We would like to thank you for inviting us to take part in the new promising initiative for a global engaged process, launched at the Helsinki conference "Democracy and Globalisation", in Helsinki, Finland, on 2 - 4 December 2002. We wish to give our whole-hearted support to the Helsinki-process as a mechanism for creative political initiative for democratisation of the present international institutions and change for justice and democracy in the politics of globalisation in all contexts. It is truly original that a progressive Nordic state such as Finland has the courage, in the current deeply troubled world-historical situation, to initiate this kind of potentially far-reaching reformist project about global governance. However, as it stands, the Helsinki conference seems to lack direction. Therefore, we would like to draw your attention to the following:

• Global civil society feels very strongly that the Helsinki-process should counter the militarisation of globalisation, which is most clearly evident in the US-led "war against terrorism". In fact, it seems to us that we are living through a very dangerous period in human history. Finland should utilise its neutrality in making contributions towards creating the conditions for a global security community.
• A more peaceful and just world must be based on the established possibilities of and procedures for legitimate peaceful changes. Therefore the quest for security amounts, to a large extent, to global democratisation. There is growing criticism and even resentment about the existing global governance. The various social forces critical of the existing governance prefer multilateral solutions. However, these social forces argue that there is an urgent quest to address the problem of rapidly growing inequalities and the devastating consequences of current economic policies, which undermine the rights and livelihood of working people in the South in particular and systematically transfer assets and power from poor to rich.
• It is essential to the success of the Helsinki-process that the process itself becomes a model for democratic practice. The Helsinki-process can become qualitatively different only if it does not rely predominantly on conventional communication practices, which favour the current elites, such as high-level conferences, e-mail discussion and academic research with English as the dominant or only language. Some steps in the right direction have already been taken and we urge the Finnish government to enhance its effort to open up management and ownership of the process to a variety of actors. In particular, the process should take innovative steps to include the marginalised and oppressed as participants, owners and leaders in the process. Concrete tasks need to be assigned to groups, institutions and organisations, which work closely with or are formed by Southern popular movements, indigenous people, communities of faith, landless rural workers, trade unions etc. In particular, the possibilities opened up by the World Social Forum should not be missed or overlooked. The Helsinki process should explicitly aim at working together with these actors and movements documenting their political analysis, demands and priorities. Moreover, Finland should seek enhanced cooperation with like-minded Southern governments in the political leadership of the Helsinki-process. At all stages the conclusions of the Helsinki-process should not be pre-determined but based on an open-minded and open-ended dialogue.
• We suggest that the Helsinki process at this stage should focus on the debt problem by means of a comprehensive systemic resolution including audit of the legitimacy of the existing debt, cancellation of debts when illegitimate, and by way of creating a new process for the fair resolution of the debt crises.
• Other important topics for the Helsinki process are (i) the promotion of a critical, democratic review of existing WTO-agreements, including for instance the obnoxious TRIPS-regime, which would provide the basis for recommendations for WTO-reform, and (ii) the Currency Transaction Treaty (CTT). In these and other areas, the process should produce concrete and well-specified alternatives and help to make them real.

 The Helsinki-process should continue the process for democratic change started by the Finnish Foreign Ministry in 2001. As argued by Pertti Majanen, Under-Secretary of State, "there is a broad understanding that in the present world, the principles of democracy are not well established in international relations". Majanen concluded that given the extent and intensity of globalisation, this lack of democracy in global relations should be remedied. In this spirit, we feel that the focus of the Helsinki process should be on global democratization, including establishing forms of accountability and transparency, as well as equal representation and participation, in global decision-making. Moreover, should the aim be to create a new Helsinki charter of global democratization, we would like to emphasise that it should not be an abstract declaration but rather a democratically negotiated concrete strategy for well-specified, realistic and feasible reforms that will also open up possibilities for further concrete reforms.

Thank you for your attention.

Signed by:

Titus Alexander, UK

Samir Amin, Egypt

Silvia Arguello, Nicaragua

Linus Atarah, Ghana

Fintan Farrell, Ireland

Jeremy Gould, Finland

Cậndido Grzybowski, Brazil

Barbara Kalima, Zimbabwe

Martin Khor, Malaysia

Arun Kumar, India

Nigel Martin, Canada

Kumi Naidoo, South Africa

Laura Nisula, Finland

Ann Pettifor, UK

Heikki Patomaki, Finland

Leena Rikkila, Finland

Jai Sen, India

Katarina Sehm-Patomaki, Finland

Folke Sundman, Finland

Yash Tandon, Zimbabwe

Marko Ulvila, Finland

Thomas Wallgren, Finland