April's UN meeting must avoid the 2001 fiasco of Durban, writes MARY FITZGERALD, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
REMEMBER DURBAN? The diplomats tasked with negotiating the preparatory declaration for next month’s UN conference on racism certainly do. The South African city provided the backdrop for what was supposed to be a landmark gathering – the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance – in September 2001.
But the nine-day summit soon descended into often-bitter wrangling over prickly issues such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and slavery reparations. The US and Israel staged a walkout after Arab nations pushed for the adoption of a resolution that equated Zionism with racism.
That controversial line was not included in the final declaration but the mood had by then turned so sour that when Mary Robinson, who had presided over the conference as then UN high commissioner for human rights, declared that consensus had been reached, the overall feeling was more one of exhausted resignation than victory.
The purpose of next month’s conference, due to be held from April 20th to 24th in Geneva, is to assess progress since that infamous Durban gathering.
“It is widely recognised that Durban was a fiasco. That is uppermost in everybody’s minds. No one wants a repeat,” says one European diplomatic source.
But already there is something of a bad mood rising. Israel and Canada have withdrawn from the summit, citing fears that some countries may use the platform to attack Israel. The US and Australia threatened to do the same unless the wording of the previous draft declaration was radically altered.
On Monday, the EU warned that it too would pull out unless there were substantive changes to the document. Italy had previously denounced what it called “unacceptable, aggressive and anti-Semitic phrases” within the text.
A new compromise draft, circulated to diplomatic missions on Tuesday, removed all specific references to Israel and the Palestinians. Passages relating to so-called “defamation of religion” were also dropped from the reworked draft. These references had been included after members of the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) lobbied hard at the UN following the publication of controversial Danish cartoons lampooning the prophet Mohammed in 2005.
Sceptics, however, charge that the OIC’s efforts to outlaw what it calls defamation of religion have more to do with stifling freedom of speech and silencing criticism of the treatment of women and people of other faiths in some Muslim countries.
The revised text also omits a passage on reparations for slavery, which had been sought by several African countries, and does not include a proposal protecting against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
UN high commissioner for human rights Navanethem Pillay said yesterday that she hopes the new text will mark a “major turning point“ in preparations for the summit.
“I really hope that this marks the necessary breakthrough needed to achieve consensus on a text that must offer concrete help to hundreds of groups and millions of individuals who are subjected to racism and other forms of intolerance all across the world.
“No continent, indeed no individual country, is free of these dangerous phenomena, and it would be inexcusable if states failed to reach consensus on such important issues.”
Pillay urged all countries to refrain from taking “narrow politicised or polemical stances on particular issues” and to work together to ensure a successful outcome for the conference.
An Irish diplomatic source said the revised text, elements of which remain to be negotiated in coming weeks, had been broadly welcomed by EU member states but further discussions will take place tomorrow.
“The initial sense is that it meets the key EU concerns . . . Ireland’s view is that this is a very important issue and we are committed to the process.”
Babacar Ba, the OIC’s representative to the UN in Geneva, told The Irish Times that OIC officials would meet today to discuss the latest version.
“We will see if [the text] is convenient for us and then we will co-ordinate our official position,” he said.
Meanwhile, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who will lead the Vatican delegation at next month’s conference, said it should not fall prey to politicised agendas.
“We need to be open and to bring the document into line with human rights language, not political language,” he added.
Israel remains sceptical, noting that the latest draft still affirms the outcome of the Durban conference in 2001, which expressed concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under occupation. The Israeli foreign ministry has reportedly instructed its diplomats to lobby more countries to join it in boycotting the Geneva gathering.
The US state department has previously said its attendance is dependent on specific criteria, including that the declaration must “not reaffirm in total the flawed 2001 Durban declaration and programme of action” and that “it must not single out any one country or conflict”. The latter may have been achieved in the amended text distributed on Tuesday, but it is thought unlikely that the endorsement of the 2001 declaration will be discarded ahead of next month’s conference.
Whether the US participates or not, European diplomats are hoping the Geneva summit will not turn out to be a rerun of the unseemly politicking that gave Durban a bad name eight years ago. “The issue of racism is too important to allow it to be hijacked by other issues and political considerations,” one said.