Mid-East Realitieswww.middleeast.org

DURBAN AND ROBINSON AND ANNAN

August 31, 2001

MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 8/31: After Madeleine Albright revealed her Jewish ancestry, having lived a lifetime as a Catholic and just as she became the American Secretary of State, the idea that former President of Ireland Mary Robinson may be following in her footsteps didn't seem that far-fetched. Seems it was however a "symbolic" moment for Ms. Robinson who got caught up in all the excitement and tension of Durban; and looks like we did as well in not more quickly realizing what was really going on here. Sorry about that.

That said, it has appeared for some months now that both Robinson and Kofi Annan were fronting for the Israelis in working overtime, pushed and prodded by the Americans of course, to get the major issue of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians removed from the Durban racism conference agenda.

So far they haven't fully succeeded as they had hoped to. And so far the American bluff has been called, at least to the extent that in the end both the U.S. and Israel have sent "mid and low" level delegations to Durban, though still threatening they might not really participate in the conference ...depending on just how much their threats, bribes and inducements to do things their way are successful or not.

As we've said before many times the historical moment is an important one and the steps to take are not conceptually that difficult at this point. And as we said last week, it's time to suspend Israel from the U.N. General Assembly:

"STEP 1: A major resolution should now come from the Durban conference condemning the Israeli occupation, condemning Israeli racism, condemning Israel's neo-Apartheid policies, condemning the U.S. for its support of Israeli policies and its refusal to even attend the conference knowing that nearly the whole world sees the situation completely differently than does the American government. STEP 2: Insistence on a clear and firm vote in the United Nations General Assembly in October -- where the U.S. veto is not applicable -- on suspending Israel from that world body, just as was done regarding South Africa in the days of Apartheid. Repeat, this is not just a matter for Arabs and Muslims and those who have a particular connection with the Palestinians. This is a matter for people of good conscience everywhere, most especially Jews and Americans who are the most complicitous in what is happening."

I AM A JEW, ROBINSON TELLS RACISM PROTESTERS

UN human rights commissioner takes symbolic stance as clashes over Zionism threaten to wreck world meeting

Chris McGreal in Durban

[The Guardian Friday August 31, 2001]: A pamphlet distributed at the United Nations anti-racism conference in South Africa equating the Star of David with a swastika has prompted the UN human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, to declare at an official dinner: "I am a Jew".

The former president of Ireland, who is a practising Roman Catholic, spoke in response to a cartoon distributed by the Arab Lawyers' Union in advance of the conference, which opens today.

"When I see something like this, I am a Jew," she said.

Although UN officials had hoped that the issue of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians had been largely defused by the removal of words in the draft agenda comparing Zionism to racism, the bitterness of Middle Eastern politics has spilled over in Durban.

Jewish delegates at the conference say that the protests and hate literature go beyond the criticism of Zionism, which led Washington to downgrade its delegation, and are virulently anti-semitic.

The police have had to protect Jews distributing leaflets at the conference. Protesters against Israel disrupted meetings at which Jews who were not Israelis were speaking.

Pallo Jordan, a prominent MP for the African National Congress, described the disruption of a discussion on anti-semitism in which he was taking part as "disgraceful".

"I'm disgusted with the people that disrupted the sitting," he said. "If the people who were disruptive think they served their political cause by behaving like that they've missed the boat completely."

Mrs Robinson, who is secretary general of the conference and has been one of its main promoters, reiterated that Durban was not the place to try to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"This is a conference to move us forward. I have been disturbed by the personalised exchanges," she said.

A press conference given by a coalition of Jewish groups was brought to a halt by a group of Iranian women who shouted down the speakers. One protester shouted: "Six million dead and you are holding the world hostage."

The protest finally ended with the Jewish delegates singing John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance and their detractors chanting "Zionism is apartheid". Karen Pollock, a representative of the British Board of Jewish Deputies, said that a number of disparate Jewish groups which had had no contact before the conference had been forced into a caucus to protect themselves.

"We felt we had to show solidarity. Not only have we been intimidated, but no official has stepped in to stop it," she said. "I never expected the hostility I've been confronted with. This says I don't have the right to express myself."

After first saying that it would pull out of the conference because of the criticism of Israel, the US has sent a delegation of mid-level diplomats led by a deputy assistant secretary of state, Michael Southwick, in the hope of limiting the attacks on Israel.

"We felt that at this point, as the conference is about to begin with all the players in Durban, that it was necessary for us to have representatives out there to... work to eliminate this language," a state department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said.

But Ms Pollock believes the conference will achieve little in such a climate.

"My honest feeling is I'm completely sceptical. I really doubt anything concrete will come of this. It's a real shame. I'm frustrated," she said.

Britain's representative to the conference, the Foreign Officer minister responsible for Africa, Lady Amos, said that the overall tone of the discussions needed "to be forward looking and focused on action". But much African interest is focused on whether Britain and the other EU countries will apologise for the centuries of the transatlantic slave trade.

Lady Amos said that while the entire EU delegation was prepared to recognise modern slavery as a crime against humanity, it objected to using the same term to describe the historical slave trade, because it would have legal implications. But the delegation was prepared to use "very strong wording" in recognising the wrongs of the trade.

"We've talked about using the words 'regret' and 'abhorrence' as regards the slave trade," she said.

American groups have been among the most vigorous campaigners for the recognition of slavery and colonialism as a crime against humanity.

"A conference that does not deal with the slave trade as a crime against humanity, and colonialism as a crime against humanity, will not be dealing with issues of racism," Bahiya Cabral, a US delegate, said.

Amnesty International criticised the composition of the British delegation, saying that it lacked the weight of a senior minister and demonstrated "a lack of commitment to the conference."

"The conference is a historic opportunity to create a plan of action for the elimination of racism and it is disappointing that the UK has not shown a clearer commitment to that," it said.

ANNAN SAYS SUCCESS VITAL FOR U.N. ANTI-RACISM MEET By Richard Waddington DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday urged delegates to an acrimonious global conference against racism to set aside their differences, saying the meeting could not afford to fail.

"If we leave here without agreement we shall give comfort to the worst elements in every society," he told the opening session of the eight-day World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

Acknowledging rows that dogged preparations for the United Nations-organised meeting in the South African port of Durban -- Washington has sent only a low-level delegation because of what it says is an anti-Israeli bias -- was a test of the international community's ability to unite on a vital issue.

"Let us not fail that test," he said.

Annan sought to sound a conciliatory note on the two most contentious issues -- how to deal with, if at all, conflict in the Middle and how to address the historic ill of slavery.

Arab states have been insisting that the conference text contain a specific reference to what it says is racist treatment by Israel of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Describing the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were killed by the Nazis in World War Two, as "the ultimate abomination," Annan said Israel could not use the tragedy as an excuse never to examine its own behaviour.

"We cannot expect Palestinians to accept this (the Holocaust) as a reason why the wrongs done to them -- displacement, occupation, blockage, and now extra-judicial killings -- should be ignored, whatever label one uses to describe them," he said.

But Annan said the conference was not the place for mutual recriminations and that its aim was to look to the future.

He sent the same message on slavery, for which some African states want an explicit apology and possibly financial reparations from former slave-trading nations.

"Our aim must be to banish from this new century the hatred and prejudice that have disfigured previous centuries," he said.

The emphasis of the conference was on practical measures to combat racism and discrimination against ethnic minorities from which few countries were immune.

"We must not leave this city without agreeing on practical measures which all states should take to fill that pledge," he said.

European countries and the United States, the main players in the traffic of slaves from Africa to north and south America for some 400 years up to the 19th century, reject any talk of reparations and are wary of any wording in the conference texts that could leave them open to legal action.


Mid-East Realitieswww.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/8/369.htm