Núm. 1 Second quarter 1997
Núm. 2 First quarter 1998

Núm. 1 Second quarter 1997

The Follow-up committee wants to present this bulletin, named ENLLAÇ . Enllaç is a catalan word that means link, connection of things or among people. Its meaning is clear enough: we want this bulletin to be a link among all Non-Goverment Organisations and the PEN Centres that participated in the International Conference on Linguistic Rights, and also with people and institutions that have adhered later. It is a comunication and relationship media among all of us. In spite of their dimensions, that do not permit to make of it a space for a deep debate, it is an open space to publish your contribution on activities that are carried out linked with UDLR.

A GREAT STEP OF THE LINGUISTIC RIGHTS

The languages is a distinguishing feature of the human beings. Everybody is capable of identifying through the language the person who speaks to you. The language ordinarily used by a community of people, is the basis and the justification of this linguistic community. Each person has the right -the individual right- to use his own language; each linguistic community has the right -the collective right- to use the language.
That is one of the simplest, clearest principles normally lived by the mankind all through the centuries; but that has also become the excuse to cause incomprehensions responsible for so violent conflicts as to provoke the destruction of thousands of languages for the benefit of a small number of dominant languages. Today, with the evolution or better, the revolution of the technological means and the ease of the planetary intercommunication, many languages are in danger. It is possible to wonder whether all the languages, except one or very few, are in a extinction process in the name of the efficacy, the progress, the internationalisation of the culture and the civilisation...
All this is possible nowadays. But is it the best for the human society?. The human rights are concerned and the answer cannot be another: everything would be acceptable provided that the human rights refered to the languages would be respected. But about which rights are we exactly talking about? How could we formulate them at the present? These queries are not in vain. We think that looking for the content of these rights is necessary in order that they become better known, more discussed and reconsidered. And finally, make these rights become the recognition's object of a favourable position of the great world authorities, like the UNO, that have not still develop a satisfactory juridical and political doctrine on their account.
It is true that there are declarations and rules to promote and to protect certain languages, but there is no declaration and no legislative body refered to all the languages or to all the world linguistic rights. However, they would be necessary, even urgent.
Under this conviction a great initiative from the civil society was born in 1996, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. But this declaration has not arrive to its end yet, there is still to do the study and the eventual approval of all the world public institutions concerned.


The iniciative was conceived by the PEN Club Catalan Centre. It found soon the support and collaboration of CIEMEN, a cultural centre that among their activities, studies, since long and at the present thanks to an agreement with the European Commission, the current linguistic laws and legislations, especially into the European Union.
Both entities created a network between the people and the associations from all over the world interested in the linguistic rights. After three years of contacts, of writing thirteen preliminary plans and of gathering about four hundred pages of amendments and motions, the World Conference of Linguistic Rights was organised. As a result, the aforementioned Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (UDLR) was drafted. This UDLR was proclaimed on June 6 of 1996 at the University of Barcelona. Among a multitudinous public and representatives of official institutions, 61 delegations of NGOs, 30 PEN Club Centres and 40 experts in linguistic law from all over the world attended this proclamation.
In order to achieve quicker the aim of a planetary dimension, we had the chance of disposing of the modernest technical means, up to the point that even a permanent Virtual Conference was brought into service (meetings and mail of every kind, electronic, internet, by fax, by post...). Everybody was able to take part in all the debates, and so the Declaration approved was the result of many sensitivities and a great richness of thoughts about the many different linguistic situations. It was a work of synthesis that immediately aroused the interest of the UNESCO, that's why the General Director sent to Barcelona one of its official representatives in order to receive the text of the Declaration.
After June of 1996, the UDLR, that has been translated to several languages, has received support from throughout the world, adhesions of NGOs, of public institutions and also several democratic Parliaments, and of internationally recognised personalities, as for instance, the Nobel Prize winners Rigoberta Menchú, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Desmond Tutu, Wislawa Szymborska and Octavio Paz; the religious Dalai Lama, Dr. Aram and Lázlo Tökes; the artists Josep Carreras, Peter Gabriel and Judit Mascó; the writers Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and Ronald Harwood, the scientists Noam Chomsky and Joan Oró; the politicians M. G. Buthelezi, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat; etc.
These adhesions, and others that will arrive, are very important to strengthen the Declaration, but obviously, they are not enough. First of all, it is necessary that the UNESCO considers officially the Declaration and then, that the UNO does it too. Because of that, the UDLR Tracking Committee was created, in order to establish a permanent contact with the UNESCO to make sure it pays attention to the document.
We have to admit that the task of this Committee is not easy. They have to take on account the many different points of view about the linguistic rights of all the members of the UNESCO permanent delegations, and that is a delicate matter. The first case of the Follow-up Committee inside the UNESCO was not very successful: during the Executive Board, that took place in October of 1996, the UDLR was taken into consideration but some members reacted by affirming that the UNESCO couldn't, at that time, discuss a text of that sort. Fortunately, the visit of three representatives of the Tracking Committee to the UNESCO quarter, allowed us to clarify some misunderstandings. They explain to the most reluctant members that the document was not a preliminary plan for the UNESCO but a starting point of a work that will lead to a presentation of a text to be discussed and, eventually approved, by the United Nations and finally, to become a complement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
After this first meeting, the UDLR continues its way into the UNESCO and the Follow-up Committee cares that it occupies a prioritary place in the schedule of this institution. At the present we can affirm that the UDLR is understood as a point of reference, of dialog and of searching for an agreement at the highest level. That was well reasserted after another meeting at the UNESCO quarter on April 7 of 1997, between the members of the Tracking Committee and the members of the UNESCO's Intersector Committee for the linguistic rights. We could observe a fortunately convergence among the present attitude of the UNESCO towards the linguistic rights, LINGUAPAX -the university network created by the UNESCO - and the World Conference of Linguistic Rights, still alive through the promoters of the idea.
The future months will be important. The job of the Tracking Committee to do as much as possible to make the UNESCO's General Conference, that will be convoked during the autumn of 1997, assume the responsibility of giving a decisive step on behalf of the UDLR and everything that can mean the understanding of the people and the populaces throughout the world; in short, for the peace's culture.


The UDLR is then a reality, a contribution of the civil society, conscious of the importance of the linguistic rights, the languages, as expressions of the identity of each person and each community as a union factor. A union that can only be built from the respect for the difference, bewaring that it will not turn into uniformity.
It is obvious that parallel to what the formulation of the UDLR represents, there is a daily work on behalf of the languages, the indispensable commitment for the linguistic rights to become one of the basis that will allow men and women, and also their respective linguistic communities, to live all together in peace.
So all the people responsible for the initiative that has make the UDLR possible, know consciously that the linguistic rights will only be effective when its formulation obtains a great agreement and when the linguistic practice is not a conflict source but on the contrary, a sign of equality between the people and the populaces. In order to make these aims possible, an appropriate legislation for the democratic institutions and a Declaration of principles of universal value have to become the obligatory point of reference of guidelines valid for everybody.
The UDLR needs everyone and every possible mean to make the constituted rights be recognised, to find the necessary support for the complain about opressions on one or more of these rights and to make the develop of all the linguistic rights possible everywhere and under whatever circumstances all over the world.


FOLLOW-UP COMMITTEE/WORKING PLAN

Start-off posing :

We start from the fact that it is presently needed to concentrate all the energies and efforts in searching the maximum support of the General Conference of UNESCO, and from member States from its Executive Council. We consider that we have achieved a considerable level of non-Goverment support of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. The main objectives of the Follow-up Committee of the Universal Declaration of the Linguistic Rights are:

A/ To maintain relations with the delegations of the States members of the UNESCO General Conference in view of its meeting in october-november 1997.
B/ To find the support of people around the world who can help to get the approval of the Declaration by UNESCO.
C/ To continue with UDLR dissemination and to expand the civic base support.

1. General Conference

1.1. To decide which States we want to inform and to keep conversation with, in view of the session of the General Conference in october-november1997.
1.2. To think the way to get in touch with the Delegations of each one of this States, by consulting people, PEN Centres or the NGO to get them act as intermediary.
1.3. To encourage in the most economic manner, in time and money.
1.4. To maintain steady relations with UNESCO.

2. Scientific Council creation

The Scientific Council is formed by experts around the world that communicate and interchange ideas from a Virtual Campus. We have established the necessary links with the "Universidad Oberta de Catalunya" (Open University of Catalonia) (where the academic life takes place basically by means of electronic mail), which is going to collaborate with us in order to establish this working network, named Virtual Campus

3. Participation as a representative of the group of NGO and PEN Centres in the Intersectorial Working Group created by UNESCO.

The UNESCO has created an Intersectorial Working Group to analyse the document and to prepare an intern strategy for presenting it in the next Executive Council. We have been invited to participate in this working group and we have been in a meeting in Paris, Abril 7th.

4. A book for the General Conference of UNESCO

4.1. There is a initial conviction: we start from a wide enough basis, as far as our NGO platform is concerned. It is therefore more important, to shape and to fill this wide basis before we throw in the search of a wider support.

4.2. In view of the General Conference we think up in a good book publishing to donate to all State delegations of the UNESCO. The book will have three parts: presentation and history on UDLR, with the undersigned listing; Adherents of recognised international prestige; text of the UDLR.

Of all intenationals personalities whose support we get, we are going to publish a text and a photograph.


Follow-up Scientific Council:

This Scientific Council has as principal mission to give advice to the UNESCO but, also, we pretend that it becomes an internal debating forum of those points of the Declaration that must be cleared or blended. Jointly we present you the last composition of this Scientific Council.

Isidor Marí, coordinador

Aureli Argemí (CIEMEN)
Alexander Blokh (International PEN)
Pierre de Bellefeuille (Centre Québécois du PEN International)
Iann Chouqc (Juriste breton)
Isidor Cònsul (CTDL International PEN)
Susana Cuevas (Dirección de lingüística/Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia de México)
Maria Pilar Garcia Negro (Universidade de Santiago)
Augustin Gatera (Division des Arts et de la vie Culturelle. UNESCO)
Francisco Gomes de Matos (en liaison avec le Président de la FPILV)
Jacqueline Hall (Fundació Serveis de Cultura Popular)
Carme Junyent (Universitat de Barcelona)
Alexei Konioukhov (Ministry for Nationalities of the Komi Republic)
Lachman M Khubchandani (Center for Communication Studies. India)
Robert Lafont (Occitan PEN Centre)
Angéline Martel (Université du Québec/Télé-université)
Tore Modeen (University of Helsinki)
Kendal Nezan (Institut Kurde de Paris)
Carles Pareja (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)
Raymond Renard (Université de Mons-Hainaut/Chaire UNESCO en aménagement linguistique et didactique des langues)
Mustapha Saadi (Association des Juristes Berbéres de France)
Paul H. Scott (Scottish PEN Centre)
Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (Roskilde University/Department of Languages and Culture)
Ned Thomas (Welsh PEN Centre/Mercator-Media)
Ngugi wa Thiog'o (New York University)
Eva Tóth (Magyar PEN Centre)
Joseph G. Turi (Académie Internationale de Droit Linguistique)
Jaume Vernet (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)
David Charles Wright Carr (San Miguel de Allende PEN Centre)
Juan de Dios Yapita (Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara)

New adhesions:

Here are the last adhesions that we received during the last quarter of 1996.

Individual adhesions:

- The Dalai Lama, religious lider
- Noam Chomsky, linguistic and mathematician
- Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Peace Nobel Price (1980)
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
- Wislawa Szymborska, Literature Nobel Price (1996)
- Peter Gabriel, singer, he worked with International Amnesty to set up the Human Rights Now! Tour
- Joan Oró, Department of Biochemistry of University of Houston. Investigator NASA Lunar Sample Analysis, Apollo Mission 1969-1994
- László Tókés, Bishop of Oradea
- Dr. Aram, World Conference on Religion and Peace
- Rigoberta Menchú, Peace Nobel Price (1992)
- His Excellency Shimon Peres, Peace Nobel Price (1995)
- Octavio Paz, Northamerican Guggenheim Price (1944), Cervantes Price (1981) and Literature Nobel Price (1990)
- Josep Carreras, tenor
- Ronald Harwood, President of International PEN Club
- M.G. Buthelezi, M.P., Minister of Home Affaires, Republic of South Africa
- Lluís Llach, singer
- Judit Mascó, top-model
- Maria del Mar Bonet, singer
- Sebastià Maria Bardolet, Abat de Montserrat
- Antoni Deig, Bishop of de Solsona
- Josep M. Guix i Ferreres, Bishop of Vic
- Ricard Maria Carles i Gordó, Cardenal Archbishop of Barcelona

Institutional adhesions:

- Parlament de Catalunya
- Congreso de los Diputados
- Parlament de Galicia
- Consell Insular de Menorca
- Le Conseil Economique, Social et Culturel de Corse
- Consiglio Regionale de la Valle d'Aosta
- Universitat Ramon Llull
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
- Juan Carlos Moreno Cabrera, Universitat Autònoma de Madrid
- Fundación Ayni, Radio San Gabriel
- Alain Viaut, Université Michel de Montaigne
- Association Internationale pour la Défense des Langues et des Cultures Menacées
- Fenno-Ugria Foundation
- Centre Esperanto du PEN Club
- PEN American Centre
- The Czech PEN Centre
- The Slovak Centre of PEN International
- International PEN Blangladesh Centre
- The Swiss German PEN Centre
- The Romanian PEN Centre
- Moldavian PEN Centre
- Russian PEN Centre
- Centro PEN Guadalajara
- The Peruvian PEN Centre
- Philippines PEN Centre


Declaration new versions:

The Declaration has been translated to Gallician, Basque, Bulgarian, Hungarian and it has been in Guatemala a revision of the Spanish version. The translation to belarus and russian are in the way to be completed. But it would be very important for us to have more translations to the document. If somebody of you has made some work of translation that we don't know, please send it to us. In this way, we would agree that you send to the Follow-up Committe all the publications made by you concerning the Declaration.

Budget of the Follow-Up Committee of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (UDLR)

The Secretariat of the UDLR Follow-up Committee has aproved a budget for the exercise in October 1996-97, it is a period that goes from the first activities to the General Conference of UNESCO 1997.

This budget is very tight, it is based on the following entries:

1. Secretariat and permanent office in Barcelona
2. Secretariat functioning
3. Campaign coordinations: travels, expense allowance, contact, meetings
4. Publications: to publish a presentation book to UNESCO, an informative bulletin, and the UDLR; dissemination of the UDLR; Web page in internet maintenance.

If you are an institution which has adhered to Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights and you want to know details of the budget, please ask for a copy.

This budget, which is allowing to continue with the tasks ordered by the World Conference Assembly, it can be met with the economic aid of the following public institutions:

The Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia
The Office of the Mayor of Barcelona
The Deputation of Barcelona.

And the private institutions:

Catalonia Foundation
Bofill Foundation
Foundation for the Collectives Rights of Peoples
Foundation of the Catalan Encyclopaedia
Foundation Jaume I
Foundation Trias Fargas

Núm. 2 First quarter 1998

WORK DONE WITH THE UNESCO DELEGATIONS

The Follow-up Committee of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights has had many interviews with the UNESCO delegations between April and September of 1997.
The visited delegations have been the following: Germany, Spain, Bolivia, Japan, Sweden and South africa, and we have also established contact with Hungary, Lithuania, Switzerland, Andorra, Paraguay and Poland.
These meetings have been heartfelt and have allowed an exchange of impressions about the process the Follow-up Committee has been carrying out. They have also been useful to clear up some misunderstandings appeared at the meeting of the UNESCO's Executive Board in October 1996.
Most of the delegations showed a good predisposition to collaborate on the process.
The objective of the UDLR Follow-up Committee is to carry on the relationships with the different UNESCO's delegations, so we will be very grateful to those of you who could put us in contact with your own country delegation.


NEW TRANSLATIONS

The most recent translations of the Declaration have been made into Russian, into Portuguese, Italian and Nynorsk. At present, the translations into Sardinian and into Friulinian are already in progress.
If any of you is doing any translation work it would be very interesting for us to know about it.
In this respect we are also collecting press articles about the Declaration. We will be very grateful for all the publications about it you could send to us.


NEW SUPPORTERS

• Nelson Mandela, President of the South African Republic, Nobel Prize of Peace (1993).

• Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize of Literature (1995).

• José Ramos Horta, Nobel Prize of Literature (1996).

• Ngug Wa Thiong'o, Kenyan writer in exile.

The list of these supporters and all the other recognized people from all around the world that you already know from the first "Enllaç" will be published in a book done by the the Follow-up Committee. This book will have three parts: the first one will be about the Declaration's ellaboration process, the second one will be composed of a text, a photography and a little biography of all the supporters, and a third one where the Declaration's text will be published.


CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS

The UNESCO General Conference met in Paris from the 21st October to the 12th November of 1997.
The Follow-up Committee had previous meetings with the delegations of Bolivia, South Africa, Sweden, Japan, Spain, Germany and Andorra, and came in mail and telephone contact with the delegations of Paraguay, Nigeria, Hungary, Poland and Switzerland. The support to our work is stretching out. At the General Conference Cultural Commission the necessity of supporting the humanity linguistic heritage was discussed. But even it was our purpose, no resolution directly related to the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights was taken.
Anyhow, we are glad because during this General Conference, just as the UNESCO General Director, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, had advanced to us in an interview in September, the creation of a Languages Division has been approved. Even the creation of this division could seem minor for those who are not used to this international institution, it is essential for the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. In practice, it allows our partness to have more capacity of acting and of making proposals. The division will be directed by Joseph Poth, a good friend of all of us, who was the UNESCO representative at the Declaration's proclamation in Barcelona and who has closely followed the Declaration's drafting process.
Our next step forward in our work is then the meeting of the Executive Board next spring. It is a new Executive Board, made up by states chosen during the last General Conference. The Executive Board will study and decide how to go on with our Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights proposal, closely coordinated with the Languages Division, that by then will be fully working, in accordance with what was said in the conversation with the General Director, and with the support of the states with which we have got in touch. By then we will also have published the book that recounts the Declaration's drafting process and all the NGOs, PEN Club Centres, experts in linguistic rights and many other personalities who have given their support to the document.


INFORMATION ABOUT THE MEETING WITH MR. FEDERICO MAYOR ZARAGOZA, GENERAL DIRECTOR OF UNESCO

A representation of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights Follow-up Committee met up with Mr. Federico Mayor Zaragoza, the UNESCO General Director, on 12th September 1997. In this interview took part Mr. Carles Torner, Mr. Oriol Ramon and Miss Mònica Sabata, accompanied by Mr. Joseph Poth, UNESCO representative in the Linguapax network.
The interview had been requested by the UDLR Follow-up Committee with the aim of being able to keep an exchange of impressions about the Declaration's present state inside UNESCO and to know the opinion of its General Director.
During the interview the UDLR Follow-up Committee delegation exposed to Mr. Mayor Zaragoza all the work done by the Committee in order to achieve as much support as possible inside and outside UNESCO. The UDLR Follow-up Committee representatives gave to Mr Mayor Zaragoza the list of the Declaration significant supporters from all around the world, who also consider that UNESCO should take it into account in order to solve the question of the linguistic rights in the planet.
The answer of Mr. Mayor Zaragoza was very clear: on the one hand he encouraged the UDLR Follow-up Committee to carry on with its task of supporting a Declaration about linguistic rights from UNESCO, and on the other hand he suggested to elaborate a new Declaration text, shorter and more in accordance with UNESCO "language", in order to present it to the government experts for an analysis and to be able to start an internal process of meditation after the meeting of the Executive Board in the spring of 1998.
We consider this conversation, which was extremely heartful, means an important step forward for the Declaration development, started with its approval in Barcelona on the 6th June 1996, and a breath of hope for all of us who work for it. After this interview, the General Director proposed also a official connection between the UDLR Follow-up Committee and UNESCO through the Linguapax programme.