The UN still owes us its conclusions
20/12/2001
- Opinión
An unprecedented almost three months since the World Conference on
Racism, the UN has not yet approved the Declaration or Plan of Action
that the Member States adopted there. This delay, in the words of the
Conference’s own Rapporteur-General, Brazilian Edna Roland, “has gone
beyond acceptable limits”.
According to diplomatic sources, the impasse is due to pressures from the
European Union to attempt, once again, to limit commitments regarding
reparations for the victims of colonialism and slavery, and the
corresponding steadfastness of the African group, in their defense of the
contents produced by the Conference.
Some dozen paragraphs are in dispute, mainly those produced at the
Conference by the working groups on the Past and on the Middle East.
Their insertion into the Declaration or the Action Plan was entrusted,
due to time constraints, to the event’s Secretariat, with the criterion
that the Declaration should record matters of principle and the Plan
should contain the items related to actions to be taken by States. This
is what the European Union is now contesting, whereas the African group
is advocating for these items to be included as agreed.
There is also disagreement between the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Mary Robinson, who was Conference Secretary, and the Conference
Chair, South African diplomat Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Ms. Robinson
maintains that the European Union will not accept the inclusion of these
paragraphs in the Plan, whereas Ms. Dlamini-Zuma is holding to the
decision as made, since these are the concrete measures that States must
take to resolve the issues at hand. The Conference Rapporteur-General,
Edna Roland, agrees with the Chairwoman.
However, the findings of the Conference are faring even worse, since the
High Commissioner for Human Rights was unable to present them before the
UN General Assembly this last October 31st, for final approval; further,
according to French newspaper Le Monde (20-11-01), there has even been a
prohibition against distributing the working documents involved.
To overcome this stalemate, the parties will have to reach some
agreement. Otherwise, the matter will have to be addressed through
special solutions, including: a call to put the matter to vote in the
General Assembly; conclusion of the work under leadership of the UN
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, himself; and others, none of which promise
for the findings to be approved soon.
According to Edna Roland, “The documents resulting from the Conference
entail proposals for education, health, habitat, affirmative action,
criminalization of racism, anti-discrimination training for the police
forces and those administering justice. If applied to transform race
relations, the potential would be very great”. Nevertheless, she adds
that, with the obstacles that have been raised, the European Union
intends to “delete any political content regarding reparations”.
Accordingly, both governmental delegations and civil-society
organizations are expressing their concern about this problem, since –
after the Conference ended with tense consensus and was then eclipsed by
the events of September 11th in the United States – this delay in final
approval of the documents could relegate them to oblivion. This is
especially true if the issues being discussed were at the heart of the
potential boycott of preparations for the event by countries of the North
and the subsequent abandonment of the Conference by the US and Israel.
Disagreements about Reparations
The controversy centers on three main paragraphs (97, 99 and 100), which
state that the Conference expresses its repentance and apologies to the
victims of colonialism and slavery, and calls for restoration of their
dignity through appropriate, effective measures.
The European Union is asking for this to be placed only in the
Declaration, which is an ethical document, and not in the Action Plan,
which is the document for commitments and measures to be taken, and would
imply that the parties responsible for colonialism and slavery would be
obliged to provide compensation to the peoples still suffering the
consequences of these historical incongruities.
Regarding the Middle East
Although the disagreements hinge on the Israel/Palestine issue,
particularly because of the requirement of viewing Israel as a racist
State, the Conference findings include other topics, such as considering
that human rights must be respected and that persons must not suffer
discrimination because of the fight against terrorism, an issue that is
even more crucial now than it was then and, consequently, raises greater
resistance, but also greater sympathy than ever.
https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/105494
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