India's Northeast again described 'occupied territory'

By M.S. Prabhakara

DURBAN, SEPT. 6. The NGO forum's declaration, adopted two days ago and whose copies are still not easily available, has described the whole of northeast India as ``occupied territory''.

This surprising formulation, which was part of an earlier draft, had been modified in the ``final draft'' of the declaration. However, the declaration as adopted at the end of the forum's deliberations restored the original formulation.

The formulation, which appears in the last sentence of paragraph 97 of the declaration under the sub-section titled `Colonialism and Foreign Occupation', reads thus: ``We extend our solidarity to the struggles for self-determination for the people of Palestine, West Sumatra, Aceh-Sumatra, Bougainville, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, North Cyprus, and other States and indigenous communities, including the Kurdish people, the indigenous people in the northeast of India and in the northeast of Sri Lanka, in Tibet, Kashmir, Bhutan, Mindanao and the non-independent countries of the Caribbean, like Puerto Rico, and recognise the situation of other people living under foreign occupation in different parts of the world.'' However, the affirmation of the ``right to self- determination of all peoples'' made in the long preamble, comprising 62 paragraphs, refers, in so far as South Asia is concerned, only to ``Kashmiris, Sri Lankan Tamils and Tibetans'', once again reflecting the contradictions in the declaration. The underlining of Bhutan probably reflects some disagreement or the fact that Bhutan is a full member of the United Nations and is participating in the WCAR.

The preamble acknowledges ``50 years of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka which has resulted in death, disappearances, rape, torture and destruction and affirming the right to self-determination of the Tamil minority'' and recognises ``that certain cultural groups with a distinct identity such as Sikhs, Mohajirs, Sindhis, Balochs face barriers on a complex interplay of racial, ethnic, religious and cultural factors.''

However, the elaborate ``Programme of action'' (260 paragraphs) has nothing to say on what the forum proposes in respect of the people of these ``occupied areas''.

The preamble also recognises that ``the caste system discriminates against and enables segregation of communities on the basis of work and descent, such as Dalits in South Asia, SIA, the Buraku people of Japan, the Osu and Oru people of Nigeria and the Griots of Senegal and other communities resulting in flagrant violations of human rights and dignity, with women and children of these communities being particularly vulnerable to barbaric forms of violence.''

The declaration deals with the issue of caste and descent-based discrimination, including the practice of untouchability, devoting eight paragraphs to this issue and characterising the caste system as ``hidden apartheid''.

However, the most controversial formulation in the declaration is the section dealing with `Palestinians and Palestine'. Paragraph 162 in this section reads thus: ``We declare Israel as a racist, apartheid state, in which Israel's brand of apartheid as a crime against humanity has been characterised by separation, dispossession, restricted land access, denationalisation, bantustanisation and inhuman acts.'' The declaration also calls for ``an end to the Israeli systematic perpetration of racist crimes, including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing.''

The Secretary-General of the WCAR and U.N. Human Rights Commissioner, Ms. Mary Robinson, took exception to the formulations and declined to recommend the NGO declaration to the general body of the WCAR. Indeed, many individuals and lobbies broadly sympathetic to the concerns of the NGO forum, as Ms. Robinson too admitted she was, have expressed their dismay over the declaration - the intolerance of some formulations as well as their imprecision and internal contradictions.

The WCAR, meanwhile, continues to strive for a consensus on the language of the final declaration dealing with what the WCAR officials describe as the ``difficult issues'' - those dealing with apology for slavery, slave trade and colonialism and the situation in West Asia. Countries of the European Union remain opposed to any formulation describing slavery and slave trade as a ``crime against humanity'' even as they are ready to be more accommodating in respect of reparations, in the form of supporting the Millennium Africa Plan.

It is now almost certain that the WCAR will not be able to complete its work by Friday evening, as originally scheduled. At a media briefing today, a WCAR official suggested that journalists should ``stop their watches on Friday''.

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Section  : International
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