[Chapter-delegates] Follow-up: Serious considerations to dissolve the Cambodia ISOC Chapter

[Norbert Klein]

Dear All who reacted or responded to the mail by our Secretary.

while we are still awaiting responses from several persons to whom his 
"Serious considerations..." have been addressed ("We are looking forward 
to responses from all concerned recipients of this mail."), I would like 
to thank all who expressed their concern and good-will. Our Secretary 
will, of course, respond to all after having received some of the 
responses for which we still wait.

When I write now also, it is only to clarify some elements where there 
seem some misunderstandings or some short-interpretations which do not 
take in what was in the original letter. Let me take an example (from 
the Chapter-delegates list - I do not repeat the name/address of the 
sender, because it is not about some personal relations or 
clarifications, but about the substance in the mail from our Secretary; 
also a few of the other reactions expressed a similar opinion).

It was said:

> *Cutting through the entire mass of text, it seems the only real 
> grouse is on funding.*

While it is true that the necessity to initially fund and operate a 
Chapter office according to the detailed regulations of the Cambodian 
government (*The Bylaws: The Chapter shall be established as a 
non-profit organization under the laws of Cambodia*) was at the 
beginning of our facing problems, the letter from our Secretary 
contained also the following section:

>             When, in August 2012, Ms. Duangthip Chomprang, the ISOC
>         Manager for Regional Affairs (Asia) from the Asia Pacific
>         Regional Office, announced to visit Cambodia, we welcomed this
>         as an opportunity to discuss our situation with her.
>         Unfortunately, she refused to have a meeting with our chapter
>         to discuss our problems. In response the following mail was
>         sent to her and to the other ISOC regional staff in Singapore,
>         after due deliberations with our Advisory Board and Executive
>         Committee:
>
>             -------- Original Message --------
>             Subject Message from our Advisory Board and the Executive
>         Committee
>             Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:40:15 +0700
>             From: President of ISOC Cambodia <president at isoc-kh.org
>         <mailto:president at isoc-kh.org>>
>             To: Duangthip Chomprang <chomprang at isoc.org
>         <mailto:chomprang at isoc.org>>, Rajnesh Singh <singh at isoc.org
>         <mailto:singh at isoc.org>>
>             CC: Ong Pisey <treasurer at isoc-kh.org
>         <mailto:treasurer at isoc-kh.org>>
>
>         *    Dear Thip,
>
>             After having received your mail, rejecting our request to
>         serious discuss the crisis for our Chapter, created as a
>         result of the general situation and legal requirements in
>         Cambodia in the meeting, and the refusal to ISOC staff to
>         positively pay attention to our situation, we do not think it
>         would be appropriate to cooperate, as a Chapter, with
>         organizing a meeting for your 1 - 2.5 hours event, for which
>         you would like to invite the Members of the Cambodia Chapter
>         and other non-Chapter members. To discuss fundamental problems
>         within ISOC, affecting the whole membership, only among
>         officers, as you suggest (which has been tried in vain by
>         email so far) would not be in line with our history to promote
>         and practice open communication -- high values regularly
>         lifted up among the goals of the Internet Society world wide
>         and in its slogan: the Internet is for everyone.
>
>             The situation and this response has been shared and
>         discussed with the Members of the Advisory Board of our
>         Chapter and is unanimously supported.
>
>             Norbert Klein
>             President, ISOC-KH*
>
>             The five members of our Advisory Board at that time were
>         (reflecting the stipulation of our Bylaws "The Advisory Board
>         of five members, from important sections of the ISOC Cambodia
>         Chapter membership"):
>
>                 the Head of the IT in Education Section in the
>         Ministry of Education
>                 the Editor in Chief of a leading Cambodian daily
>         newspaper, who is at the same time President of the Club of
>         Cambodian Journalists
>                 the President and CEO of a major broadband providing ISP
>                 a senior staff member in the office of the Council of
>         Ministers of the Government of Cambodia, and
>                 one student.
>
>         [snip]
>
>             Subsequently, mail to the ISOC Manager for Regional
>         Affairs (Asia) did not receive any response.
>
At that time, prior to our 2012 Annual General Meeting, several persons 
who might have been standing as candidates for President of our Chapter, 
were not interested any longer to serve a Chapter of ISOC, where it is 
not clear that the above attitude towards our Chapter and it's Advisory 
Board of distinguished members of Cambodian society is not rectified, 
neither at the regional level, nor at a  higher "global" or "central" or 
"ISOC HQ" level, monitoring such regional staff actions.

Norbert Klein
Member of the Executive Committee
ISOC Cambodia Chapter

(I do not copy this to the other members of our Executive Committee, who 
are receiving this mail anyway, reading the Chapter-delegates list)



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