Participating nations at the United Nations conference on racism reached agreement Saturday on language condemning the African slave trade and racial discrimination and voicing concern for the suffering of Palestinians.
The conference, held in Durban, South Africa, was able to agree on a declaration in its ninth day even though the United States and Israel walked out last Monday in a dispute over whether Israel should be labeled a racist state. Arab delegates made a last-ditch attempt Saturday to criticize Israel by name, but that language did not make it into the final document. Instead, the conference merely expressed concern for the plight of Palestinians.
European delegates, who had threatened last Wednesday to join Israel and the United States in their walk out over the question of whether to condemn Israel, helped work out the compromise language on the Palestinians and on wording that said slavery should have always been considered a crime against humanity.
The conference declaration also said states have moral obligations to stop and reverse the consequences of slavery. However, the declaration did not call for any compensation for the African slave trade to be paid by Western nations. Instead, it only recognizes that some nations have taken steps to do so in some situations.
