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No Excuse for Israeli Abuse of Palestinians: Annan
DURBAN, South Africa, Aug 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told a U.N. conference on racism Friday that past victimization of Jews could not excuse Israel's treatment of Palestinians, but stressed that "mutual accusations" were not the purpose of the gathering, news agencies reported.
The U.N. conference on racism, already marred by bitter disputes over Israel's treatment of Palestinians, got under way Friday, as some 10,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Durban, South Africa, demanding redistribution of land and Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories as Annan welcomed delegates from more than 150 countries to the weeklong conference.
About 3,000 marchers assembled some three kilometers (two miles) from the conference center, chanting, "A better world is possible", and were joined along the route by others.
Most were South Africans, some demanding redistribution of land. Pro-Palestinian resistance activists joined the march as well.
Police were out in force, but no incidents were reported as the marchers chanted and shuffle-danced. The march was peaceful, if noisy.
In his opening address, Annan said, "The Jewish people have been victims of anti-semitism in many parts of the world, and in Europe they were the target of the Holocaust - the ultimate abomination."
"This fact must never be forgotten, or diminished," Annan told the opening session of the conference, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"It is understandable therefore, that many Jews resent any accusation of racism directed against Israel -- and all the more so when it coincides with indiscriminate and totally unacceptable attacks against innocent civilians.
"Yet, we cannot expect Palestinians to accept this as a reason why the wrongs done to them - displacement, occupation, blockade, and now extra-judicial killings - should be ignored, whatever label one uses to describe them," Annan declared, to applause.
"But my friends," he said, "mutual accusations are not part of this conference. Our main objective must be to improve the lot of the victims."
Arab and Islamic states called on the conference to equate Zionism with racism, describing Israel as a racist state because of its continued policy of occupation upon Palestinians.
A draft declaration before 7,000 delegates at the non-governmental meeting urges the U.N. to accept that Israel was a "discriminatory" state and that Palestinians could resist "occupation by any means".
The document also demands that Israel pay "full compensation", effective reparations, to Palestinians, a people living under a foreign military occupying power.
"The Palestinian people are one such people currently enduring a colonialist, discriminatory military occupation that violates their fundamental human right of self-determination," the draft states.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and President Fidel Castro of Cuba arrived Thursday; twelve other foreign heads of state were due to attend, along with South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki declared that the consequences of slavery, colonialism and racism continued to define the lives of billions of people as hopeless.
"There are many in our common world who suffer indignity and humiliation because they are not white," he said.
"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.
"I come from a people that have known the bitter experience of slavery, colonialism and racism," Mbeki said.
"These are a people who know what it means to be the victim of rabid racism and racial discrimination. Among us are the women who suffered most because they had to carry the additional burden of gender oppression and discrimination."
Swelling demands for reparations for slavery looked set to be the second main theme of the conference, which will also look at the plight of the low-caste Dalits in India and other countries, and that of indigenous peoples.
In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli public radio reported Thursday evening that an Israeli delegation, headed by Mordechai Yadi, deputy director at the foreign ministry's office for non-governmental organizations, had left at the very last minute for Durban despite uncertainty whether the country would attend.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is boycotting the conference because preparatory meetings retained so-called "offensive" language towards Israel in draft declarations, although rejecting any equation of Zionism with racism.
A team of mid-level U.S. diplomats arrived in Durban Thursday on a last-ditch mission to water down language concerning Israel even more.
The adoption of the "Zionism is racism" resolution followed a year of activity at the U.N. during which the rights of the Palestinians were recognized with increasing vigor.
In 1974, the General Assembly invited the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to participate in its proceedings via observer status.
In November of that year, the Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property.
Those rights have been reaffirmed every year since and have remained unfulfilled by Israel.
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