallel structures lies in the misleading and disruption of the public opinion, in the discrediting of the concept of ‘Romanian Social Forum’, and in the facilitation of the grabbing, taking over control and blocking the development of the ESF process in Romania.
Obscure oligarchic forces unfold a strategy of maintaining in Power the structures of the second and third echelons of Ceausescu’s dictatorial regime under the form of Mutant Capitalism by the principle of rotation of the high apparatchick.
In order to do this they need taking over the control over the social field in Romania – which is being done by the principle ‘Divide at Imperam’ – and by misleading the West.
The fact that all these ‘RSF’s are invariably launched in the capital city of Bucharest, not in some other place in the country, is, unfortunately, not just a coincidence.

10. WHAT IS THE ATTITUDE OF THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL FORUM REGARDING ATTAC?
It is imperatively necessary to clearly delimit ATTAC International and ATTAC Europe on one hand, and the self-entitled ‘ATTAC Romania’ on the other.
The RSF Coordinating Committee respects and appreciates the principles of ATTAC International and ATTAC Europe.
We consider that these organizations have been, and continue to remain some of the foremost actors in the WSF and ESF processes. They are amongst the leading actors in the fight against the neo-liberal globalization, against war, against racism and extremism, for social justice and democracy, and for another better and more just world.
The RSF Coordinating Committee have formal contacts with representatives of some important ATTAC structures in Europe, and have repeatedly stated both internationally and internally, that we are ready to open discussions with a real, serious and credible ATTAC structure in Romania.
Unfortunately, as it can be seen in the chapter ‘Documents’, ATTAC Romania does not exist and it has never existed, in spite of the fact that a particular individual has been claiming all along that he is the president of an NGO bearing this name.
The logical conclusion is that the NGO ‘ATTAC Romania’ is a phantom structure that does not exist.
Those who have posed as leaders of ‘ATTAC Romania’ have caused a serious ill turn to this prestigious international movement. This has happened on one hand for having pretended that they are the leaders of an organization that has never been legally registered in Romania, and on the other for having worked together both with the nostalgic structures of Ceausescu’s dictatorial regime as well as with the political structures of Mutant Capitalism. As we all know, none of these have anything to do with the spirit of the ESF social movements.
Even more, the president of this pseudo-ATTAC Romania has been launching systematically violent and denigrating attacks against the Romanian Social Forum and against the activity of its Coordinating Committee, attempting to destroy it by all means, including by infiltrating spies under the mask of journalists.
In this context the Romanian Social Forum Coordinating Committee considers that the attempt of this non-existent NGO to pose as organizer of the Romanian Social Forum is completely unacceptable.
The RSF Coordinating Committee is awaiting with interest that ATTAC International, and particularly ATTAC France, express their official position regarding the matter of the self-entitled ‘ATTAC Romania’.
We repeat that such an NGO has never been legally registered with the Ministry of Justice. Yet, they have all along been pretending the opposite and have performed denigrating actions against the RSF being prejudicial to the image and credibility of ATTAC, ESF, and RSF.

11. ABOUT THE MASQUERADE SELF-ENTITLED ‘ROMANIAN SOCIAL FORUM’ ORGANIZED BY CRSG
The Romanian Social Forum Coordinating Committee have information according to which another so-called ‘Romanian Social Forum’, which is non-existent in the ESF process, is about to be hosted between 5^th and 7^th of May at Hotel Caro in Bucharest.
This time, the ‘organizers’ unmask themselves openly revealing the intention of the neo-liberal structures of power to pose as RSF organizers and steal the RSF.
Th location – a three star hotel, property of the much controversial businessman and Trade Union leader Liviu Luca, and a well-known luxury meeting place of oligarchic bosses and VIPs (see www.carohotel.ro) – is a first indicator of the total incompatibility with the WSF and ESF spirit and principles.
The ‘RSF organizers’ are high officials of the neo-liberal political and governmental structures that operate through an undercover NGO called Romanian Center of Global Studies – CRSG.
The very name, the declared objectives of this structure, and particularly the founding members, the members, and their contacts constitute the main element of incompatibility and ‘absurdity’ of the ‘social’ event devised.
Amongst the important members of this foundation are the following:
- Daniel Daianu – former Minister of Finance, World Bank associate employee, National Liberal Party VIP, Honorary President of the CRSG;
- Teodor Melescanu – former Minister of Foreign Affairs, presently National Liberal Party VIP, member of the Honorary Council of the CRSG;
- Ambassador Sergiu Celac – former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and formerly personal interpreter of Dictator Ceausescu (!), member of the Honorary Council of the CRSG;
- Andrzej Karkoszka – Political Counselor of the Director of the DCAF, Deputy Minister of Defense of Poland;
- Elena Zamfirescu – former State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
- Oana Popa – Counselor at the Romanian Embassy in Croatia, former Director of the Fulbright Commission in Bucharest;
- Dorina Nastase – former official attaché at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels in the mid 90s, niece of Ambassador Sergiu Celac, and main hidden organizer of the event having the back up of the Foreign Secret Service (SIE);
- State Secretaries, Ambassadors and counselors;
For more appalling details one can visit www.crsg.ro , where anyone having a minimum culture and education would realize that this foundation has absolutely nothing to do with the social field, being nothing more than a self-entitled elite structure with political velleity.
The contacts the CRSG have with military structures such as the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London are totally against the spirit of the WSF and ESF, once more proving the lack of compatibility between the CRSG and the field of Social Fora – as the latter are peaceful structures.
The line of these political organizers of this third parallel RSF having its base in Bucharest goes beyond infatuated ignorance, being in fact a strategy of action in force typical of the Mutant Capitalism. By this they attempt to create artificial social partners ‘from above’ and a faked dialogue with them.
It is easy to explain the presence amongst the ‘organizers’ of some former ministers and big guns knowing that the Romanian Government have recently been criticized by EU Reporters for not having a real dialogue with real social actors.
This is the reason why the political authorities are desperately seeking to fulfil these requirements in order to avoid the amending of the undergoing EU joining process.
Most regretfully they are proceeding upside down attempting to falsely create such social partners – just like they used to do in the eve of the working visits of Dictator Ceausescu when artificial flowers and pines were planted, and scourged grass was painted green only to comply with the directives and to show an idyllic non-existent reality.
The fatal mistake these neo-liberal oligarchic elements are making is that they do not take into account that such social partners already exist.
The presence of Ambassadors and officials belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in this operation leads us inevitably to the hypothesis of a possible implication of the Foreign Secret Service (SIE) in the creation of a masked ‘Romanian Social Forum’. These is necessary for the Secret Services and for the Mutant Capitalist structures in order to hold a gripping control over the Romanian Social Forum and its contacts with the ESF enlargement towards East. This is also another prove that the Ceausist-political police mentality has not disappeared.
These structures have never been implied in the Romanian Social Forum process, or in the European Social Forum.
The mere fact that they invited some Trade Union leaders, who fell into the trap of the myth of the ‘big names’ and into the trap of their own lack of information, will not give them the credibility they expect.
On the contrary, the idyllic scene in which the political and government structures sit at the same table with Trade Unions leaders setting up a so-called ‘Romanian Social Forum’ – that already exists for long ago, it is active and recognized as such in the frame of the ESF – is in fact the image of a nightmare-like incompatibility next to the absurd. Such an image may just put into an extremely unfavourable limelight the Trade Unions – as defenders of workers rights – as well as the national interest regarding the European integration.
The RSF Coordinating Committee appreciates that the previous attempts of expropriation of the RSF conducted by the nostalgic Ceausist group of Cretu Constantin and by the non-existent group ‘ATTAC Romania’ can not be viewed separately from the emergence of the masquerade at the luxury Caro Hotel in Bucharest.
The fact that the individuals in the capital who posed as ‘organizers’ of the previous ‘RSF’s have taken no position whatsoever regarding the emergence of the third ‘RSF’ in Bucharest (an attitude which is completely unusual in comparison with the aggressive attacks they used to perform against the real existing RSF) is the final proof that they have been but the puppets maneuvered (directly or in blind style) by the neo-liberal masters and by the Secret Services who now gave them the order to back off.
The distructive role of the first actors having ended in a pathetic failure, their masters themselves enter the stage in despair, unmasking themselves. (see www.crsg.ro)
The Romanian Social Forum Coordinating Committee firmly rejects this diversion set up by the foremost neo-liberal Mutant Capitalist high officials and backed up by the Secret Services as a most anti-social, anti-democratic and dangerous assault on the social movements in Romania.
We shall resolutely continue the development of the real Romanian Social Forum according to the WSF Charter of Principles, according to the ESF spirit and within its frame, and according to the RSF Charter.