India for moderation at Durban meet

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, AUG. 27. As a series of divisive issues cast a political shadow over the United Nations conference against racism, beginning in Durban on Friday, India hopes to take the middle path and promote compromise and consensus.

Although the Indian debate in the run-up to the conference has been riveted to the relationship between caste discrimination and racism, the real battles at the week-long deliberations in South Africa will be centered around other issues. Despite a clamour from Indian non-governmental organisations for a few words condemning caste discrimination, the issue is unlikely to demand too much of the energies of either the Indian delegation or the conference itself. Caste oppression is among the many skeletons in the cupboards of nations that radicals and NGOs dragged out into the public realm at Durban. But no multilateral conference can depart too far away from the original agenda - in this case racism and racial discrimination - and yet come out successful.

Informed sources here said the diplomatic play at the conference would be on how to characterise the inhuman slave trade of the past, whether there should be reparations for past abuses of slave trade and colonialism and the restitution of cultural property to their rightful owners.

Meanwhile, as at every international conference on any subject, passions about the Palestinian question and Arab-Israeli tensions dominate the political mood and this one at Durban is no exception.

Whether by design or accident, the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance might have forced many countries to debate issues that official establishments would have preferred to sweep under the carpet. As Ms. Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, who is serving as the Secretary-General of the conference, said it might have turned the light ``on the many dark corners'' across the world. India is not the only country upset at uncomfortable issues coming up at Durban. References to the rights of ``indigenous populations'' irritate the Americans, Canadians, Australians.

At the regional preparatory conference of the Americas at the end of last year, the U.S. delegation put it down that references to the rights of indigenous people should by no means construed as the ``right of self-determination''!

Arab Gulf nations might want strong condemnations of Zionism but are not prepared to countenance any references to the rights of ``guest workers and migrant labour''. The wealthy nations of West Europe and North America do not care much for strong words on the ``rights of asylum seekers''.

In the end, all these issues are likely to be peripheral to the central debate on slavery, colonialism and reparations. The U.S. might be prepared for some contrition on slave trade but has dismissed out of hand any fund for reparations (compensation). But many African nations and their supporters in the developing world want such a fund. The United States, however, has its own domestic politics to manage on the issue.

India would like to see the avoidance of extremist positions at the conference, official sources here said. It would like to see a ``constructive and forward looking approach'' on key issues, rather than a recrimination about the past. India's voice would be ``one of moderation'' and would seek to build bridges among different positions. New Delhi believes that a contested final document at Durban might allow some nations to claim political victory, but would hardly help realise the basic objectives of the conference.

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