|
War of Words as Leaders Head for U.N. Racism Conference
DURBAN, South Africa, Aug 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - World leaders were heading for South Africa Thursday for a U.N. conference on racism set to be marred by bitter recriminations over Israeli policies towards Palestinians and reparations for African slavery.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat left Gaza early Thursday for Durban, on South Africa's east coast, where he is due to deliver a speech at the U.N. meeting beginning Friday. Cuban President Fidel Castro is also expected.
Arafat will deliver a speech at the international conference, which begins Friday, on the "situation in the Middle East and the Israeli aggression," his aide said.
The two controversial issues have dominated a gathering of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) taking place ahead of the U.N. talks.
A question-and-answer session between U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and activists on Thursday turned rowdy.
The trouble at the meeting in a huge tent pitched on the grounds of the cricket stadium where the NGOs are meeting erupted when a Dalit made a statement on the plight of his low-caste community.
"That was a statement, not a question," said Annan, at which point several other Dalits protested loudly.
"Calm down, calm down, silence please," Annan said as his bodyguard stiffened.
And, to the man doing the most shouting: "There is no need for you as a mature person to stand up and scream ... "
Palestinians and their supporters meanwhile staged a march, carrying banners declaring "Israel - an apartheid state", and chanted slogans. Police separated them from Jewish representatives.
The two sides earlier faced off across a table at a press conference where Arabs began to heckle and shout questions, while a panel of Jewish NGOs denounced the U.N. conference as a "racist anti-racism conference".
A handful of police rushed to the tent where the confrontation was happening, while armored personnel vehicles were parked outside the Kingsmead stadium.
"This conference is supposed to be about combating racism. Instead it has been seized by those who foment it," said Anne Bayefsky, a law professor at Columbia University, representing the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
"It has become a global forum for racism. A racist anti-racism conference," she told a press conference.
Similar confrontations also occurred Wednesday.
Arab and Islamic countries attending the U.N. World Conference Against Racism insist the weeklong meeting address Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
They are undeterred by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's decision to boycott the event because of "offensive" anti-Israeli language in texts due to be adopted by the conference.
However, a team of mid-level diplomats has been dispatched to Durban in a last-ditch attempt to find a way for the United States to be represented at the conference at a lower level.
The presidents of Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Latvia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo, as well as host country South Africa, feature on the conference line-up.
The NGOs, in their draft declaration, call for Israel to be declared "an apartheid, racist and fascist state". They also urge all nations to acknowledge that slavery was a crime against humanity, and to pay reparations.
This issue is on the agenda of the U.N. talks and threatens to prove another thorny topic pitting ministers and delegates from the North against the South.
In opening the NGO forum, South African President Thabo Mbeki supported broad reparations, calling for "a measurable commitment within countries and across all nations that practical steps will be taken and resources allocated, actually to eradicate the legacy of slavery, colonialism and racism".
The United States and European countries, concerned by the idea of reparations and that an apology could possibly lead to monetary compensation claims in court, have lobbied hard against both.
Talks are now expected to focus on a collective statement of regret and development aid for Africa.
Meanwhile, U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson declared, "I am a Jew," Wednesday at an NGO dinner in Durban, a guest told news agencies Thursday.
Robinson, a former president of Ireland, who is in fact Roman Catholic, was responding to a cartoon booklet depicting Israeli atrocities against Palestinians distributed at the NGO forum.
Jose Luis Diaz, Robinson's spokesman, did not attend the dinner and was unable to confirm her off-the-cuff comments, but told AFP: "She has been concerned during the pre-conference period about the use of both hate-speech and cartoons in literature in denigrating specific groups such as Jews."
The guest, Shimon Samuels, head of the Jewish caucus at the anti-racism conference, reported Robinson as saying: "The purpose of this conference is primarily to achieve human dignity."
"My husband is a cartoonist; I love cartoons, but when I see the type of racism in the cartoon booklets of the Arab Lawyers' Union distributed at the conference I can only say that I am a Jew … I am a Jew."
"I will not allow this fractiousness to torpedo the conference," Samuels reported Robinson as saying at the dinner.
Speaking on Tuesday to the forum, Robinson said: " I note that you have also created commissions to deal with particular victims of racism including commissions on Palestinians, Roma, Anti-Semitism, Africans and African Descendants, Asians and Asian Descendants, Ethnic Minorities and Indigenous Peoples."
Commenting on Robinson's remarks, Ahmad Al Rashidi, Professor of International Law at Cairo University told IslamOnline's correspondent that it was impossible to club Palestinians with the rest of these groups.
"The Palestinian people are defending their political rights and their lands which has been raped by the Israeli occupation forces. On the other hand, the ethnic groups which Robinson referred to is in fact part of an independent country and they are fighting for their cultural and economical rights. These ethnic groups suffer from prejudice in their own countries and are seeking their full rights and their autonomy," said Al Rashidi.
|
