DAY 197
Evening Skype. Me (Poland) and Malika. We both considered Turkey as a country possible to march through, even with limited agitation and exposure. I consulted three independent people about choosing the route - two Syrians and one Dutch. They all confirmed that at the moment Lebanon is far more risky than Turkey, taking in consideration various factors (terrorism, climate, security forces, embassies effectiveness etc). The issue that was behind was that the German chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly opposed full membership of Turkey to the EU on German-Turkish summits, advocating instead a "privileged partnership". In the meanwhile German diplomacy was powerless to free German peace activists and journalists imprisoned by the Turkish administration. An civil action, peace and huan right oriented, that started in Berlin and registered in Germany was quite a challange. Probably any member of CMFA who bring up, in past or present, the sensitive Kurdish topic, would face legal consequences.
Evening Skype. We all felt that our time in Greece is ending. After we visited 3 islands, there was no other place to go, and Turkey was only 15km from us. The situation with the permission was gloomy and there was no reliable source of information what we should do. There was a decision to be made: to enter Turkey despite of the failure of the permission applicaion process or to go to Lebanon. Both options were risky. Finally the decision was made - CMFA goes to Lebanon.
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Alex and Malika taking part in Skype meeting. Alex, Stephan, Mark, Anna and Cornelia were strongly voting in favor of the Lebanese route. Me, Malika and Denis were considering Turkey. One of the issues was the risk for the people we meet on the way: both marchers and people who would like to host or help. Common opinion was that the risk in Turkey will be too big for them. Finally in Lebanon, as we were confronted with members of Hezbollah and Lebanese Security Forces our local contributors had to leave the CMFA group to avoid troubles.
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Denis, listening to the discussion.
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Remote voting - Olga (Poland), Stephan (Germany), Mark (Netherlands), Anna (Poland) during the skype meeting. The evolution of the decision taking process during the march was a complicated one. In Greece, an ultimate way of decision making was put into life, practically disabling marching group in the process.
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Remote contributors - Olga (Poland), Stephan (Germany), Mark (Netherlands), Anna (Poland) during the skype meeting voted for Lebanon. Mark even presented an ultimatum saying that if march goes to Tureky he will cut himselff of the Civil March project.
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