September 4, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia No-go situation for NGO racism forum By Cheryl Goodenough DURBAN - Civil society groups have been unable to forge a final declaration or program of action to fight racism after five days of intensive talks alongside a similarly fractious meeting of their governments. The August 28-September 1 NGO (non-governmental organization) Forum, held in tandem with the August 31-September 7 World Conference Against Racism, was marred by disorganization and irreconcilable disputes over the wording of the declaration and action plan. Tsering Jampa of the International Campaign for Tibet said that her organization was shocked to find that no mention of Tibet had been made, despite recommendations from Forum commissions. She accused several NGOs from China of being government fronts and said that they attempted for days to remove references to Tibet. Jampa likened Tibetan issues to those confronting Palestinians, which she said were given notable space in the draft Forum documents. The final declaration and program of action was to have been presented to United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson during the Forum's closing ceremony on Saturday. The combined document was intended to inform discussions at the intergovernmental conference, which is being attended by only a select few NGO representatives. The 10-year program of action was to serve as a blueprint and framework for action by governments and civil society to correct and eliminate racism worldwide. Debate on the documents continued late into Saturday evening, after the Forum's closing ceremony. A delegation representing 20 NGOs from Eastern and Central European countries including Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Yugoslavia said that their region also was neglected. "A global forum such as this should have a global perspective," said one member. State-sponsored racism had resulted in ethnic cleansing in several countries of the region, according to Yuri Dzhibladze from the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights. He said that governments deny that the problem is racism and that the year-long run-up to the Forum was a waste of time and effort if the final conference documents excluded the region. Dzhibladze said his delegation had tried to play by the rules, which were not very clear, to get their issues addressed. "We didn't feel like just joining the demonstrations. We were trying to provide information," he said. Yet, delegation members said they felt that the Forum was more successful for those who had obtained a high profile through protests. Jampa said that during the NGO Forum most delegates focused on parochial interests and few showed solidarity with others. "Everyone is working on their own issue. Everyone has an agenda," she said. Within two days of the Forum opening, delegates expressed concern about program changes, including the names of facilitators and rapporteurs. Some facilitators were given 24 hours' notice that they would have to chair commissions that covered issues about which they were unfamiliar. Delivery of the draft final documents was delayed, organizers said, because of difficulties with translation and photocopying. One worker charged with delivering the documents to the Forum venue said that staff had only four hours in which to prepare and circulate them to about 7,000 participants. Then, contradictions emerged from the draft documents, particularly relating to the Middle East crisis, which dominated the Forum. A section on anti-Semitism stated: "We are concerned with the prevalence of anti-Zionism and attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel through wildly inaccurate charges of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and apartheid." However, the section on Palestine stated that the Forum declared "Israel as a racist, apartheid state in which Israel's brand of apartheid as a crime against humanity has been characterized by separation and segregation, dispossession, restricted land access, denationalization, 'bantustanization' and inhuman acts." The anti-Semitism section was subsequently voted out of the document. (Inter Press Service)

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