West Asia takes centre stage

DURBAN, SEPT. 1. The World Conference against Racism entered its second day today with attention focussed on tackling accusations of racism in West Asia - an issue that threatened to overwhelm the gathering's agenda.

Conference committees were scheduled to work on the wording of a final declaration, a draft of which has been condemned by the United States for its anti-Israel language.

The White House, which has called parts of a draft declaration anti-Semitic, said American diplomats would leave the conference if the provisions were not removed.

In spite of an announcement on Friday by the American civil rights leader, Rev. Jesse Jackson, that the Palestinians had decided not derail the conference by singling out Israel as a racist state, the Palestinian leader, Mr. Yasser Arafat, accused Israel of ``racist practices'' against the Palestinians. His harsh words undercut Mr. Jackson's efforts to solve the symbolic and semantic nature of the dispute. Palestinian officials later accused Mr. Jackson of being ``overzealous'' and said they would still seek condemnation of what they called Israel's racist practices.

The Cuban leader, Mr. Fidel Castro, branded Israeli actions against Palestinians as genocide and blasted the United States for seeking to hobble debate on the issue at the conference.

``(Nobody) has the right to set preconditions to the conference or urge it to avoid the discussion ...(of) the way we decide to rate the dreadful Genocide perpetrated, at this very moment, against our Palestinian brothers,'' Mr. Castro said.

The veteran Cuban leader backed call for reparations, saying that countries that had grown rich on ill-gotten gains from human trafficking had the resources to pay.

Concern over caste system

An NGO forum, running parallel to the conference here has described India's centuries-old caste discrimination against millions of dalits as ``massive and systematic generational genocide''.

Concern over the ``caste system'' is reflected in the forum's 18- page declaration as a result of the active participation of more than 300 Dalit activists from all over India, representing over 50 NGO organisations.

Among the leaders are three Lok Sabha members - Mr. Prakash Ambedkar, Mr. Ramdas Athawale and Mr. Pravin Rashprapal.

The Dalits, especially those from Tamil Nadu, took part in a massive march here yesterday singing, dancing and playing drums to the applause of their fellow protestors from South Africa and other parts of the world.

Plantation Tamils' plight

The plantation Tamils of Sri Lanka, who were taken to the island country more than 200 years ago from Tamil Nadu, are seeking support for their cause at the conference with their leaders highlighting their "discrimination" by the Sri Lankan Government. Eight representatives of the Plantation Tamils are participating at the NGO Forum and the world conference

Mr. Vijesandiran Sangaran, leader of the Human Development Organisation of the Plantation Tamils, said ``the stateless people are denied all services such as education, health and housing. The people are living as paupers in the land of their birth.

``Because we are in the centre of the country we always become targets whenever the majority Sinhala people want to avenge the actions of the Tamil Tigers.''

- AP, PTI, REUTERS

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