African NGO `Make Reparations for Slavery`

With a week before the first World Conference on Racism (WCAR) in 18 years, a united front of forty African NGOs are urging the WCAR to acknowledge slavery as a violation of human rights and requesting the nations responsible for slavery to make reparations.

Aliune Tine, the controller of the African NGOs participating in the WCAR in Durban, South Africa from August 31 to September 7, said in a statement given in Dakar, Senegal, ``The enslavement of black people and colonization played an important role in deepening racism against Africans.``

Also, foreign ministers from the Arab nations announced on August 23 that they are planning to put all their efforts into declaring Israel`s Zionism as racist. Zionism is the campaign to establish a Jewish national state in Palestine.

The demands for declaring slavery as a human rights violation and Zionism as racist are expected to create a major stir in the WCAR which is holding its first meeting in 18 years and will be attended by 10, 4000 representatives from 194 governments and nongovernmental organizations.

As slavery and Zionism constitute very serious and sensitive issues, representatives from some 100 countries came together in Geneva, Switzerland from the end of last July to the beginning of August to discuss the closing statement and plan for action, but they failed to reach an agreement.

The U.S. and European superpowers are willing to acknowledge their involvement in slavery, but they aggressively oppose making formal apologies and reparations as topics for discussion. They are also taking the position that they will not discuss Zionism in consideration of Israel.

The U.S. even threatens to boycott the conference if these issues become topics of discussion. The U.S. withdrew from the 1978 and 1983 conferences because Zionism became one of the issues to be discussed.

On the other hand, African nations and international human rights organizations are asserting the position that the conference must use this opportunity to resolve legally and economically the slavery issue once and for all. Furthermore, Arab nations are insisting that the conference must discuss the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Additionally, the conference will address the Indian caste system and European hate the groups which target foreigners.

The insertion of the passage `Improvements will be made in history and other subject-textbooks along with other educational material on human rights` in the conference bulletin is also drawing attention. This is interpreted as a result of the recent controversy over distortions in the Japanese history textbook.

Lee Jong-Hoon taylor55@donga.com