Rio Centro is the name of the Convention Center where the UNCED was held. It was strategically located about one hour away from the location of the Global Forum '92. The access to Rio Centro was extremely difficult. For youth, there were four ways to gain access: being a part of a government delegation, being accredited as press, having accreditation as a youth NGO to UNCED, or having an special day pass given out by the Youth Liaison Officer of the UNCED Secretariat.
It is important to point out that most of the documents to be discussed and negotiated at the Earth Summit were practically ready. The Youth Chapter of Agenda 21 was no exception. Only a few sections of the documents were in "brackets", indicating that there was not consensus on that specific topic. The brackets were used mainly around the financial commitments for the implementation of Agenda 21 and the other Rio Agreements. That meant that the potential impact and influence of youth was negligible. Most of the youth that were in Rio Centro gathered to protest issues that were left out of the negotiating process and to present the youth sector position. Many youth were lobbying for the inclusion of a document titled "Ten points to save the Earth Summit", a document prepared and presented by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Third World Network. This document listed a number of issues, that in the view of these organizations, were necessary to be included in the UNCED results for the Summit to be successful.
Some of the issues presented in this document were: militarism, external debt, transnational corporations regulation, and targets for the Climate Change Convention.
The participation of youth in government delegations was important in terms of the access to the official process that it provided. Youth was included in the delegations of Sweden, Netherlands, Estonia, Costa Rica, Canada and the United States, among others.
Some youth participated in UNCED Special Events, activities organized during the Summit, mainly panels of discussion about different relevant issues; and they attended some of the parallel NGO meetings that were happening there. Some others kept in touch with their government delegations to try to lobby for different positions and proposals.
The youth in Rio were aware that the eyes in the world were on UNCED. The Media was watching the heads of state from around the world. Youth wanted to generate an impact at UNCED, that would show the rest of the world (through the media) what was really going on inside Rio Centro: a negotiation that was far from creating a qualitative positive impact on the life styles of the present and future generations.
As an NGO sector, youth were given the right to address the conference plenary session. As it had happened before in the PrepComs, youth were allowed to speak 7 minutes. The youth present at Rio Centro and at the Youth Open House decided that Wagaki Mwangi, a young woman from Kenya who had been quite active in the UNCED process, should be the person that would voice youth concerns, opinions and positions to the Plenary.
Wagaki consulted many youth about what they wanted her to say in her speech. With all this feedback, she prepared the following speech to be presented to the Plenary.
"The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development deserves commendation for being able to gather over 100 heads of state, not for a state funeral, but for the resolution of a world crisis. But the question is, will this event mark the death and burial of several injustices and practices which are the fundamental causes of environmental degradation and underdevelopment?"
"UNCED has been recognized as the most democratic process of the United Nations. Democratic because it has attempted to involve otherwise powerless people of society in the process. But by observing the process we now know how undemocratic and untransparent the UN syst em is. As youth our vision of a sustainable future is one that empowers people through genuine popular participation, which is ostensibly one of UNCED's recommendations for sustainable development."
"Given how little has been achieved since Stockholm, it is evident that the system will not even solve the ecological crisis without itself conforming to popular participation and democracy."
"There are those who have said UNCED has failed. As youth we beg to differ. UNCED has been a success - for the all-time wielders of power. Transnational corporations, the United States, Japan, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have gotten away with what they always wanted - carving out a better and more comfortable future for themselves. The business community under the guise of the Business Council for Sustainable Development has succeeded in institutionalizing itself as a non-governmental organization."
"I have just been informed that I have been cut off from the rest of the delegates at the Earth Summit. You are now the only ones listening, and I will continue -"
"This is not how the success of UNCED should be measured. It must be assessed from what UNCED set out to do. UNCED's primary objective was to redress the current inequitable power structures that have led to environmental degradation. However, UNCED has ensured increased domination by those who already have power. Worse still, it has robbed the poor of the little power they had. It has made the poor predators of a market economy that has thus far threatened our planet..."
"We are concerned that amidst elaborate cocktails, travelling and partying, few negotiators realize how critical their decisions are to our generation."
"By failing to address fundamental issues such as militarism, regulation of transnational corporations, democratization of the international aid agencies and inequitable terms of trade, my generation has been damned...
"Most youth (at the Earth Summit) laid aside their studies to participate in the UNCED process. Most of them have paid their own way and sometimes even sacrificed their comfort. As I speak there are youth seated in the main hall of the conference center fasting. They have fasted for two days and spent a night in Rio Centro to demonstrate their commitment to our common cause, and they will continue to do so."
"And in solidarity, youth in the U.S., Japan and Germany have joined them. This morning, we received news that youth will be protesting in Fiji, Australia, Malaysia and Hong Kong. And their numbers are growing."
"The UNCED process has been jeopardized by experts who would make us believe that they are carving out a sustainable future for all humanity, while in truth they act in their own self-interest. Is it not arrogant and hypocritical not to hear what we have to say about our own futures? We do not want an unjust world as prescribed by the UNCED process and which we are being socialized into. What we want is an equitable future, and that is the least we expected from UNCED."
When Wagaki began her speech, the internal television system mysteriously "broke down" and no-one besides the people inside the plenary room were able to hear her. This situation disappointed youth once again about the UNCED process - a process unwilling to hear and give equal participation to all the constituencies involved.
Youth then organized a press conference immediately after Wagaki's speech, with the objective to denounce the irregular situation that had just happened and to let people know, as it read in one of the banners they held at the press conference that "UNCED is a farce". Adam Rogers, in his book UNCED: A planet reckonning describes the situation as follows:
"...While a South American youth delivered a Spanish translation of Dorcey's speech (US youth official delegate), a group of UN Security personnel and Brazilian police began moving in on the crowd. the silhouette of one large policeman moved behind the banner; his arm could be seen coming up around the side of the person holding the plastic sheet. His hand appeared next to the young man's neck as the fingers gripped his UN pass, ripping it off in a single jerk. This action effectively expelled the youth as "persona non grata" from the conference. One by one the passes were ripped off the youth as they sat to protest of what they called a farce, a misuse of power by the grown-ups of the world. More security personnel quickly moved in, wedging a line in between the protesters and the journalists, trying to establish some kind of order to a scene that was quickly getting chaotic."
"This is a press conference!" shouted the youth. "This is a press conference!" Most of the reporters and photographers, totally abandoning protocol, joined in. "This is a press conference! Freedom of speech! Freedom of speech!" (...) The security finished ripping off the passes and started grabbing the signs and ripping them up. The guards hauled the youth away, a policeman at each protester's head, another at his feet, carrying each of them like a sack of potatoes. The youth attempted to slow the guards down by linking arms. One girl, her arms stretched over her head as she was dragged along the grass, commented nonchalantly to a television camera: "This is typical of what is happening to youth at UNCED."
This situation was also described in ASA News, March/June 1992, by one of the youth activists present that day in Rio Centro:
"All over the world people saw the images of young people being dragged out of Rio Centro for attempting to criticize the Earth Summit. At last, we were successful in sowing a seed of a doubt in the minds on the international community that not all was well with the Earth Summit."
After the day of Wagaki's speech, youth participation in Rio Centro decreased. Many of the passes that had been taken away by the UN security personnel, were not given back to their holders. That coincided with the dates that the heads of state were arriving at Rio Centro. So, the role of youth in Rio Centro, was reduced to following the process of the negotiation to voice peoples' concerns, and to denounce all the irregular situations that had happened and continued to happen during the Earth Summit.