The PVDA/PTB raping the first POU

Due to the lack of information the global collectives have concerning the Belgian situation I thought it would be good to create this document explaining the violations of the first POU by indymedia.be based on facts which can be verified by the reader him/herself. This will also clarify why the conflict resolution on a local level is impossible.

(This document is permanently under construction. I will add more examples as time goes by and invite people from the other local collectives to do the same.)

“1.The Independent Media Center Network (IMCN) is based upon principles of equality, decentralization and local autonomy. The IMCN is not derived from a centralized bureaucratic process, but from the self-organization of autonomous collectives that recognize the importance in developing a union of networks.” (from the POU)

Sabotaging local imc's

While not overtly blocking the local imc’s in Belgium (wvl, ovl, liege and antwerpen), indymedia.be plays an active role in sabotaging local imc’s:

A screenshot of imc-Liege was forged by indymedia.be and posted on imc-antwerp in order to ‘prove’ that, like indymedia.be, Liege was also removing imc’s from their cities-link. You can view the forged screenshot here: This forgery is exposed in detail here: It is certain that this forgery is done by someone from indymedia.be, because in their clumsiness they left the admin and statistics module visible on the page, with the logo that only indymedia.be uses (www.i... also points to www.indymedia.be). Han Soete tried to fool the entire network by using this fake as an argument against imc-Liege on the communication-list. He is also very active in trying to cover up this forgery by personally attacking the people who uncovered it. These actions are further proof of his personal involvement.

Local imc’s in Belgium regulary get trollposts from indymedia.be members. A list of provocations on the Liege-site is available on the main-page of the BelgiumSituationEn document. Klaas (ovl ex-volunteer) discovered last year that trollposts on ovl were organised by indy.be members to discredit valid information on North-Korea. http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-process/2004-March/005581.html

Articles and comments with links to the local sites are regulary hidden on indymedia.be under false pretext. Examples are abundant, but most recent is this one: http://www.indymedia.be/news/2005/04/96048.php You have to select the text to make it visible, because hidden-pages on imc.be are black-on-black. You’ll notice the two links to imc-ovl at the bottom. Quickly after this article was hidden, the following article appeared: http://www.indymedia.be/news/2005/04/96049.php Notice that the content of the article is the same, but the links have been replaced by links to their own site. On top of this, you can read the hateful comments of long-time PVDA/PTB’er Christophe Callewaert, attacking the original poster: http://www.indymedia.be/news/hidden.php?id=96049#96062 Accusing him of “picking fights at the expense of the famine-strikers”. Considering that a striker just went into a coma, these are very grave insults to make.

Hiërarchy between imc's

When IMC-Vlaanderen was founded (which later became imc-ovl), indymedia.be requested that they ‘respect procedures’ and first ask them for persmission. http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-process/2003-July/005010.html

"Indy.vl should respect procedures though. It not only has to address Indymedia-Global to receive a green light for its website. First (or, say at the same time - I don't want to be formalist) it should at least notify Indymedia-Belgium of its plans so that the complete Indy.be-collective can at least have its say."

Han later also spoke out against IMC-Vlaanderen: http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-belgium-process/2003-September/001665.html

"I would propose to not accept Vlaanderen and to start working on building real working local belgian IMC's"

Implicating that imc.be should decide whether to accept imc-Vlaanderen AND that imc.be should be the one 'building' local belgian IMC's. This shows clearly the hiërarchical conception they have about the different imc’s in Belgium.

False promises to maintain domination

At the time Imc-Vlaanderen was applying for an imc there were 2 superregional imc's in Belgium: imc.be and imc.vl, next to the local sites wvl and liege. The wvl and liege collectives, fearing that indymedia in Belgium would be torn apart by the competition between the imc.be and imc.vl, formed a proposal to disband BOTH supperregional imc's and create localised imc's: http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-belgium-process/2003-July/001426.html Imc.be and imc.vl both accepted the proposal. Imc.vl reformed into imc.ovl, imc.be asked one year (!) time to disband itself. You can read this literally in a reaction on imc.vl: http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-belgium-process/2003-September/001665.html Where Han says: "I see no reason why vlaanderen would be accepted while Belgium is working towards local IMC's and disbanding itself in one year. (This is what the proposal asked for, and it was accepted with a delay of one year)" Han now tries to pass this off as a 'personal opinion'. But if this was the case it would be very strange that noone from the .be-collective corrected him at the time. Also in the official report of the meeting: http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-belgium-process/2003-September/001580.html you can read "We zijn gewonnen voor het voorstel van WVL+Liège, maar denken dat daar tijd voor nodig is." which means literally: "We are in favour of the wvl+liege-proposal, but think this needs time." As the first point of the proposal was the discontinuation of superregional imc's, this was a clear answer.

As we all know now, imc.be did not disband at all. It did not 'work towards local IMC's' at all. The only reason they accepted the proposal seemed to be the dissolution of imc.vl in order to further monopolize indymedia in Belgium.

Conclusion

From all this we conclude that indymedia.be harbors hostile intentions towards the other collectives and indymedia as a whole. These hostilities are not limited to a ‘few rotten apples’, but it is the long-term strategy of the PVDA/PTB-core of indymedia.be. These people feel the local collectives pose a vital threath to the party, and only participate in processes of consensus-decisionmaking in order to sabotage them. We know from facts that the core of indymedia.be lie, cheat and do not keep their promises in order to preserve their party-interests, it follows that this problem cannot be solved by mere talking. The problem we have is not a communication-issue, it is a reality-issue.

-- PimVanDenPlas - 26 Apr 2005

• Sorry this page is now protected because of sabotages... (If you want an account on the page, ask to first 3 persons)
  • Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = TurlututU, LeblancArnaud, JoeTtx, JoeriCoppens, DuendeBxl, LiBBy, LizeLize, GuntherLippens, LaurentNelen, HeleenAerts, AureLie, HadrianBxl, KlaasYsebaert, ZooMke, TuC, GuidoPannekoek, CedricJay, DjRom, SkeP, PimVanDenPlas, TWikiAdminGroup
  • Set ALLOWTOPICRENAME = TurlututU, LeblancArnaud, JoeTtx, JoeriCoppens, DuendeBxl, LiBBy, LizeLize, GuntherLippens, LaurentNelen, HeleenAerts, AureLie, HadrianBxl, KlaasYsebaert, ZooMke, TuC, GuidoPannekoek, CedricJay, DjRom, SkeP, PimVanDenPlas, TWikiAdminGroup