U.N. Meet Adopts Action Plan Against Racism
By REUTERS
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Filed at 1:14 p.m. ET
DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - A U.N. conference, which had teetered on the edge of collapse over the Middle East, adopted a global action plan against racism on Saturday.
The Middle East and the question of whether rich states owed an apology and reparations to Africa for slavery had dominated the conference, with the United States and Israel walking out on Monday over Arab attempts to brand Israel racist.
Syria, supported by Pakistan, tabled a last-minute motion calling for the conference, which had already been extended by a day, to adopt a text implicitly referring to Israel as racist.
But the motion was rejected in a conference vote, clearing the final hurdle to the adoption of the Durban Declaration which lays down a program of action to combat racism and xenophobia.
There was no vote on the overall documents, which conference chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, South Africa's foreign minister, declared approved when nobody objected.
``The conference shall adopt a report...I hear no objections,'' she said.
But Canada, Australia, Syria, Iran and others earlier expressed deep reservations over the declaration's text on the Middle East conflict. These will be included in the final report on the conference to be sent to the United Nations.
``Canada is still here today because it wants to condemn attempts at this conference to de-legitimize the state of Israel and to dishonor the history and suffering of the Jewish people,'' a Canadian official told the conference which ended after nine days of prolonged and often bitter talks.
``We have not been deterred from making a breakthrough here in Durban,'' said U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson in a closing speech to the conference, the largest ever held on racism.
REGRET AND AID
``The real measure of our work will be whether it makes a real difference in the lives of victims,'' said Robinson, who was secretary-general of the meeting.
The meeting, held in South Africa to celebrate its victory over apartheid, had been forced into extra time by arguments over the slavery issue, with African states pressing for an explicit apology from Western governments.
A deal was only sealed in the early hours of Saturday, with Africa settling for something less -- expressions of regret and the promise of more aid for development projects.
The declaration ``acknowledged and profoundly regretted the massive suffering...caused by slavery.''
It urged countries involved to express ``regret, remorse or apologize,'' and declared slavery and slave trading to be crimes against humanity, saying they ``should have been so'' in the past.
However, the European Union issued a statement that the declaration carried no obligation for countries formerly involved in slavery to pay compensation.
``These documents cannot impose obligations or liability or a right to compensation on anyone. Nor are they intended to do so,'' the EU statement said.
Rich states had feared that any formal apology or recognition that past slave trading constituted a crime against humanity could lead to a flood of lawsuits.
No statute of limitations applies to crimes against humanity in international law.
The document also made no mention of direct reparations for the suffering caused by the human trafficking in which millions of Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, often chained, in the holds of ships.
Africa says the economic development of the continent, the world's poorest, has been held up by the lingering consequences of colonialism and the stigma left by slavery.
MIDDLE EAST NEARLY TRIGGERS COLLAPSE
Dlamini-Zuma had opened the morning session, which had been due to wind up at 1100 GMT, by saying that all contentious issues had been overcome.
Arab states had appeared earlier to drop attempts to win a condemnation of Israel, saying they would let a South African-brokered compromise pass. The compromise wording spoke of the ``plight of the Palestinians under foreign occupation'' without referring to racism.
But Syria demanded adoption of a resolution saying ``foreign occupation contrary to international law can give rise to...racism.''
The United Nations does not recognize Israel's right to the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip -- territories it captured during the 1967 Middle East war and which the Palestinians want for an independent state.
In Genval, Belgium, where they are meeting, European Union foreign ministers instructed their delegates to accept no further changes to documents on the Middle East.
Her voice trembling, Dlamini-Zuma appealed to delegates to try and reach an agreement so that the conference ``at the 11th hour (does) not come to no conclusion.''
``We are almost there. We are really trying to get something out of this conference that can be used to push back the frontiers of racism,'' she said.
Delegates said Muslim states made other last-minute demands, including one for the word ``European'' to be inserted ahead of a reference to the Holocaust. Canada also expressed reservations about the compromise draft on the Middle East.
But the demands were dropped with the defeat of the Syrian motion.
The United States, along with the European Union, had not wanted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be singled out for special reference at all at the conference.
