DURBAN--Obviously, for nongovernmental
organization members there's more to attending
a world conference than the free, logo-emblazoned
conference tee shirt, lightweight carry all bag,
white baseball cap, white ball point pen.
All
distributed on the conference's last day.
You come to be heard, to address the world, to
air a grievance.
"With the exception of a few United Nations
Member States, there has not been even one genuine
attempt to remedy the assaults upon the rights
of Indigenous Peoples and Nations," says a
statement issued by the Native American Heritage
Initiative and signed by persons from North, Central,
and South America.
Scores of nongovernmental organizations seek acknowledgement
of what the see as, at least, oppressive conditions
under which their group must live.
All who wanted
to be heard were not. Conference leaders cut
off the speaker's list before all NGOs
who wanted to speak did so. Between handouts and
delivered remarks, here's a sample. "Untouchability
was abolished and its practices in any form forbidden
in 1955," says a statement under the letterhead
of the Development Council of the Church of India.
But, says the Council, "untouchability and
social discrimination in the social and economic
relations still persists in various in the rural
as well as urban areas of the country" The
Council then asked the UN to "recognize," combat,
and plan and execute programs to protect the "several
million Dalit peoples of the human race."
If nothing else, the term untouchable, referring
to caste-based discrimination, is on its way out,
replaced by the noun, Dalit.
From Canada, comes
the African Canadian Legal Clinic calling upon,
to use their words, "Canada
to demonstrate its commitment to anti-racism and
human rights." Canada can do this by signing
provisions of the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
which allow for filing race-based human rights
complaints about Canada in the international arena.
Michelle Williams
in her "brief address" said, "Canada
is not susceptible to accountability at the international
level." Canada has signed and ratified the
convention, but has not filed the required letter
accepting the jurisdiction of the Committee on
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination.
Christopher Drake,
who signs his statement as "Representative
to the UN," has handed out the "Oral
Statement of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual
University. Drake says, "the ultimate origin
of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and
related intolerance lies totally in the human mind."
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