Dear RIPE community, Ondřej Filip and Hans-Peter,
In the past few days, I saw what NRS uncovered a letter from the Mauritian Government, in which referring to the law was AFRINIC's request about being an international organization. This same term was also used in an NRO letter that was partly against me; this letter hoped the status of "international organization" will help AFRINIC avoid rule of law.
Some community members in this list have asked the question, "what is an international organization?" Hans, so far, has been evasive about the answer in which he only said, and I quote:
"this status can mean different things under different jurisdictions."
Now the rejection letter from the Mauritius Government referred AFRINIC's request to a specific law, "International Organizations and Conferences (Privileges and Immunities) Act". This law clearly states in its definition that an international organization is a "specialized agency of the United Nations', making it essentially what the ITU is today.
This comes as a great shock for me personally because I have been in the Netherlands since I was 17. I started my business in Groningen, a small student city in northern Netherlands, where I learned over the years about the fundamentals of the RIRs, and it was during this time that I heard Rob say on multiple occasions that we are just book-keepers and that the community makes the decisions.
My fight with AFRINIC, while it is sub-judice, is essentially a policy dispute that the NRO itself states happens from time to time. I would never imagine in my worst dream, that the entire RIR systems CEO, especially the CEO from RIPE; the one place I learned everything about this community, would rather abandon all thirty years of hard work by the entire community, ask to join the United Nations and be like the ITU, simply to defend AFRINIC's suspended leader's position about their rather ill-advised interpretation of community-made policy.
This same leader has also tried to avoid the community at all cost, circumvent the rule of law and do his best to prevent the members from having a fair and open election as pursuant to the bylaws of the organization. He has attempted to have the ATU appoint directors directly though the courts; with his help and advise. He has accused me of hosting child porn without providing any evidence, even though I merely provide IP address to hosters. Furthermore, when asked for the specific IP address of those alleged porn, the same leader refused to provide any actionable information so we can have our customers shut it down. The same leader has been seeing close to terrorist supporters during AFRINIC meeting, the same leader that presented financials so unclear the membership not only voted the financial report down, but also voted to fire the current auditor for the first time in the RIR history. This is also the same leader who has brought 49 lawsuits to the RIR from 8 different parties, including himself, during his short tenure.
I just don't understand why the NRO or Hans feels the need to defend such leadership from community scrutiny, to a point you would abandon everything this community has believed in for thirty years. Everything such as that community-driven, bottom-up, approach, but you are instead trying to make the RIR a specialized agency of the United Nations just so such leadership can get away community scrutiny and backlash that is warranted.
I have spoken briefly with Ondřej in Malaysia where I put it to him to ask Hans this very important question. However, since he hasn't gotten back to me, hence I am putting the letter here. I know I am not the most popular guy in the room, but I truly believe in the community, and in the bottom-up, community driven process. I believe the process will help the community heal from the influence and history of bad leadership from past corrupted leaders. I hope Hans and the board of the RIPE NCC believe in the same way.
Kind regards.
Lu
The letter from the Mauritius Government rejecting AFRINIC's request:
The true meaning of an international organization:
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