RIGHTS-AFRICA: Pro-Development, Anti-Racist Action Needed, Say Ministers

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Mar 22 2001 (IPS) - Racism and development are the dominant issues African nations have brought to the debate underway at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in sessions that began this week and end in mid-April.

On behalf of African countries, Amos Wako, Kenya’s minister of Justice, stated that “the scourge of racism has not only continued unabated, but has evolved to include new and contemporary forms.”

Among the central issues of the Commission’s annual sessions are preparations for the World Conference against Racism, convened by the UN for September in Durban, South Africa.

African leaders consider the success of the conference vital because the continent has “suffered greatly from the ravages of racism… clearly manifest in the centuries of brutality visited on the continent in the name of slavery and slave trade, and in the long years of colonisation and its negative effects,” Wako said.

The World Conference against Racism is to take place Aug 31-Sep 7, but preparations began last year with regional conferences in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.

The Office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights presented the first draft of the Durban conference declaration and the programme of action at a working group of the preparatory committee that met in Geneva earlier this month.

The content of this provisional document proved unsatisfactory to many countries, whose delegates reproached the UN Human Rights Office for having produced a skeleton of a declaration that lacks substance.

A new, corrected version of the text will be discussed at the next meeting of the working group, to open May 1. The preparatory committee is then to debate the content beginning May 21.

One of the principal differences between the old and new versions involves the demand by African nations for redress for victims of racism.

But Europe and the United States, for example, will only agree to a mention of moral reparations.

Taking the middle ground, Latin American and Caribbean representatives speak of satisfaction and restitution, largely in reference to lands seized historically from indigenous peoples. In those cases in which the land cannot be returned, compensation would be acceptable, they add.

The Kenyan minister said the Durban conference “must also give priority to the plight of victims with a view to enhancing their access to justice and providing for just and fair redress.”

Wako called for steeper penalties “for perpetrators of racist acts and racially motivated crimes, such as the inclusion of racial motivation as an aggravating factor in sentencing.”

South Africa’s minister of Foreign Relations, Nkosazaba Dlamini- Zuma, pointed out that the conference must also “take note of contemporary forms of slavery like trafficking in women and children, and xenophobia, which are on the increase in Africa, Asia, America and elsewhere.”

“Religious intolerance is still a major problem, and so is racism and racial discrimination. Sexism compounds racism and xenophobia for women,” she added, emphasising that all of these questions must be taken up by delegates at the conference in Durban.

The South African minister said the September meeting must serve as a bridge to overcome the past of deeply divided societies, caused by slavery, colonial exploitation and racism.

“One way of healing the divisions… would be to address the disparities in wealth and development,” stated Dlamini-Zuma.

Wako exhorted the Commission on Human Rights to back the conclusions approved by the UN working group that studied the question of the right to development.

“The African Group believes that the realisation of the right to development will be a crucial step in promoting tolerance and equal opportunity for all human beings,” he affirmed.

Zambia’s minister of Justice, Bonaventure Chibamba Mutale, stressed before the commission the seriousness of the poverty- related problems in his country.

The already unfavourable economic outlook of Zambia – like other Sub-Saharan African nations – is further threatened by the high incidence of HIV/AIDS. An estimated 30 percent of Zambia’s adult population is HIV-positive, said the minister.