Washington Office notes Colin Powell's
efforts to limit UN Conference on Racism
He sees calls for slavery reparations and
condemnation of Zionism as threatening to "derail" the
upcoming UN conference
[note dated 6/27/01, published here on 6-29-01]
Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, said today that controversial calls
for slavery reparations and a condemnation of Zionism could
"derail" an upcoming UN conference on racism. "We don't
want to derail this conference, but these issues could derail it and
make it harder for us to participate unless they're dealt with,"
Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Powell said he had told Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, in a meeting on Monday that "serious work"
needed to be done to remove the points which he said put the conference
"in danger of becoming mired in past events."
"I told her I was anxious to see strong US participation in the
conference but that some serious work needed to be done to eliminate
such issues as the 'Zionism is racism' proposition or getting into
slavery and compensation and things of that nature which would detract
from the purpose of the conference," he said.
Powell said he was hopeful that negotiators, who are to meet next month
ahead of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance that begins in late August, could
removed the language. "There may be some progress," he said.
Powell spoke a day after his spokesperson, Richard Boucher, said the two
points threatened the US presence at the conference set to start August
31 in Durban, South Africa. "Our desire (is) not to see issues of
Israel and Zionism raised in such a conference," Boucher told
reporters on Tuesday, adding that "demands for financial
reparations (for slavery) and a formal apology would do nothing to
address racism and discrimination today."
The comments by Powell and Boucher come as some US lawmakers have
demandedthat the United States participate in the meeting and not repeat
its decision to skip the two previous UN racism conferences, in 1978 and
1983. "I can foresee no acceptable reason this country can offer
for non-participation in such an important global conference,"
Representative Cynthia McKinney, a senior member of the Congressional
Black Caucus, wrote to President George W. Bush last month.
"To boycott (the conference) would be denying the citizens of this
country, many of whom suffer daily as a result of racism and
intolerance, representation in the discussion and planning process to
combat one of the most prevalent injustices to plague this nation,"
she said.
But, the State Department maintains that calls from some Arab nations
for a statement condemning Zionism as racism and African demands for
European and other western countries to pay reparations and formally
apologize for slavery do not fit the aims of the conference. "Our
desire (is) to see a forward looking and positive conference,"
Boucher said yesterday.
The United States is not alone in its objections as Britain, France and
Germany are also opposed the slavery compensation language, saying it is
too divisive and complex to be addressed in Durban. Israel has joined
the United States in lobbying to get the Zionism resolution and other
issues dealing with the Middle East conflict off the agenda, calling
them political and not racial matters.
