U.S. Threatens to Boycott Racism Talks

By threatening to boycott a U.N. conference on racism, the Bush administration is protesting efforts to equate Zionism with racism and to demand reparations for slavery. But critics say the tactic could backfire, isolating the United States from an international forum that will take place regardless.

Although most human rights advocates agree with the administration’s objections to the agenda, they are split on the wisdom of a boycott, with some urging the U.S. delegation to fight for its principles on the floor of the conference, scheduled to begin Aug. 31 in Durban, South Africa.

Harold Koh, the State Department’s human rights chief in the Clinton administration, urged Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to lead a high-level U.S. delegation to the meeting.

“I would have thought that the conference was a tailor-made situation for Colin Powell to attend and tell America’s story,” Koh, a Korean American, said of the African American secretary of State.

In a telephone interview, Koh said the U.S. delegation should vigorously oppose both the Zionism and reparations resolutions, but he added that neither issue is a reason to stay away from the meeting.

“One way to make sure that we are not consulted is not to go,” he said.

But others said the anti-Semitism of preliminary conference documents is so virulent that the only way to reverse the trend is to threaten a boycott.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said the threat of a boycott is the best way to get the attention of the mostly Arab countries that he says want to turn the conference into an Israel-bashing session.

“They are not going to change unless there is a tough stand,” he said in a telephone interview. “If the United States announces that we are going no matter what, what kind of deterrent is that to countries” advocating anti-Israel positions?

A team of U.S. diplomats is in Geneva, where preliminary work on the conference is being done, in an effort to reshape the focus of the talks. But if the diplomats fail--and time is growing short--President Bush will be forced to either go through with the threatened boycott or back away from it. Either decision will anger politically significant blocs of U.S. voters.

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus introduced a resolution in the House urging the Bush administration to send a high-level delegation to the conference, regardless of the outcome of preliminary discussions. The resolution, which has yet to come to a vote, asserts that “the participation of the United States is in the national interest of the United States as an international leader and is vital to the success of the conference.”

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said recently that the administration considers the meeting--officially called the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance--a “historic opportunity . . . to create a new climate to fight racism.”

“The representatives of the United States government have their bags packed and are ready to go and attend this conference,” Fleischer said. “The only thing stopping them from going will be if the conferees divert the conference from its important mission . . . and get into issues such as equating Zionism with racism or engaging in issues facing backward on reparations.”

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appeared to back Washington’s position when he told the Urban League this week: “The conference must help heal old wounds without reopening them. It must confront the past, but most importantly, it must help set a new course against racism in the future.”

But in Geneva on Monday, representatives of the nongovernmental organizations that are planning to attend the Durban conference as observers approved a declaration that describes Israel as “an apartheid, racist and fascist state” that is conducting a “third holocaust . . . against the people of Palestine.” They said the United States and Britain share the blame for “initiating a flimsy peace process” that gives Israel diplomatic cover for what they called atrocities.

The nongovernmental communique is far less important than the formal declaration to be adopted by government delegations, but critics of the conference say it indicates which way the wind is blowing.

Although the reparations issue is also objectionable to Bush, the make-or-break dispute is over Zionism.

Israel is the only country singled out in pre-conference draft declarations. Organizers agreed long ago to avoid direct criticism of any country.

Tom Malinowski, advocacy director of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, said that if conference delegates want to start naming individual countries, the United States can play that game with skill and determination.

“There are ways to do it,” he said. “I’d call in the Arab ambassadors and say, ‘If you want to single out Israel, be prepared, because we are going to come to the conference and talk about Egyptian discrimination against Copts, Syrian discrimination against Kurds, Sudanese discrimination against people with dark skins and so forth.’ If they did that, it would be tough. And it would work.”

On Capitol Hill, the House voted 408 to 3 on Monday for a resolution sponsored by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) praising the objectives of the conference but denouncing “the divisive and discredited notion equating Zionism with racism.” Although the resolution doesn’t mention a possible U.S. boycott, Lantos aides say the United States should participate only if Zionism is taken off the table.

Lantos, a staunch Democrat and frequent critic of the administration, planned to fly to Geneva today to support the U.S. effort to change the agenda.