FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2009-04-21
Palais des Nations
Geneva , Switzerland

Buoyed by the assurances of a high official in the Office of Human Rights, a coalition of NGOs representing African Diasporan descendants have declared victory at the opening day of the UN Review of the World Conference Against Racism [WCAR].  

At a briefing for NGOs, Dr. Ibrahim Salama of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said he was quite certain that the Draft Outcome Document, forwarded by the Third Preparatory Committee meeting to the Review Conference, would be accepted as an enhancement to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action [DDPA] by the over 170 countries in attendance. That draft document begins by reaffirming “the DDPA, as it was adopted at the WCAR in 2001.”  This simple affirmation is important given the continuing campaign by Western countries which signed the DDPA in 2001 to revise history and eliminate the tremendous steps which the DDPA represented in setting the concrete framework for resolving racism. These steps include: the acknowledgment of the economic basis of racism; the declaration that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery were crimes against humanity; and that the descendants of those victims were due compensation (reparations).

The NGOs noted that they were neither dismayed nor surprised by the cowardly withdrawal from the Review Conference of a very small minority of (9) countries. They noted that most of those who left were the principal perpetrators and/or beneficiaries of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery and that their furtive retreat was: i) in the particular, a futile attempt to avoid their historical obligation to pay reparations to the descendants of the victims of their criminal activity; and ii) in the general, exposure and criticism of the fact that from 2001-2009 they had taken no actions at all, thereby failing to fulfill their commitments under the DDPA.

Attorney Roger Wareham, of the December 12th Movement and International Secretary-General of the International Association Against Torture, quoting the famous boxer Joe Louis, said of those countries responsible for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery, “’they can run but they cannot hide.’ This Review Conference and the Outcome Document will serve as a catalyst for our people to become even more active in pursuit of our just and long overdue demands. We are one step closer to reparations.”