US embassy cable - 05TUNIS1439

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TUNIS 001439 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KMPI, KDEM, PREL, LE, TS, G-8 
SUBJECT: UK REP ON BMENA DEVELOPMENTS, LEBANON 
 
 
1.  SUMMARY:  UK Coordinator for Outreach to the Arab 
World Nick Abbott offered an update on UK coordination 
of BMENA activities to MEPI Regional Office Director. 
The four civil society components are coming together: 
UK organizing Transparency, U.S.  Rule of Law, 
Bahrain  Businesswomen, and hopefully Qatar 
r 
committing to do Human Rights.  We discussed the need 
to improve public outreach efforts to improve public 
awareness and understanding of the BMENA process. 
Abbott reported that the EU is struggling with Arab 
resistance to efforts to make reform central to the 
Barcelona Process as part of its tenth anniversary 
celebration in November.  Finally, we agreed on the 
importance of U.S.-European coordination on policy and 
programming as we move forward post-elections in 
Lebanon.  End summary. 
 
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BMENA Civil Society Components 
------------------------------ 
 
2.  MEPI Regional Office Director met June 29 with 
Nick Abbott, UK Coordinator for Outreach to the Arab 
World, who is based in Cairo and who was in Tunis for 
a conference.  BMENA coordination was the focus of 
discussions.  Abbott outlined the UK G8 Presidency's 
efforts with BMENA partners to organize activities for 
the four components of Civil Society activities in 
advance of the Bahrain Forum for the Future in 
November. 
 
3.  Transparency: The UK is organizing the 
Transparency/Governance component, using Transparency 
International in Germany as its implementer.  They 
plan 2-3 events, but no dates or venues have been set 
yet.  TI Germany is supposed to share a proposed 
participants list for the gatherings with HMG soon. 
 
-- Rule of Law:  Abbott said that London had been in 
discussions with NEA/PI and his understanding was that 
the U.S. would organize this component, probably using 
ABA as its implementor. 
 
-- Women in Workplace: Bahrain is reportedly eager to 
take on this activity and the GOB has already chosen a 
local NGO to organize an event. 
 
-- Human Rights:  Qatar has expressed interest in 
taking the lead, but has not yet offered anything 
concrete.  The UK embassy in Doha is planning to 
approach the GOQ officially to obtain a commitment. 
 
4.  Abbott explained that the UK plan is to have each 
of these four components produce some sort of workplan 
for future civil society efforts in these areas.  At 
the same time, the participants in the four component 
activities will elect representatives to represent 
them at the Forum for the Future in November.  These 
representatives will act as rapporteurs on the 
component activities and workplans to the Forum during 
the Civil Society Dialogue. 
 
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Public Awareness/Understanding of BMENA 
--------------------------------------- 
 
5.  We shared assessments of the recent BMENA 
Democracy Assistance Dialogue (DAD) meeting in 
Istanbul.  While the discussions were useful and the 
participants engaged, many of them still do not fully 
understand what BMENA is or how the DAD and other 
activities fit into it.  Abbott agreed that, if the 
participants themselves don't understand BMENA, there 
is little hope that the general public has any 
awareness of BMENA developments.  This is a pity, 
since there are an increasing number of activities 
taking place with a lot of enthusiastic participation. 
As a start, we discussed the need to get basic 
information about BMENA on paper and circulated at all 
upcoming meetings, including information on all the 
different events taking place in the BMENA context. 
This is essential to portraying BMENA as a dynamic 
process and to creating a momentum in the lead-up to 
the Bahrain Forum. 
 
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EU -- UK Presidency 
------------------- 
 
6.  Abbott did not foresee any significant change in 
EU positions toward the region with the UK taking over 
the EU Presidency in July.  The big battle at the 
moment for the EU, he reported, is getting the Arabs 
to accept language placing reform at the center of the 
Barcelona Process for the tenth anniversary meeting in 
November.  Abbott said that the Egyptians and others 
are arguing that this is not what Barcelona was about 
and they disagree with this transformation.  The 
Europeans are responding, "times have changed." 
Abbott was hopeful the EU would overcome this 
resistance.  If so, the Barcelona meeting could 
combine with a productive Forum in November to give a 
real shot in the arm to the status of the reform 
agenda in the region. 
 
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Lebanon 
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7.  MEPI Regional Director stressed the importance of 
coordination between the U.S. and Europe on both 
policy and programming as we move ahead in the post- 
election phase in Lebanon.  Abbott agreed, saying he 
was fairly confident that policy coordination is on 
track, but feared that donor coordination was not 
good.  He also noted that, because of the past 
political situation, the UK had only focused on 
development assistance in the hinterlands and needed 
to focus now on more politically oriented programs. 
Abbott and the MEPI Regional Director will both be in 
Beirut next month.  We agreed to raise the importance 
of coordination in our meetings there and to compare 
notes before departing. 
HUDSON