Summit to harness IT revolution for poor amid Internet, rights battles
TUNIS, Nov 15 (AFP) A UN summit opens Wednesday in Tunis with the aim of harnessing the IT revolution for poor countries, as rich nations squabble over control of the Internet and a row brews over freedom of expression in its host Tunisia.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who launched the information summit process for developing nations in 2001, is due to join 20 government leaders and about 10,000 participants at the three-day conference and trade fair.
The world body's International Telecommunication Union, which is organising the World Summit for the Information Society, has set the ambitious target of connecting all villages in the world to the Internet in 2015.
The number of top level participants has dwindled and few Western leaders were expected to hear the call to allow poor nations to reap the economic and social benefits of the Internet and modern telecoms.
Most of the top-flight political attendance was expected to come from the developing world, including Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegal's Abdulaye Wade and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
A first summit two years ago in Geneva disappointed poor countries after rich nations failed to back a so-called "digital solidarity fund".
The fund, which is partly meant to be financed by a one percent levy on IT services and equipment contracts, was relaunched this year with the help of some European cities and regions.
Obasanjo and Wade were due to launch a public appeal for more support on Wednesday, the fund's Geneva-based organisers said. It has so far gathered 5.5 million euros (6.4 million dollars) from its 21 members. The run-up to the summit has been dominated instead by a battle over
control of the Internet pitting the United States against most of the 170 other nations involved, including European Union countries.
The technical root of the Internet, which is crucial to seamless global networking, is currently managed by the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), under tender from the US government.
"It's as if the national telephone networks of all the countries in the world was run from Los Angeles," a European diplomat said. The Internet has expanded and its global economic and social importance has grown exponentially since the US-centred ICANN system was introduced in 1998.
The EU, Japan, Iran and several other nations believe the time is ripe for international oversight. But Washington is firmly opposing the step, warning that regimes that do
not allow freedom of speech might be in a position to have leverage over the Internet.
Meanwhile a huge security perimeter was thrown around the exhibition hall north of Tunis, while thousands of armed police guarded key sites and crossroads throughout the Tunisian capital.
Summit logos, national flags and portraits of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were also draped along buildings and roads. The decision to host the summit in Tunisia prompted protests from human rights groups, including Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF - Reporters without Borders), which accuse the Tunisian government of clamping down on freedom of
speech.
The row intensified earlier this week after a French journalist, who was investigating human rights issues in Tunisia, was attacked and wounded by an unidentified group of men in the capital.
On Monday, Belgian Public television said one of its crews was assaulted in Tunis while they were covering a human rights gathering. France has formally asked the Tunisian government for an explanation for the incident involving its citizen. Western diplomats at the summit said they were keeping a keen eye on the human rights issue.
President Ben Ali has accused seven Tunisian opposition figures of lacking patriotism after they began a hunger strike last month to claim greater freedom of speech.