Washington Post - 08.10.2001

 

Disputes Imperil U.N. Racism Forum  
Rights Chief Urges Compromise to Avert U.S. Boycott

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer

As the curtain began to fall on meetings to prepare for the World Conference Against Racism, the United Nations human rights commissioner yesterday pleaded with delegates to reach a compromise on two contentious issues to stop the United States from boycotting the event.

In a statement to the preparatory committee in Geneva, U.N. High Commissioner Mary Robinson urged Arab and Jewish organizations to find common ground on the Palestinian issue, and African and European groups to come to a consensus on the issue of slavery and reparations.

"We cannot set deadlines on any particular issue," she said, "and everyone must participate in the search for solutions -- at the highest levels. I make a strong appeal for this."

Days before the preparatory meetings began two weeks ago, President Bush said his administration would not attend the conference, which is scheduled to begin Aug. 31 in Durban, South Africa, if its agenda included language equating Zionism with racism and calling for reparations to African nations for colonialism and slavery.

In spite of Robinson's appeal, delegates wondered openly if the meetings could accomplish in one day what they had failed to do in nearly two weeks.

The United States still has objections to some of the language being contemplated. African groups quieted their calls for reparations for colonialism and slavery but continued to look upon slavery as a "crime against humanity," a characterization that could open the United States and European nations to future legal action.

And although language explicitly identifying Zionism as racism was removed from the agenda, Arab groups continued to refer to the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians as racist.

"If the conference ignores Israeli practices against the Palestinian people, it means it will be convened to protect racism and not condemn it," Palestinian representative Nabil Ramlawi told the Reuters news service.

Yaakov Levy, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said the Arab delegation lacked the will to compromise, Reuters reported. "There is a clear way to resolve it, by taking out the language and focusing on racism, not the Middle East," he said.

The day before Robinson's appeal, her spokesman, Jose Luis Diaz, acknowledged that "there is a lot of work left yet."

On the same day, an aide to the U.S. State Department delegation in Geneva said, "It's still too early to say, but if the United States had to make a decision today, it would not be going to Durban."

After the preparatory meetings close today, a compromise would be next to impossible, with delegates and participants dispersing to their home countries. If the United States is a no-show in Durban, it would mark the third such U.N. conference that the government has skipped. The others were the first and second world conferences to combat racism and discrimination, held in 1978 and 1983 in Geneva.

Human rights and civil rights organizations were wondering how such an ambitious attempt to stage a worldwide discussion of racism came to this.

The World Conference Against Racism was supposed to turn global promises of racial healing into "actions, not just words," Robinson said when the United Nations agreed to hold it, in 1997. The host nation would be South Africa, which had triumphed over apartheid.

But the same emotions that drive people apart divided the conference planners. Brazilian officials worried over how their country would be characterized by people descended from both Indians and black slaves. India wanted no part of a discussion of its caste system.

In the United States, where slaves helped build the Capitol and the White House, the Clinton administration backed away from any discussion of reparations. Last year, President Clinton offered $250,000 for the development of the conference. He had offered $5 million for development of the World Conference on Women in 1995.

President Bush is also opposed to a discussion of reparations.

"I think they should go to Durban in spite of those issues," said Arun Gandhi, founder and director of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence in Memphis. "Although I don't agree with reparations because that opens a Pandora's box, I don't think the president is right in boycotting the conference simply because of those issues."

Across the board, the directors of American civil rights organizations repudiate the notion of Zionism as racism, which goes back to a U.N. resolution passed in 1975 but repealed 10 years ago. Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said it had no place on the conference agenda. Hugh Price, president of the Urban League, said the language didn't appear to make sense.

James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute, called for a discussion of Israel's treatment of Palestinians and its Arab citizens, but said equating Zionism with racism was no way to go about it.

"I personally do not think it is necessary to have a discussion on the formula of Zionism as racism," he said. "What is necessary is a discussion on the Israeli discriminatory policy against Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens."

U.S. delegations attended previous preparatory meetings in Peru and Iran. Iran's refusal to admit Jews into the country for the meeting there foreshadowed problems that haunt the conference now.

In Geneva yesterday, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) called the singling out of Israel a "hypocritical farce," Reuters reported. Lantos noted that delegations from Egypt, Syria and Afghanistan -- where human rights abuses are widespread -- had targeted one nation, and called for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to stay away from Durban if it continued.

"It is clearly inappropriate for Secretary Powell to dignify the conference with his presence. That would dignify the lynching of Israel," he said. "The Durban conference needs the United States more than the United States needs Durban."

South Africa is leading the chorus of developing nations that are criticizing American politicians and their ultimatums.

"We cannot brush this [conference] under the carpet," that nation's education minister, Kader Asmal, said recently. "It cannot be deemed inconvenient or merely impolitic and therefore forbidden in discussions. Nobody should be able to badger us into silence through threats of boycott and related silliness."