Durban, South Africa — The third World Conference Against Racism (WCAR)ran into extra overtime on Saturday, a day after the meeting was scheduled to end in the South African port city of Durban. This followed an overnight extension to further debate on unresolved issues. By midday local time, there was still no indication when the conference might finish.
The conference chairman, South Africas foreign minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, requested an other extension, but said this would be subject to the availability of conference interpreters, whom she indicated were scheduled to wrap up business by 4pm local time.
By 2pm, (12h GMT) there had been no fresh announcements about the proceedings.
Most delegates have now left the port city. President Thabo Mbeki flew out of Durban en route to Port Elizabeth on Friday night to attend the funeral of his father, Govan Mbeki one of the leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle, who died on the eve of the conference opening last Thursday.
Before he left, the South African Press Association, SAPA, published part of Mbekis closing speech, scheduled for delivery at the end of the plenary session on Friday. In it he said "None of us achieved everything we wanted, but we have started an historical process which provides us with a solid foundation to continue the struggle to build a better world for us all".
The statement continued, "Few in the world can say that they have not heard us. Few on our common universe can now say that they did not act, simply because they did not know".
Announcements late Friday that the final plenary session of the racism conference would be held on Saturday morning, followed possibly by a closing ceremony, were confounded by the realities of a conference that has teetered on the brink of collapse since the Americans and the Israelis walked out on Monday.
Their withdrawal was over what they called hateful and anti-Israel language in a draft declaration. The Middle East question has dominated the Durban conference. A new document, drafted by the South African hosts, threw out any references to Israel as racist. It did however speak about the 'plight of the Palestinian people.
The Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), which had resisted the third draft declaration on the Middle East, finally conceded during overnight negotiations. The OIC accepted the compromise text, despite what they considered its shortcomings.
The organisation issued a statement on Saturday morning, that it had 'in a constructive spirit chosen not to block consensus" and the success of the conference, though the indication clearly fell short of their, and Palestinian, demands that Israel be publicly condemned in the final declaration.
The OIC said it wished to "express our solidarity with the people of Africa, and African descent and the people of Asia".
The EU had refused to allow the conference to take sides in the proceedings on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and wanted this reflected in any official documentation.
The Middle East crisis was unofficially top of the agenda in Durban, closely followed by another contentious issue, slavery and reparations.
After days of deadlock, agreement appeared finally to have been reached on slavery and colonialism early Saturday, between the African bloc and countries from the European Union. The two groups have been battling over the language of how to address past injustices, especially the issue of reparations for the devastation inflicted by the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
The EU spokesman, Koen Vervaeke told Reuters News Agency "I can confirm that agreement between the EU and the Africa group on the document on the past has been reached, the right wording has been found".
Details of the agreement were not immediately available. During the conference African countries hardened their position on comprehensive restitution, from the countries that benefitted from an industry that witnessed the export and suffering of millions of Africans, shackled in chains, to the New World.
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A South African official in Durban said that European countries had accepted to apologise for slavery and agreed to call it a 'crime against humanity which, along with reparations, was the main obstacle that led to the impasse. The EU bloc had balked at branding the slave trade a crime against humanity, in case this implied legal liability.
The South African Minister of Public Service and Adminstration, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, said the EU would also offer a package of economic assistance to Africa, and called the resolution of the dispute a 'major victory and a 'fair solution.
If and when the UN Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance ends in Durban, it it expected to produce a declaration of principles and a programme of action to be adopted in the fight against racism.
More than one hundred and sixty countries have attended the conference, which opened last week Friday in the presence of a dozen heads of state, all of them African except President Fidel Castro of Cuba and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.
