UN High Commissioner for Human Rights "shocked" at US boycott of anti-racism conference

[Better Believe It]

Boycotts hit U.N. racism conference
CNN
April 19, 2009


The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said she was "shocked and deeply disappointed" at the boycott.

"A handful of states have permitted one or two issues to dominate their approach to this issue, allowing them to outweigh the concerns of numerous groups of people that suffer racism and similar forms of intolerance to a pernicious and life-damaging degree on a daily basis all across the world, in both developed and developing countries," she said in a statement. "These are truly global issues, and it is essential that they are discussed at a global level, however sensitive and difficult they may be."

The document will reaffirm anti-discrimination commitments agreed at a 2001 meeting in Durban, South Africa. The United States objected to the 2001 agreement -- joining Israel in walking out of the Durban meeting.

The boycott has caused concern among anti-racism campaigners in the United States.

The Congressional Black Caucus said it was "deeply dismayed" by the decision made by the nation's first African-African president, saying it was inconsistent with administration policies.

"Had the United States sent a high-level delegation reflecting the richness and diversity of our country, it would have sent a powerful message to the world that we're ready to lead by example," a statement from the group said.

"Instead, the administration opted to boycott the conference, a decision that does not advance the cause of combating racism and intolerance, but rather sets the cause back."

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/04/19/racism.conference/index.html

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay,


Navi Pillay, UN Human Rights Chief, Reminisces as Victim and Enforcer


I was told things like 'white secretaries can’t take instructions from a black person,'" said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who is of Indian descent, recalling her years growing up in apartheid South Africa when she wanted to become a lawyer in a society stratified by institutionalized racial discrimination.

But she persevered, completed her university law studies and, finally, was taken on as an intern by a black lawyer. She opened a law practice of her own in 1967, not out of choice, but because nobody would employ a black woman lawyer, and by the early 1970s, had challenged laws that permitted torture and unlawful methods of interrogation, leading to better conditions for all those imprisoned on Robben Island, including future president Nelson Mandela.

Over 20 years later, Pillay was on the other side of the bar, meting out justice to the Hutu extremist perpetrators of the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus as President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

"Impunity, armed conflict and authoritarian rule have not been defeated," she said. "Regrettably, human rights are at times sidestepped to promote short-sighted security agendas. And lamentably, a trade-off between justice and peace is often erroneously invoked when societies emerge from conflict and combatants return to their communities.

But just as she persevered over 40 years ago as a young university student, so will she persevere today as the world’s top human rights official. "One of the main challenges I face, like my predecessors, is to get the international community to take human rights seriously. When I leave this job, I would like to be able to say that I've made a real difference in some people’s lives, because the organization I head has functioned to its full potential."

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.asiantribune.com/%3Fq%3Dnode/14656&usg=__GTs0-C39pZ8SfSMvwoPSMgZ1188=&h=167&w=250&sz=9&hl=en&start=12&tbnid=KHzMr5xJq6_SNM:&tbnh=74&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3DNavi%2BPillay%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

[Better Believe It]

1. Obama "sends a disappointing signal" says TransAfrica Forum

U.S. Appears Set To Boycott U.N. Session on Racism
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post
April 14, 2009

The Obama administration appears to be standing by its decision to boycott the World Conference Against Racism next week in Geneva, despite efforts to focus and tone down language in a draft conference document viewed as hostile toward Israel.

The preliminary conference document ran 45 pages and called for reparations for slavery, condemned the "validation of Islamophobia," and asserted that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is grounded in racism.

In response to objections raised by negotiators from the Obama administration, the document has since been dramatically shortened and many of its sharp statements have been removed. Still, the administration seems uninterested in attending, stoking frustration among activist groups who have said that it is ironic that the nation's first black president would choose that course.

"For his administration not to be present at this global conversation is a disappointment," said Imani Countess, senior director for public affairs at TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group that focuses on U.S. foreign policy. "For President Bush not to participate, that would have been expected. For Barack Obama's administration not to participate sends a disappointing signal. It says these issues are not important."

TransAfrica sent a letter to Obama late last week urging him to send a delegation to the United Nations-sponsored meeting, saying that to do otherwise would contradict his promise to engage even with nations that hold views that are contrary to those held by the United States. Moreover, the letter said, U.S. participation would send an important message to the rest of the world.

"U.S. participation in the conference is critical for both symbolic and political reasons," said the letter, which was also signed by other leaders, including Jesse L. Jackson and the heads of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[DJ13]

2. Its kind of hard for the administration to justify this boycott

Especially with this headline on all the news sites-

"Obama says reaching out to enemies strengthens US"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090420/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cb_obama_summit

[Thrill]

9. No its not hard to justify. He gave his reasons. And it makes sense to me.

[Better Believe It]

20. You mean surrender to right-wing extremist bigots in Israel?

[Freddie Stubbs]

31. Congressman Henry Waxman applauded this. Is he a right-wing extremist bigot?

:shrug:

[sakabatou]

3. The government stumbles again.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

4. Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, Israel, Italy and Sweden are also boycotting.

Britain is attending though.

[Better Believe It]

5. And apparently all of Latin America, Asia, Africa along with Britain and most of Europe will attend

[SemiCharmedQuark]

6. The article singled out Britain.

Though it doesn't specify why.

[cali]

19. Actually, the number of EU nations boycotting is growing

Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland. Others are making it clear that they'll walk out if the conference is derailed and devolves into a repeat of Durban I.

[Better Believe It]

21. Almost sounds like Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" except not nearly as big!

That's eight nations boycotting! The world is speaking in defense of Israeli racists!

NOT!

Looks like Israel with Obama's help is doing everything it can to derail the UN Conference.

[Thothmes]

27. Heard this morning that Germany was considering a boycot.

n/t

[Clio the Leo]

7. Oh for cryin' out loud B! Who's side are we on!

The Jews or the Muslims! I'm so confused!!! :)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i6ecexdBkxIt7Bk972XjwNW2c2yA

We are dealing with a mind more complex than we've seen in quite some time .... and we dont know how to react. Sometimes things aren't just black or white .... they're simultaneously both and neither and somewhere in the middle.

Oh the irony....

[SemiCharmedQuark]

8. If you don't agree with it, you should work within the conference to change policy, I think.

Not boycott it.

[Clio the Leo]

10. Sigh.....

... I love ya SemiCharmed but SURELY you dont REALLY think they just stormed out of the pre-conference planning without making an effort to come to a reconcilliation.

From the article I just linked to....

"I would love to be involved in a useful conference that addressed continuing issues of racism and discrimination around the globe," (Obama) said.

But the US president said inclusion of anti-Israel language that was "oftentimes completely hypocritical and counterproductive" in the draft final communique was a red line for his administration.

"We expressed in the run-up to this conference our concerns that if you incorporated, if you adopted, all the language from 2001, that's just not something we can sign up for," he said.

Obama acknowledged that other countries had "made great efforts to accommodate some of our concerns," but said the concessions had not been sufficient.

"If we have a clean start, a fresh start, we're happy to go" to a future meeting on the issue, he said.

Ug ... sometimes yall give me a headache. :)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

12. I understand his problem with it, in reaffirming the 2001 language, but still..

I am not sure how successful a boycott is here.

[Clio the Leo]

13. So, we attend the boycott and bang our head

.... against the wall some more?

What is it about the conference that's going to allow reconcilliation when they couldn't get it before? What am I missing?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. I don't know. It's a tough call. Ahmedinejad being there doesn't help things either.

[Chulanowa]

17. You really think that, huh?

That the US is staying out of the conference (along with most of Europe and Israel) because it would be "banging their herad against the wall", that is, it would accomplish nothing.

Well, gee, if all the nations with any clout in the UN are stepping out of a conference, is it any surprise when that conference doesn't produce results? None of these nations has ever been very reluctant to "beat their head against the wall," as you phrase it. But on this subject, with this conference, so many nations suddenly decide to take a break and reach for the motrin... Why is that?

That's the intent. We don't want this conference to reach results

The United States, Europe, and Israel are arguably some of the most egregious offenders when it comes to racism and bigotry, and are unarguably the biggest beneficiaries of these problems. Do you know how much money the US alone makes off ethnic strife in just Africa? Billions. Do you know how much money the United States stands to lose, if it comes under actual pressure to honor its own treaties? Trillions. Want to try to calculate how much money arms and security companies are making off our war-that-isn't-really-a-war-against-muslims-no-really-it's-not? How much cash do you think results from US tech companies' exploitation of India's caste system?

Now calculate for each other country not attending this conference. Calculate it for how much Great Britain, France, and Belgium owe their former colonies in damages, both financial and human. Calculate it for how much property Israel has stolen. Calculate it for how much cash all of these countries are making out of exploitative and racist practices the world over, Clio.

You end up with a very large sum of money, very quickly. It gets even larger if you start counting how much money the attending nations make off the same practices - nobody's innocent in this. It just happens though that the biggest offenders who stand to lose the most from any sort of reconciliation are the ones stepping out and denigrating the whole thing.

Guaranteed, whatever the results are, it'll be blown off as "brown people being stupid and racist against our poor white selves."

[Clio the Leo]

23. The meetings and correspondence BEFORE the conference have accomplished nothing...

.... and I still fail to see how the conference would change that. (and trust me, I'm all ears to anyone who can explain it to me.)

The President's statement (which I excerpted above) indicates that efforts have already been made to come to a common agreement with those we disagree with on the matter and those efforts apparently accomplished nothing.

Is the President just BS-ing us?

I dont understand who you think will utter the phrase "brown people being stupid and racist against our poor white selves," but I can GUARANTEE you that it wont be Barack Obama.

[Egnever]

18. Thats a pretty good reason!

Thanks for posting that.

[Better Believe It]

24. Please read the articles before commenting on them. Thanks!

"In response to objections raised by negotiators from the Obama administration, the document has since been dramatically shortened and many of its sharp statements have been removed. Still, the administration seems uninterested in attending, stoking frustration among activist groups who have said that it is ironic that the nation's first black president would choose that course."

[Clio the Leo]

25. The key word there is "many"

"the document has since been dramatically shortened and many of its sharp statements have been removed." Many but not "all" apparently. It's hard to say without the article citing what it's referring to. :)

So either the admin. is STILL not happy with the final draft communique, or the President didn't get the memo that everything's fine or he's full of shit. I guess we just have to take our respective picks.

NOW, if you have an article that points out specifically how the final communique does, in fact, no longer contain the language the admin. is upset with, I'll be happy to read it.

[Better Believe It]

26. Did you mean to write: "language that the right-wing Israeli regime is upset with"?

[LooseWilly]

11. The Congressional Black Caucus

... is obviously just a bunch of trolls...

:tinfoilhat:

[Number23]

15. If Navi Pillay is of Indian heritage, why do they keep calling her black??

In South Africa, wouldn't the term used be "coloured?" That article is confusing...

[nsd]

16. I don't think these distinctions matter to racists.

Also, the term "coloured" in South Africa was used to refer to people of mixed-race. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured">Coloured

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. almost all the countries with a white majority seems not to be attending

i was quite horrified when i read that this morning

[Better Believe It]

28. Avoiding A Walkout

Week In Review
A Weekly Column by Bill Onasch
April 19, 2009

Avoiding A Walkout

Though best known for such screen gems as the Predator series, Danny Glover is actually a pretty good actor. But before he was an actor he was an activist. Raised by parents committed to the union and civil rights movements, he was part of the Sixties student upsurge at San Francisco State. He has continued all his life, even after becoming rich and famous, to be a dedicated supporter of many social justice issues.

In 2001 he was part of a 2,000-strong unofficial American delegation to a UN sponsored World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa. In a recent Nation article entitled Race and the Obama Administration, Glover describes this group,

“...a rainbow of people crossing all lines--racial, ethnic, national, language, immigration status, religious and much more--joining an equally diverse crowd from across the globe. It was an extraordinary opportunity to meet, discuss, argue and strategize over how to rid the world of these longstanding evils.”

He continues,

“Our participation paralleled that of the official US delegation. And that's where we faced a huge challenge. The Bush administration team, having only grudgingly agreed to participate at all, made clear they had no real commitment to fighting racism or offering leadership on other challenging issues of discrimination. When they didn't like a few small parts of the sixty-one-page text, they packed up and walked out of the conference. It was a sad but hardly surprising moment, exposing once again the history of US failures to take seriously the consequences of its own legacy of racism, a point most recently made by Attorney General Eric Holder.”

Now, eight years later, a follow-up Durban Review conference begins tomorrow in Geneva. Glover closed his article with this appeal,

“This should be a moment for the United States to rejoin the global struggle against racism, the struggle that the Bush administration so arrogantly abandoned. I hope President Obama will agree that the United States must participate with other nations in figuring out the tough issues of how to overcome racism and other forms of discrimination and intolerance, and how to provide repair to victims. Our country certainly has much to learn; and maybe, for the first time in a long time, we have something by way of leadership to share with the rest of the world in continuing our long struggle to overcome.”

Well, the Obama administration will not walk out of the Durban Review as the Bush team did in Durban. They are not going in the first place. Along with the Canadian and Australian governments they are joining Israel–who doesn’t like it when people such as Bishop Tutu and Jimmy Carter speak of their apartheid-like treatment of Palestinians--in a boycott. Secretary of State Clinton is urging other allies to do the same. Yet another “sad but hardly surprising” example of the inability of the U.S. Establishment to deal with “the consequences of its own legacy of racism.”

http://www.kclabor.org/wir4192009.htm

Copyright Issues. The original content we provide is now copyrighted and may not be reproduced by commercial media without our consent. However, labor movement and other nonprofit media may reproduce with attribution.
http://www.kclabor.org/good.htm

[genna]

29. Legacy or continued course?

The one outstanding issue about the 2008 election cycle is race. Obama was patted on the back for suggesting it is our history and not where we currently are.


There is this duality he inhabits that makes any acknowledgment of racial discrimination abhorrent. I'm sure race has nothing to do with that Homeland Security report hailed by the right last week. I'm sure race has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with those comments and signs by the teabagging protesters on last Wednesday. I know without a doubt that increased number of threats against the POTUS is race neutral. *sarcasm*


Rather than dwell on the way things are, we should live beyond what we are currently facing. It is much better to embrace the people who embrace us and keep an eye on the people who look forward to the day where we know our place again. *sarcasm*


I think this just shows there are some issues where Obama is too boxed in to the standard formula to move beyond. If he addresses this issue, how can he get health care, economic distribution of wealth, and foreign policy with a smile done. He can only focus on so many issues at one time. Why should discrimination be one? *sarcasm*

[Better Believe It]

30. Race and the Obama Administration

Race and the Obama Administration
by Danny Glover
The Nation
April 9, 2009

Danny Glover is an actor/activist and chair of the TransAfrica Forum Board of Directors.

In 2001 I traveled to Durban, South Africa, to join the tens of thousands of people who came to participate in the United Nations-sponsored World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. More than 2,000 came from the United States, a rainbow of people crossing all lines--racial, ethnic, national, language, immigration status, religious and much more--joining an equally diverse crowd from across the globe. It was an extraordinary opportunity to meet, discuss, argue and strategize over how to rid the world of these longstanding evils.

Our participation paralleled that of the official US delegation. And that's where we faced a huge challenge. The Bush administration team, having only grudgingly agreed to participate at all, made clear they had no real commitment to fighting racism or offering leadership on other challenging issues of discrimination. When they didn't like a few small parts of the sixty-one-page text, they packed up and walked out of the conference. It was a sad but hardly surprising moment, exposing once again the history of US failures to take seriously the consequences of its own legacy of racism, a point most recently made by Attorney General Eric Holder.

This year we thought things would be different. Our country has taken a huge step in our long struggle against racism: we have elected our first African-American president. And perhaps more important, the mobilization of people who made Barack Obama's election possible brought more young people of color into political action, with others of various ethnic and political backgrounds, than perhaps any campaign before. It is a moment not to sit on our laurels; certainly, we have much farther to go. But it is certainly a moment for our nation's political leadership to acknowledge a new marker in the long and painful struggle for justice, and a time to offer global leadership in the United Nations forum organized to combat bigotry and injustice.

In an effort to address the administration's concerns, the United Nations has released a new "outcome document," stripped of all language deemed offensive or controversial. Yet we face the sad reality that our president, the first African-American to lead this country, who has galvanized hope among victims of injustice around the world and encouraged them to stand up with dignity for their rights, has yet to indicate if he will send an official delegation or continue to abstain from the entire process.

This should be a moment for the United States to rejoin the global struggle against racism, the struggle that the Bush administration so arrogantly abandoned. I hope President Obama will agree that the United States must participate with other nations in figuring out the tough issues of how to overcome racism and other forms of discrimination and intolerance, and how to provide repair to victims. Our country certainly has much to learn; and maybe, for the first time in a long time, we have something by way of leadership to share with the rest of the world in continuing our long struggle to overcome.

Please read the complete statement at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/09-9