[council] Re: Your complaint regarding references to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

["Roberto Lopes" <roblopes@uol.com.br>]

Dear sirs,

On 11 Dec 2000, at 14:25, Louis Touton
Wrote about "Your complaint regarding references to the Former":

At first, thank you for your reply. I will comment the individual 
paragraphs of your message.

> Dear Mr. Lopes, I am responding on behalf of ICANN to your message
> of 25 November 2000, a copy of which appears below. 

I would like to note that my message was not copied into your 
message in its entirety, but I admit you know that. If needed, just 
let me know and I will send the entire message again.
 
> In your message, you raise two complaints:
> 
>    1.  You complain that ICANN has "allow[ed the Former Yugoslav
> Republic of Macedonia] to use the code 'MK' as its Internet
> domain."  In this regard, the country-code top-level domain ".mk"
> has been established by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
> (IANA) and delegated with an official of Ministry of Foreign
> Relations of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia listed as
> administrative contact. The IANA is not in the business of
> determining what is and what is not a country.  Instead, in
> establishing country-code top-level domains the IANA refers to the
> alpha-2 codes on the ISO 3166-1 list.
> <http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/codlstp1/en_listp1.ht
> ml> The .mk code appears on that list as a code for "MACEDONIA,
> THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF", and the .mk country-code
> top-level domain was created on that basis. 

Thank you for making the situation more clear. I actually contacted 
IANA too and they still didn't reply.

On the site of ICANN is found the following:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 
is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume 
responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter 
assignment, domain name system management, and root server 
system management functions previously performed under U.S. 
Government contract by IANA and other entities.  

So, do you mean that ICANN has nothing to do with the issue and 
that I should address only IANA to have this matter solved? It's not 
what I understood by reading that description on the site of ICANN.

Right now (before you answer the question above), for what you 
said, the error I referred to REMAINS, no matter what is its origin. 
Right now, it seems that error has been propagated to ICANN.

It's clear that the code "MK" suggests that the name of the country 
is "Macedonia". That suggestion strengthens a series of LIES, spread 
with the goal of falsifying History and stealing territories of another 
country. Therefore, the use of that code by FYROM*, no matter who 
allowed it, IS an indirect support to a crime against humanity.

The fact that an official of Ministry of Foreign Relations of the 
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has a connection to the 
issue seems to me reinforcement of my description of the problem.

>    2.  You complain that ICANN "uses the adjective 'Macedonian' to
> refer to" the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.  The ICANN web
> site's search engine <http://www.icann.org/search.htm> shows that
> the word "Macedonian" is used in three places on the www.icann.org
> and members.icann.org web sites.  In one case, the word is used to
> indicate that a candidate for the ICANN Board was "President of the
> Executive Board of the Macedonian Academic and Research Network
> (MARNet)"; in another that candidate's statement uses the word for
> the same purpose. In the third instance, the word is used in an
> application for a top-level domain submitted by a third party
> (IATA) to refer to Macedonian Airlines ME, one of its members. 
> ICANN seeks to avoid censoring candidate statements and top-level
> domain applications in the manner you suggest. 

I agree with your intention to avoid censoring. In that case, I think 
the only way to address the issue without letting your organization  
be used to strengthen LIES is the use of captions to explain what 
the use of that word REALLY refers to.

As already stated, the issue REMAINS and it will remain unless your 
organization or IANA or ISO or anyone else can refute all that have 
been said DEMONSTRATING that the efforts of FYROM* to associate 
itself to Macedonia are CRIMINAL ones.

I don't know about you nor IANA nor ISO but I would not feel 
comfortable knowing that an organization for which I work is being 
used to strengthen lies, ANY lie, much less lies that are an offense 
to humanity.

I will certainly contact ISO and will contact IANA again. On the other 
hand, you can't simply act as if this problem had nothing to do with 
ICANN only because you have "just" followed the mistakes of others.

I don't know if you can change that "MK" code. I assumed you could, 
by what I have read on your site. If you can change the code, the 
only reasonable action for ICANN is changing it until the actual name 
of the country is defined and/or recognized by the United Nations. If 
you can't, I would greatly appreciate to know who exactly can do it 
so I will direct my efforts to them instead of ICANN.

> Best regards,
> 
> Louis Touton
> Vice-President

* FYROM: Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Regards,

Roberto Lopes.
São Paulo, Brazil.
roblopes@uol.com.br

PGP Public Key available.