Bush still holding back on racism conference

FROM THE ARCHIVE

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 2001

President Bush wants the United States to attend an upcoming global conference on racism but is still worried that two issues will throw the meeting "off track", said a spokesperson on Wednesday.

If participants in the World Conference Against Racism discuss Zionism as racism or slavery reparations, United States representatives will not attend, said press secretary Ari Fleischer. In particular, Bush considers the slavery issue a step into a "tangled past" with too many unanswerable questions.

"The United States intends to go to this conference," Fleischer said. "The President wants this conference to be successful by dealing with the current problems that nations and people face combatting racism."

But slavery reparations would be a "look backwards," according to Bush. Laying blame on African nations for participating in the global slave trade network, Fleischer said "after all, West Africans enslaved Africans. Does that mean the nations of West Africa should pay reparations to themselves?"

In talks with international negotiators, State Department officials have already threatened to skip out on the conference if reparations or Zionism as racism are on the agenda. The Bush administration considers them regional issues which would undermine the international focus of the conference.

The position has brought charges that Bush is unconcerned with racism and its effects. But the White House defended the President, pointing out that he addressed the National Urban League, a predominantly African-American group, yesterday and called on the "soft bigotry of low expectations" against Black students to end.

Bush isn't the only one who has voiced concerns about the conference, though. At a hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in May, Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) told Alaska Natives they should be wary of being "used."

"I really fear the concerns of Alaska Natives may be used improperly by countries whose primary purpose is to undermine the credibility of the United States," Murkowski told Julie Kitka, President of the Alaska Federation of Natives.

Alaska Natives have been battling a number of issues they say are tied to historical racism. Rapes of women, unresolved deaths and the recent paint-ball attacks by three white males of Natives have been some of the high-profile incidents which are the focus of a state commission on intolerance.

Organizers of the conference, which begins at the end of the month in South Africa, say indigenous peoples will be high on the agenda. They cite broken treaties, land claims, forced schooling and poverty among the legacies of discrimination against Natives.

The United Nations this week began working on the agenda for the conference. Mary Robinson, United Nations high commissioner for human rights, has called on rejection of the Zionism issue.

In 1975, Arab countries introduced a resolution denouncing Zionism, the movement which led to the creation of the state of Israel. The resolution was subsequently repealed.

On the slavery issue, Bush does not support reparations for American descendants, said Fleischer. But he does support payments made to Japanese-Americans interned during World War II because it is a "separate" issue.

Reparations to African-Americans and Japanese-Americans are "different issues in the President's eyes," said Fleischer, "dealing with the internment issues that took place in this century, compared to issues that took place hundreds of years ago."

Relevant Links:
World Conference Against Racism, UN - http://www.un.org/WCAR
Alaska Federation of Natives - http://www.akfednatives.org