The UN High Commissioner is trying to rewrite the Durban II Conference again, this time in her annual Report to the General Assembly.
First, she claims that "The
successful result of the Conference, held in Geneva from 20 to 24 April 2009, [is] illustrated by the
adoption by consensus of the outcome document..." The Durban II document does not represent a "global consensus." Ten leading democratic states boycotted the Durban Conference: United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, the Czech Republic (then head of the European Union) and Israel.
She goes on to state that her "goal has been to ensure that
the interest of victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance would remain
the focus of the process." In reality, the Durban II Conference actively prevented consideration of discrimination against
Tibetans, ethnic cleansing of
Berbers and Bahais and genocide in
Darfur. In addition, reference to Sub-Saharan slave trade was deleted from the outcome document.
Then she tries to downplay the obsessive focus on Israel: ""Some key elements of the outcome document include acknowledging that racism exists in
all societies..." But Israel was the only country singled out in the outcome document - the Durban II text "reaffirms" in its first paragraph the 2001 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) which mentions only the state of Israel and claims Palestinians are victims of Israeli racism.
To give more credibility to Durban II she boasts that the "OHCHR endeavoured to ensure the
effective participation of over 300 civil society organizations...". In fact, the Durban II outcome document was adopted 2 days before a single NGO made intervention.