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DURBAN,
Sep 3 (IPS) - The United States and Israel, faced with an implacable
wall of support for Palestine, pulled out of the U.N. World Conference
Against Racism Monday .
''I
have instructed our representatives to the World Conference Against
Racism to return home,'' U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said
in a statement. Israel followed suit within hours.
Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told a news conference in Jerusalem
the talks here had degenerated into an "unbelievable attempt
to smear Israel."
Washington
did not send delegations to U.N. anti-racism conferences in 1978
and 1983. It sent a low-level team to the talks here and announced
their withdrawal late Monday, citing a failure to remove from conference
documents what U.S. delegates termed ''hateful'' language about
Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
"We're
not surprised,'' said Palestinian NGO leader Ziad Abbas. ''The U.S.
always supports Israel."
U.S.
civil rights leader Jesse Jackson criticised Washington's "low-profile
delegation and high-profile pull-out".
''The
U.S. is squandering a unique opportunity to stand against intolerance,
to take pride in its own successes and to face up to the challenges
in the long fight for equality at home and abroad,'' added Reed
Brody, advocacy director at U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
Mary
Robinson, the U.N. human rights commissioner, said she ''truly regretted''
the U.S. decision but added the conference would continue on what
she described as a journey on behalf of the plight of numerous groups.
"The
conference has begun to produce tangible benefits," said Robinson.
The
European Union said its delegates would stay to negotiate the "substance
and form" of the draft declaration and programme of action
to be adopted when the conference ends Sep. 7.
A
number of critics and analysts said Washington invoked the disputed
text dealing with Israel to deflect attention away from its own
uneasiness at U.S. blacks' calls for reparations to be paid for
slavery.
''It
will be unfortunate if a perception developed that the U.S. withdrawal
from the conference is merely a red herring demonstrating an unwillingness
to confront the real issues posed by racism in the USA and globally,''
said a visibly disappointed South African delegate.
A
South African government statement described the U.S. move as ''unnecessary''.
This
was because wording that equated Zionism with racism already had
been taken out of the draft conference documents after the United
States and Israel expressed grave misgivings. U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan himself pronounced the equation "dead".
U.S.
sources said, however, that they opted out over disagreement about
how to deal with the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews: Israel
maintained its position that the word 'holocaust' should be a proper
noun and appear with a capital 'H'. Its critics opposed this, argued
that Israeli-Palestinian clashes should be described as ''ethnic
cleansing'', and defended a reference to Israel's practice of ''racial
discrimination'' in the occupied territories.
To
prevent the conference from failing, Nkosazana Zuma, the South African
conference president, recommended this section of the documentation
be revised.
Although
the U.S. decision ostensibly was based on the wording of the final
conference documents, participants said the pro-Palestinian atmosphere
of the meeting undoubtedly played a part.
Behind
the scenes, a persuasive Palestinian delegation has worked the halls
and fringe meetings to win support for its cause. Abbas said this
backing for Palestine had not been difficult to secure because abuses
of Palestinians' rights was easy to show.
The
Youth Summit and NGO (non-governmental organisation) Forum that
preceded the main conference both issued strong statements against
Israel. One NGO declaration, from which a number of groups abstained,
denounced Israel for committing ''genocide''.
By
contrast, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat received a warm welcome
and pictures of him in friendly embrace with South African President
Thabo Mbeki have been beamed around the world.
When
the conference opened Aug. 31, at least half of the estimated 10,000
protestors outside assembled in support of Palestine and carried
banners proclaiming "Amandla Palestine" ('Power to Palestine').
Muslim sympathisers performed Friday prayers outside the conference
centre and re-enacted the martyrs' funerals that have become a staple
of television coverage of Palestinian uprisings.
South
Africa's governing African National Congress repeatedly has parried
U.S. and Israeli insistence that the conference steer clear of Palestine.
"People are dying. We must talk about it," Deputy President
Jacob Zuma said last week. (END)
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