DURBAN--Dr. Barney Pityana,
Chairperson, South African Human Rights Commission,
and part of the host delegation, tried to start
the midday press briefing off on a positive note.
He made it to the third question of the question-and-answer
session before a reporter from The Los Angeles
Times finally asked the question.
"Won't the pullout
of the US and Israel affect all these issues being
discussed
in the plenary?"
"This is the question I had hoped wouldn't
emerge," he said with a wry smile. "But
it would be very unrealistic in a conference like
this that politics wouldn't emerge. Racism is a
political issue."
Before the question was asked, Pityana had avoided
the issue, emphasizing instead the slow, but significant
gains he said were being hammered out in the drafting
sessions. The most important development so far,
he reported, was the inclusion in the text of a
reference to racism as a crime against humanity.
This, he said, would pave the way for an International
Criminal Court to hear cases of racial discrimination.
"What this does is it imposes an obligation
to criminalize racism," he said. "It
means that if a state should refuse to act, it
opens up the possibility of individuals in some
certain circumstances to take that state to the
International Courts."
While that sounds like great progress in racial
discrimination cases, it is likely to be many years
before this happens. Not only must states sign
the text from this conference, but 60 member states
must ratify the Rome Statute, which would create
the International Criminal Court. More than 45
states, including South Africa, have already ratified
the Rome Statute.
The second item that Pityana offered as a pearl
of good news was that, on Tuesday morning, a paragraph
had been inserted in the text calling for the international
media to examine their role in promoting racism.
"The mood I had this morning listening to
the president of the conference, Deputy Minister
Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, listening to the High Commissioner
says to me that this conference can be turned around
into a means of cooperation and commitment for
others," he said.
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