Divisive U.N. Race Talks End in Accord

After nine days of often bitter debate, the U.N.-sponsored World Conference Against Racism declared its profound regret for four centuries of slavery Saturday and expressed its deep concern about the plight of the Palestinian people.

But to many of the delegates who came to this southeastern African port city from more than 160 countries, Saturday’s wrap-up reflected less a new international unity than a collective exhaustion. Few left here satisfied with the result.

Delegates from around the world, many with competing agendas, managed to unanimously support a statement and action plan for combating racism and related discrimination. The conference goal was consensus, and that was what organizers achieved after an event that at times teetered on the verge of collapse.

Still, the tumultuous week often served as a platform for individual advocacy rather than a search for common ground.

If the broader conference goal was to bring adversaries closer, to bridge gaps in thinking, especially on the emotional issues surrounding slavery and the Middle East, that proved elusive. On both issues, consensus was reached because neither side wanted responsibility for destroying the conference and embarrassing host country South Africa--not because they had come to terms, negotiators said.

“We went along in the interest of the conference and the interest of our friends the Africans,” said Nasser Alkidwa, head of the Palestinian delegation.

An Australian representative told the packed hall: “Far too much of the time at this conference has been consumed by bitter, divisive exchanges on issues which have done nothing to advance the cause of combating racism. This has been particularly evident in respect of the debate on the Middle East.

“They [the documents] contain language which will do nothing to achieve greater peace in that troubled region and nothing to advance the objectives of this conference.”

The conference’s final declaration did contain a broad call for combating discrimination and supporting the rights of women, migrant workers, Gypsies and other minority groups, either directly or indirectly. The action plan called for the creation of a special committee that, if approved by the U.N. General Assembly, will monitor member states’ compliance with the conference suggestions.

“Below the political radar screen there are lots of victories,” said Reed Brody, director of advocacy for Human Rights Watch. “The trick will be to see whether governments deliver on what they promised.”

The issue of slavery and its legacy served to expose--and harden--differences in thinking between the West and descendants of African slaves. Where the white community approached the matter from the perspective of contemporary concerns--its members wanted to avoid being sued--Africans expressed an almost ancestral responsibility to exact an apology from the descendants of former slave masters.

In the end, that situation did not change but was reaffirmed.

“Under international law, there is no right to a remedy for historical acts that were not illegal at the time at which they occurred,” Canadian delegate Paul Heinbecker said in a closing statement to the convention.

“Shame! Shame!” shouted black delegates seated in the hall.

The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance sought to tackle some of the most controversial issues in contemporary society all at the same time, all in one venue and all in a little more than a week. Its mammoth agenda touched on every corner of the globe. The ambitious undertaking was overwhelmed from the beginning by the heated passions surrounding the Middle East and slavery.

In particular, Palestinians and their supporters turned to the conference as a platform to address their struggle for an independent state. For almost a year, they have waged an uprising against Israel. At first, they called on the conference to equate Zionism with racism. Then they backed off slightly to allow for language that talked about Zionist racist practices.

The U.S. and Israel withdrew in protest Monday over those attempts.

Under pressure from the European Union, such language does not appear in the final document. Negotiators went through the text, finally settling, for example, on saying, “We are worried about the Palestinian people living under foreign occupation.” The Palestinians had wanted the sentence to identify Israel as that occupier, and therein lies the diplomatic sleight of hand that sealed the deal. Everyone concerned knows that Israel is what is meant--the document just doesn’t say so.

The document also calls for the right of refugees to return to their homes--in an obvious reference to the Palestinian demand that people displaced by Israel be allowed to reclaim their land.

From the perspective of Israeli supporters, the Palestinians won this round, not in the document, but in the public psyche. The conference permanently, and for the first time officially, cast the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in racial terms. Israel insists that the fight has to do with politics and territory.

“This is a big win for the Arab side,” said Ann Bayersky, an attorney with the International Assn. of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. “You will find the language of racism firmly embedded in the Middle East from now on.”

Members of the Islamic community didn’t see a victory but instead a watered-down text that was forced on them.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran would like to dissociate itself from all paragraphs pertaining to the Palestinians and the Middle East issue as appeared in the final document of this conference,” an Iranian representative said at the final meeting.

Slavery also promised from the start to be a contentious issue, with many African nations and groups representing descendants of slaves asking not only for an apology but also for reparations. The community was assertive last week in saying it was not necessarily looking for money but wants empowerment, such as a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. It also pushed the Europeans to declare the transatlantic slave trade a crime against humanity.

Again relying on semantic hairsplitting, the European Union, which led these negotiations, avoided either apologizing, offering reparations or declaring the centuries-old slave trade a crime against humanity. The agreement said the conference does “acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity,” with the operative word being “are” as opposed to “was.” In reference to history, the EU would allow the document to say only that the slave trade “should always have been” such a crime.

The document also says: “The World Conference acknowledges and profoundly regrets the untold suffering and evils inflicted on millions of men, women and children as a result of slavery, slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, apartheid, genocide and past tragedies.”

Again cautious wording defeated the African goal. It is not the EU offering regret, but the conference.

“This is very bad, very disappointing,” said Fode Dabor, an ambassador from Sierra Leone and a member of the African negotiating committee. “But we all had to go along because no one wanted to take the blame for the conference collapsing. We lost on everything, the question of the apology, the question of the slave trade and the question of reparations.”

The conference was supposed to have wrapped up Friday. Brinkmanship negotiating extended it into Saturday. Event organizers were desperate for a consensus in part because final documents have no legal standing and are only as influential as the voices they reflect.

After all the deals were cut early Saturday, delegates thought that they were in for an easy ride, accepting the document, making a few speeches and going home. But nothing about the conference proved easy, and at the eleventh hour, as work crews were carting away lights, chairs and metal detectors, Syria, supported by Pakistan, unexpectedly presented a motion calling for the conference to adopt a text implicitly referring to Israel as racist. A roll call vote was taken, and the effort was defeated. That vote also eliminated the chances that any other matters would be addressed, including the plight of the Dalits, or untouchables, on the Indian subcontinent.

That paved the way for delegates to stand and begin outlining their disappointment with the process and, in many cases, the final product.

The speeches might have continued for hours, but the conference president, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma, said the forum had run so long that the translators had to go home. Russia, Japan, Lebanon and other nations were forced to submit written comments.

Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights and general secretary of the conference, concluded: “It has been an exhausting nine days for all of us. But I believe it was worth it. We came a long way. Many questioned if we could reach consensus, and we have.”