THE RIO COMMUNIQUÉ

The Ministers of Culture of Arab and South American countries, gathered in Rio de Janeiro, in the period of 20-21/5/2009, upon the invitation of His Excellency the Minister of Culture of Brazil, João Luiz Silva Ferreira,

Recognizing the importance of ASPA as a mechanism for bi-regional approximation that provides an additional space for interaction between the peoples of the Arab and South American regions, fostering cultural cooperation, cultural diversity, human development and international understanding,

Recalling that cultural cooperation and interaction has been an important topic in the ASPA dialogue since its First Summit (Brasília, 10-11/5/2005) and was addressed in the “Brasília Declaration” under chapter 3 as well as in the “Doha Declaration” also under chapter 3,

Restating the resolutions adopted in the ASPA meetings of Ministers of Culture (Algiers, 31/1 to 3/2/2006) and of the Committee on Cultural Cooperation (Algiers, 28/4/2008), as well as the decisions concerning cultural cooperation taken by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, in Buenos Aires (18-21/2/2008), and Senior Officials, on the five occasions in which they convened, in (29-30/11/2005), Caracas (18-19/7/2006), Cairo (29-31/1/2007), Santa Cruz de la Sierra (19-20/7/2007) and Doha (20- 23/10/2008),

Reaffirming the principles and understandings agreed upon in the “Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions” (Paris, 20/10/2005),

Considering that the follow-up process of the First ASPA Summit has laid out a broad inventory of cultural cooperation actions, which have been partially implemented, and that the Second ASPA Summit (Doha, 31/3/2009) inaugurated a new phase in which the priority is set on the consolidation of the cooperation mechanisms in order to accelerate the implementation of the agreed actions,

Reaffirming the free flow of ideas and interaction between cultures and their actors as well as the freedom of thought, expression and information and the diversity of the media, as means to allow cultural expressions to flourish within societies,

Stressing the importance of objective use of information in order to preserve the diversity of ideas as well as the identity of all sectors of society and to disseminate information equally to all communities,

Agree to:

1- Receive the draft Rio Plan of Action for Cultural Cooperation (annex I to this communiqué) with satisfaction and commit themselves to suggest projects for the action fields created in the document and respond to the information requested, until 22 July 2009, through communication to the Ministry of External Relations of Brazil (email [email protected]), so as to allow for the formulation of a final document to be approved by the ASPA Member States during the 35th General Conference of UNESCO, to be held in Paris, in the period of 6-23/10/2009.

2- Encourage the involvement of the media of the ASPA Member States in promoting cultural activities and exchange programs as a means of bringing together the societies of both regions.

3- Suggest the structure and composition for the Committee on Cultural Cooperation, as well as its attributions, for the approval of the ASPA Senior Officials (annex II to this communiqué).

4- Request the Committee on Cultural Cooperation to prepare and present at the next ASPA Senior Officials Meeting a detailed follow-up report on the actions/projects that have been implemented as well as the activities agreed upon in the Plan of Action.

5- Reaffirm support to the initiatives aiming at establishing dialogue between civilizations, cultures, religions and peoples in general, particularly to the United Nations’ “Alliance of Civilizations” initiative, whose 3rd World Forum will be held in Brazil, in the first half of 2010. Encourage all ASPA Member States to participate in that Forum.

6- Welcome Tunisia’s organization of the Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations and Cultural Diversity”, which will take place in Tunis and Kairouan in the period of 2-4/6/2009, in the framework of the manifestations “Kairouan: Capital of Islamic Culture” for the year 2009.

7- Reaffirm support to the work developed by BibliASPA Brazil, of which can be highlighted the creation of a multilingual website with literary and audiovisual content (www.bibliaspa.com.br), the launching of the Review Fikr of Arab and South-American Studies, the translation and publishing of several books, among which The foreigner’s delight in everything that is astounding and marvelous: an analytical study on the journey of Imam Al-Baghdadi, by Professor Paulo Daniel Farah (in Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish), The Dictionary and other Short Stories, by the Brazilian author Machado de Assis (in Arabic and Portuguese), and The third margin of the river and other short stories, by the Brazilian author João Guimarães Rosa (in Arabic and Portuguese). Call upon the ASPA Member States to support its future initiatives.

8- Reaffirm support to the project of the exhibition “A Tale of Two Rivers: the Amazon and the Nile”, an initiative of the Emílio Goeldi Museum of Brazil and welcome the interest of Bolivia, Ecuador, , Guyana, Peru and Sudan to add their contributions to the project, and encourage all the countries in the basins of the two rivers to take part in its implementation.

9- Welcome Brazil’s offer to host the 34th Ordinary Session of the World Heritage Committee to be held in Brasília, in June 2010, as well as the offer of Bahrain to host the 35th Ordinary Session of the World Heritage Committee to be held in Manama, in June 2011.

10- Welcome the establishment, by Brazil, of the National Day of the Arab Immigrant (March 25), by federal law sanctioned on 5/8/2008, which will facilitate the celebration of the Arab heritage and raise awareness of the large population of Arab origin in Brazil. Encourage other South American countries to follow suit.

11- Note with satisfaction the announcement by the Government of Algeria of the completion of the project design documents of the Arab- South American Library in Algiers, whose construction will begin shortly.

12- Recognize and express satisfaction with the advanced stage of the Institute for Latin American Studies and Research, which will be built on a property of 20,000 square meters in Tanger, Morocco, as well as for the approval of its project design documents.

13- Welcome the proposals of Brazil and Bahrain to establish, respectively, a Regional Heritage Management Training Centre, to be located in Rio de Janeiro, and an Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage, to be located in Manama, as Category II centres under the auspices of UNESCO; and note with satisfaction the approval of both centres by the Executive Board of UNESCO at its 181st session (April 2009).

14- Stress the importance of respecting the integrity of the cultural, historical and religious heritage of the city of Jerusalem, and call upon the Executive Board of UNESCO to follow up on its monitoring of the conditions on the site of the Al Aqsa Mosque, as well as all other Christian and Islamic sites, with the support of the international community and the technical assistance of the World Heritage Centre.

15- Manifest their solidarity to the people of Iraq and their full support to the efforts of reconstructing the cultural infrastructure destroyed as a result of the 2003 war.

16- Invite the international community, in accordance with United Nations resolutions and international conventions on the matter, to join in the effort to return to Iraq the cultural goods and antiquities that were illicitly taken out of the country.

17- Support the announcement of Jerusalem as the Cultural Capital of the Arab World for the year 2009 and strengthen their commitments to hold cultural activities to highlight the artistic, historic and humanitarian aspects of this announcement.

18- Welcome the support and endorsement of the , Brazil and Chile to the candidacy of the Minister of , His Excellency Farouk Hosny, to the post of Director-General of UNESCO in the elections to be held during the 35th General Conference, in September/October 2009, and acknowledge the request of the Arab League that other Member States may follow suit, in the spirit of bi-regional cooperation.

19- Stress the importance of promoting Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic languages in all the ASPA Member States, as well as in relevant international organizations, and welcome Sudan’s proposal to share with the South American countries its expertise in teaching Arabic as a foreign language and training teachers in that area.

20- Take note of the decisions of Tunisia and Brazil to present their candidacies for reelection to the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the election of which will be held in the next session of the Conference of the Parties, in Paris (15-18/6/2009).

21- Welcome the request of the Ministry of Culture of Brazil to support the candidacy of the City of Rio de Janeiro as venue for the 2013 General Conference of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

22- Express their countries’ commitment to prevent the trafficking of antiquities and objects of their cultural heritage and to implement international and national legislations to return them to their countries of origin from whichever country they may have entered illicitly.

23- Welcome the offer of the Kingdom of Jordan to host the Third Meeting of ASPA Ministers of Culture in 2011.

24- Express their gratitude to the Government of Brazil and to the National Museum of Fine Arts for the successful holding of this Second Meeting of ASPA Ministers of Culture.

Adopted in Rio de Janeiro, on 21 May 2009.

Brazil League of Arab States Regional Coordinator Regional Coordinator South America Arab countries