to ask the IGU to change the venue of the next Regional Meeting

With all due respect to the above note by Dr. Abler, the IGU is showing a consistent refusal to acknowledge the political and social consequences of its choices of venue. The fact is that although the IGU may not want to be seen as meddling in the local affairs of the hosting organizations, the IGU should take responsibility for the actions of its member groups, and as pointed out above, the continued placement of IGU meetings in politically questionable sites cannot help but reflect badly on the organization as a whole. In 2008, in Ben Ali's Tunisia. In 2010, in apartheid Israel, where many Palestinian geographers could not even attend. In 2011, in the military school, made famous for torture and disappearances under the Pinochet dictatorship and beyond. What message is the IGU trying to send? If you shoulder the burdens of hosting the conference, then the IGU has no standards whatsoever for its hosting organizations? I think there's a very strong message here, and one that is extremely distasteful for those of us engaged in political geography. I urge the IGU to change the venue, and to begin a serious process of soul searching, lest it be known as forever on the wrong side of history, and of geography.