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"We need a social urban alliance to build a new kind of town."

The co-ordination committee of the International Alliance of Inhabitants held a meeting in Madrid in the first week in June - Diagonal took the opportunity to interview one of its founding members.
Cesare Ottolini, leader of the Italian Tenants Union, has been travelling the world for several years telling people about the International Alliance of Inhabitants, a network of 350 organisations from 40 different countries.

Diagonal: How do you evaluate the four years that IAI has been in existence?

Cesare Ottolini: It has been totally positive, particularly if you take into account the fact we are a very small organisation. We have created a space for people to share ideas and the tools of resistance. One of our initiatives - the Zero Eviction campaign - turned out to be a success. We began talking about this in 2004, at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Bombay, and now, in Argentina for example, there is an umbrella group rolling the campaign out across the entire country, from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia. We also have three projects linked to the campaign in Africa - in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. The only one giving good results is the one in Kenya, where we managed to prevent thousands of evictions in Nairobi. We also got a commitment from the Italian government to cancel Kenya's foreign debt in return for the development of housing policies; however everything has been put on hold because of the new government. Another of our ideas was the Popular Urban University, which has now met twice, once in Buenos Aires and the second time in Santo Domingo. These meetings showed us the importance of this way of working, where topics are dealt with by a broader range of people. Students, lecturers and social researchers debate on an equal footing. The next session of the university takes place at the WSF in Belem, Brazil, in 2009.

D: You also lead campaigns in many other countries - the US, India, China, and also now in Russia....

CO: In Russia we work with an umbrella group of councils (soviets), which has set up three housing networks - one in former factory workers' quarters; another in communal buildings which have been, or are in the process of being privatised, and the last against housing speculators.

D: What were the aims of the Madrid meeting?

CO: To move forward. We agreed to propose a World Assembly of Inhabitants for 2011. This would be a strategic move involving all the urban organisations. We also discussed how to adapt our current structure. We don't want to exist just for the sake of it, we want to succeed in influencing policy on an international level. In the EU for example, where member states are cutting housing benefit because of national debt, and 70 million people are homeless, we should be able to exert influence at the European level.

D: What links do you have with other movements, such as Via Campesina or the squatted social centres?

CO: We are studying how to create a common space, a channel for communication and action for squatters, tenants, and housing cooperatives...of course this translates into things like World Zero Eviction Day, which we organise every year. We try to have links through concrete action. For example, we are supporting the campaign against the eviction of a social centre in Holland. As for the peasant movement, although we have been meaning to establish regular contact, relations have been sporadic up to now. We are thinking of setting up a Via Urbana along the lines of the Via Campesina.

D: And your relations with the authorities?

CO: Ever since we were set up, we have formed links with them, while always maintaining our independence. At the moment we are doing a tour of various Spanish towns, trying to get them to declare themselves eviction-free. We've been to Cordoba, Vitoria, Bilbao, Malaga, Rivas-Vaciamadrid and so on. We have managed to get the Basque government to finance a Latin American anti-eviction network.

D: But this is a government that supports evictions in its own towns....

CO: Indeed, but we do make a fuss. We have conflicting relations with the authorities. If they carry out evictions we don't close down all lines of communication, even though we cant accept everything. The important thing is to maintain our independence.

D: What model of urban living would the Alliance support?

CO: Our model is the opposite of the neo-liberal town. We must create a social urban alliance where citizens are not simply consumers or clients. Housing is a right which must be guaranteed by the state, whether through housing co-operatives or subsidized housing. We also think towns should be built collectively, through people creating their own environments.

Óscar Chaves, of the editorial staff

Diagonal, Edition No 81. 26th June to 9th July 2008

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