The infamous “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” which took place in Durban (South Africa) from 31 August to 7 September 2001 and which turned into an anti-Israeli, not to say anti-Semitic, festival, is still present in our memories. The Durban Review Conference, commonly known as Durban II, will take place in Geneva on 24-29 April 2009.

Regional meetings in preparation of this conference are scheduled for between May and September 2008. The Regional Conference for Africa took place in Abuja (Nigeria) on 24-26 August 2008.

What were the objectives?
-To review progress and assess implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of action including manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, to combat and eliminate them.

-To underline also the importance of the Dakar Declaration and Programme of Action adopted at the Regional Conference for Africa held in Dakar, Senegal, in January 2001.

-To recall the values of human dignity and equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, the African Charter on Human Peoples’ Rights and all other related international elements.

-To recall also the great importance that African peoples attach to the values of solidarity, tolerance and multiculturalism, which constitute the moral ground and the inspiration for our struggle against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and the inhuman tragedies which Africa has suffered for too long.

The European Jewish Congress quotes UN Watch‘s analysis:
“African Prep Meeting slams Israel while silent on atrocities”.

The UN Watch Briefing analyses the following points:

- UN’s Durban II African Prep Meeting slams Israel, free speech; but silent on Darfur atrocities and African violence.
The declaration fails to address racial and ethnic crimes committed by Sudan, tramples international human rights on free speech, places Islam above all other religions and targets Israel alone, implying that it is uniquely racist. Durban II is looking more and more like the original Durban debacle of 2001.

- The declaration fails to review African performance on racism. The conference is ignoring:
1-the ethnic killings of at least 200,000 black Africans, mass rape and the displacement of over 1 million men, women and children,
2 -the xenophobic attacks that recently broke out in South Africa. Foreigners from Zimbabwe and Mozambique were targeted. 62 were killed. Thousands were displaced.
3- ethnic crimes in Kenya that killed 1,000 and displaced 600,000.
Millions of African victims of xenophobia are ill-served by the conference.

- The declaration attacks free speech, seeks to import Islamic anti-blasphemy prohibition into international human rights law.

- The declaration imposes hierarchy of religions placing adherents of Islam above all others.

- The conference singled out Israel for opprobrium, threatening to repeat the Durban Debacle of 2001.
The special issue reference to the Palestine issue implies that Israel is practicing racism.

In the daily newspaper Le Monde, dated August 29, Ambassador Stéphane Hessel extols the merits of the NGOs which will hold at UNESCO in Paris on 3-5 September 2008 an important conference organized by the United Nations on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human rights (B’nai B’rith will send an important delegation).

He agrees with all the criticisms of NGOs and denounces the lack of respect for human rights and for the Universal Declaration in many countries. However, we remain absolutely dumbfounded and speechless when he speaks in a single breath of the denial of the right to life in Darfur, Palestine and Somalia. Stèphane Hessel thus, wittingly or unwittingly, paves the way for a second Durban I.

Report by Gilberte Jacaret