S. Africa to seek consensus on agenda

By M. S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, JULY 31. South Africa, as the host country and Chair of the forthcoming World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban from August 31 to September 7, is caught in a cleft spot as the controversy over the issues of Zionism as a form of racism, and reparations for slavery and colonialism remain unresolved.

The final meeting of the preparatory committee of Foreign Ministers where the agenda for the conference is to be finalised is taking place in Geneva. The South African Minister, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is leading the South African delegation to the meeting. An earlier meeting of the committee in Geneva did not make any headway because of the opposition of the U.S., as well as some erstwhile colonial powers such as Britain, Portugal and Spain on both these issues. The proposal to place these issues on the agenda arose from a regional preparatory meeting of Arab and Asian states in Teheran last year. The Western powers, led by the U.S., have however strongly opposed such formulations, with Washington threatening recently to stay away from the Durban meet if these issues figured in the agenda. The U.S. did not attend the two earlier World Conferences on Racism (Geneva, August 1983 and Vienna, June 1993) because of its opposition to the agendas of these conferences equating Zionism with racism.

Insofar as public pronouncements go, South African reaction to the U.S. threat has been low key. According to the Director General for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Sipho Pityana, who is part of the South African delegation to Geneva, it was not for South Africa to persuade anyone, including the U.S., to attend the conference. ``What level of delegation and what delegation and what decisions different countries take will project the way the view the issues around the conference. If they do not come, people will read into it that they do not see the issues as important. It will send a signal to their own constituencies and the rest of the world'', he said.

The problem is that South Africa is as much part of the U.S. ``constituency'' as those others, individuals and structures, governmental and non-governmental, who presumably would make adverse inferences if the U.S. were to stay away from the meet. There are reports of plans by several South African NGOs linked to pro-Palestinian organisations to stage demonstrations if these issues do not find a place on the conference's agenda.

However, unlike these, South Africa cannot afford to appear to be overly adversarial on this issue, given its own national and international priorities which depend on close and amiable relations with the U.S. - a situation and a linkage applicable even to the most vociferous of the critics of the U.S. According to the foreign affairs spokesperson, Mr. Ronnie Mamoepa, the very failure of the previous preparatory meeting will ``spur us to find a common ground''. South Africa, Mr. Mamoepa said, had sufficient experience in consensus-seeking and would attempt to find ``appropriate language'' that would satisfy all parties.

Interestingly, there are some indications that the U.S. may relent lent from its stand and go along with some form of ``shared, collective acknowledgement'' of the damage caused by slavery and colonialism if the issue or reparations is not pressed and, more crucially, if the proposal to equate Zionism with racism is abandoned.

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Section  : International
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