unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (08/29/89)
HUMAN RIGHTS SUB-COMMISSION DISCUSSES RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
(Received from the UN Information Service.)
GENEVA, 23 August -- The Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination
and Protection of Minorities this morning discussed measures to combat racism
and racial discrimination and the role of the Sub-Commission.
A report on the question was introduced by the Special Rapporteur,
Asbjorn Eide, expert from Norway.
Making statements were Waleed Sadi, expert from Jordan; Christy Mbonu,
expert from Nigeria; Jon Diaconu, expert from Romania; Danilo Turk, expert
from Yugoslavia; Halima Warzazi, expert from Morocco; Aidid Ilkahanaf, expert
from Somalia; Theodoor Van Boven, expert from the Netherlands; Fatma Ksentini,
expert from Algeria; Murlidhar Bhandare, expert from India; Mary Bautista
Concepcion, expert from the Philippines; Ahmed Khalifa, expert from Egypt, as
well as observers for the International Movement for Fraternal Union among
Races and Peoples, the Baha'i International Community and the World Union for
Progressive Judaism.
Also this morning, the Sub-Commission heard the introduction of its
agenda item entitled "The right of everyone to leave any country, including
his own, and to return to his country", by the Under-Secretary-General for
Human Rights, Jan Martenson.
Report On Decades To Combat Racism
ASBJORN EIDE, Special Rapporteur, introduced a study on the achievements
made and obstacles encountered during the Decades to Combat Racism and Racial
Discrimination. According to the report, apartheid continued to be the most
serious problem, to which priority attention should be given. The alleged
reforms were more formal than real. The distribution of South African land
continued to be built on the assumption that the white minority should
continue its control over more than 80 per cent of it.
For the international community, the response should be threefold, the
report stated. Sanctions, more concerted and comprehensive than today, should
be directed against the South African economy to take away any benefit which
the policy of apartheid gave it. Parallel with those sanctions, however, a
systematic policy of co-operation should be developed with groups which, in
one way or other, were active in the anti-apartheid struggle. Alternative
contacts within sport, culture and even economy, under conditions laid down by
the liberation movements and the internal anti-apartheid groups, would
strengthen those in the titanic but largely non-violent struggle now going on
in South Africa.
The report recommended in particular that the co-ordination function of
the Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights should be strengthened. More
resources should be made available for that purpose to the Centre for Human
Rights. There should be more co-operation among the United Nations organs and
agencies involved.
United Nations agencies should reassess their approaches to the
elimination of apartheid, the report continued. Sanctions should be
intensified on a global level. With regard to indigenous peoples, the report
recommended that States should be encouraged to ratify the new International
Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention on Tribal and Indigenous Peoples in
Independent Countries.
Other recommendations called for research in countries concerned to
determine the degree to which descendants of persons held as slaves continued
to suffer from social handicaps or deprivations, and for early completion of
the convention on migrant workers and their families, now under negotiation.
It said the United Nations should recognize the complexity of the issues of
ethnic discrimination, conflicts and protection of minorities, and develop
more functional responses to them.
The centrepiece in the endeavours towards elimination and discrimination
programme would continue to be the International Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination as applied by the Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination, it said. States which had still not
done so should be encouraged to become parties to the Convention, and those
with reservations should be encouraged to withdraw them.
Discussion
WALEED M. SADI, expert from Jordan, said that despite existing
legislation, the problem of racial discrimination was obvious in the United
States and Europe. He said that in Israel, the Palestinian Arabs were treated
as third-class citizens. It was necessary to rethink the approach to racial
discrimination, and affirmative action should be taken rather than a series of
"negative" recommendations. Regarding the Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination, that was a group of experts and it was important that
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