Durban | Friday
THE World Conference Against Racism got under way in Durban on Friday with United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan urging delegates to end disagreements and wrangling, and send a signal of hope to victims of racism world-wide.
The run-up to the conference has been marked by bitter dissension on such issues as calls by the African bloc for reparations for slavery and colonialism and demands from Arab-nations for Israel to be condemned because of its treatment of Palestinians.
The controversy resulted in threatened boycotts and ultimately led to some countries, including the United States and Israel, downgrading their delegations.
On Friday morning mid-level diplomats both from the US and Israel took up their official seats at the conference. The US has boycotted two previous UN world conferences against racism in 1979 and in 1983.
About 150 countries are represented at the conference, with only 15 heads of state — mostly from Africa — attending.
Annan told delegates that the conference had raised expectations ”that we must not disappoint”.
”Let us rise above our disagreements. The wrangling has gone on long enough.”
It was always easier to think of the wrongs one’s own society had suffered, but ”it is less comfortable to think in what ways our own good fortune might relate to the suffering of others, in the past or in the present”.
In her speech, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson appealed for a ”sense of vision” from those governments attending the conference.
”I remain convinced that this can be a defining moment for the international community, that we have the capacity at the start of this century to work for a better and fairer world order.”
She said she was asking delegates for generosity of spirit, and willingness to meet the views of others.
Durban would be a landmark only if it adopted a substantial programme and there was meaningful follow up. Robinson said she would establish an anti-discrimination unit in the UN, reporting directly to her, to monitor implementation of the conference recommendations, and to take follow-up action.
In his speech, President Thabo Mbeki said the conference had to convey the message that the people of the world were determined to unite to repair the ”gross human damage” of the past.
It had become necessary to convene in Durban because it had been recognised that there were ”many in our common world who suffer indignity and humiliation because they are not white”.
”Their cultures and traditions are despised as savage and primitive and their identities denied. They are not white and are deeply immersed in poverty.
”Of them it is said that they are human but black, whereas others are described as human and white,” he said.
On the Middle East, Mbeki said that region cried out for a just, stable and permanent peace that was long overdue.
”The people of Palestine, like those of Israel and everywhere else in the world, are also entitled to pursue their fullest and all-round development in conditions of freedom, safety and security.”
Among those attending the conference are Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Joseph Kabila, Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo.
Mbeki welcomed delegates to the country, saying they had helped liberate it from apartheid racism.
At the start of proceedings Foreign Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was unanimously elected president of the conference.
In her speech she said that as an African woman, she knew the pain of slavery and colonialism ”whose legacy is staring me in the face every day”.
The conference could not afford anything less than success, Dlamini-Zuma said.
”At the end of this century we must look back at this conference as the beginning of an offensive against racism.”
UN General Assembly president Harri Holkeri — a former prime minister of Finland — said racism and racial discrimination were among the most powerful assaults on human dignity.
”No society can tolerate racism without undermining peace and justice,” he said.
ZA*NOW:
US ducks out of racism conference August 28, 2001
‘US boycott signals indifference on racism’ July 30, 2001
US tetchy on Zionism/racism issue July 28, 2001
No slavery please, we’re American July 29, 2001
FEATURES:
African diaspora short-changed in Geneva August 27, 2001
Payback time August 20, 2001
At least they’re talking August 20, 2001
A debate long overdue August 20, 2001
Zionism is a theory of ethnic cleansing and racism August 20, 2001
A weapon against Israel August 20, 2001
Zionism not racism April 24, 2001