These demands have mainly been made by African and Caribbean countries, though other nations like Malaysia have pitched in (ignoring its own discriminatory policy of Bhumiputra - sons of the soil - against the ethnic Chinese and Indians).

Slavery was admittedly one of the biggest crimes against humanity in recorded history. As one of the Caribbean delegates reminded the conference, some 15 million black Africans were shipped into the Caribbean and the Americas under the most horrific conditions. Slave labor enriched countries like the US and the British colonies. Arabs also profited as they were the ones who controlled the trade, often doing the dirty business of capturing the slaves and negotiating their sale.

When slavery was eventually abolished legally - by a white man, incidentally - many slave-owners were compensated. Why weren't slaves compensated? Good question. And it is at the heart of the reparations debate.

The trouble is that those slaves are long dead, even though their descendants may be alive. How do you compensate the victims of slavery? And whom do you compensate? The countries from where the slaves were taken, or the descendants of the slaves? And what kind of compensation are we talking about? On what basis will the compensation be made?

I doubt whether any of these questions have been adequately addressed, let alone answered. Let us also not forget that at roughly the same time as slavery was in full swing a great many people were shipped out by the British and other colonial powers on the basis of what was called "indentured labor." This was only a small notch above slaves. Indentured laborers were treated virtually like slaves by their masters, the only difference being that the laborers got their freedom after a specified period of time.

That is how millions from the Indian sub-continent found themselves in places like Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, the Caribbean and East Africa, working on the sugar-cane fields, building railways and working in other ways for their colonial masters. They, too, suffered great indignities and helped enrich the respective colonial powers they served. Shouldn't those Indians also ask for an apology and reparations? It is another matter that the same Indians, after their indentured period was over, went into trading or became small shop-keepers. Through dint of hard work and enterprise, many of them prospered over the generations.

There is another problem over "crimes against humanity", such as the slave trade. How far in history should one go back?

The much admired Greek democracy of ancient times actually had slavery as its base. The system of slaves continued into the Roman Empire. When the Spaniards came into the New World, they wiped out countless natives of South America, almost obliterating their civilizations, while carrying off whatever riches they could lay their hands on.

How about apologies and reparations for all these mass killings, indignities and attendant plunder? Chenghiz Khan and his fearsome armies swept across most of China, Russia and Europe, destroying and killing everything in their path. Muslim rulers from Central Asia invaded India repeatedly from the 13th century onwards, looting and killing, while destroying Hindu temples. Should India ask for an apology and reparations from the countries where these invaders came from?

I am perfectly aware that it will not bring me any applause at the World Conference Against Racism, but the best policy in such matters, especially when the offence goes back several centuries, is to let sleeping dogs lie.