STATES ATTENDING the controversial UN Durban review conference in Geneva yesterday adopted an anti-racism declaration in a move diplomats hope will ease tensions following a walkout prompted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech denouncing Israel earlier this week.
The text was adopted by consensus by 190 countries at the Palais des Nations yesterday afternoon.
The conference was organised to review progress in fighting racism since a similar gathering in Durban in 2001. That event ended acrimoniously as the US and Israel staged walkouts after some countries attempted to define Zionism as racism.
The fact that the declaration, the result of several months of diplomatic negotiations in Geneva, was endorsed at an early stage in the week-long conference has raised hopes of a successful conference despite the stormy opening session on Monday.
Dozens of EU delegates, including the Irish Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Daithí Ó Ceallaigh and three other Irish diplomats, left the conference hall on the first day of the gathering after Mr Ahmadinejad launched a tirade against Israel, at one stage referring to it as “the most cruel and racist regime”, created on the “pretext of Jewish suffering”.
Most of the diplomats later returned – except for the Czech Republic which announced it would join states which had decided to boycott the meeting from the outset: the US, Israel, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and New Zealand. It has since emerged the Iranian president had deviated from his prepared speech, dropping sections including one describing the Holocaust as “ambiguous and dubious”.
It is not clear why Mr Ahmadinejad departed from the original text, but his address came after a meeting with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
Diplomats said the furore over Mr Ahmadinejad’s speech had strengthened their resolve to adopt the declaration as soon as possible.
“There was a danger that the purpose of the conference would be overshadowed by what had happened on the first day,” said a diplomatic source. “There was a sense that this needed to be done.”
Amos Wako, who is chairing the conference, described the 16-page declaration as a “historic outcome”.
The document contains calls to fight various forms of racism, discrimination and intolerance, and mentions the legacy of slavery and the impact of poverty, among other issues. It urges countries to implement and use mechanisms to track progress in combating racism. The text does not mention Israel and does not propose to curtail criticism of religions – something Muslim countries had lobbied for in earlier stages of negotiations on the draft document.
It does, however, state that it “reaffirms” the original declaration agreed at the Durban conference in 2001, which included specific mentions of Israel and the Palestinians. This was one of the reasons the US and other countries chose to boycott the Geneva conference this week.
But others praised the declaration. UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay said the document was an “important initiative” that would allow states to discuss contested issues “in a non-confrontational manner, while safeguarding the fundamental importance of freedom of expression”.