DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - A U.N. race conference entered its final day on Friday deadlocked over the Middle East and whether Western nations owed Africa an apology for slavery.(Read photo caption below)
A South African initiative failed to achieve a breakthrough on the contentious issue of the Middle East. Its draft supported Palestinian rights for a homeland but removed language that branded Israel as racist.
Munir Akram, Pakistan's U.N. ambassador to Geneva and chairman of the Islamic group at the conference, said Muslim states were seeking changes.
``The suggestions are very moderate and seek to reflect the legitimate interests of the Palestinians,'' he told Reuters.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is visiting Sweden, said in Uppsala he was still hopeful the conference could reach a deal on the outstanding disputes.
``The South African government has worked very hard to produce a new text on the Middle East and they are working with other governments to come up with a compromise text on the issue of slavery and colonialisation and reparation,'' he said.
``I'm hopeful that they will succeed,'' Annan added.
Negotiators have sought a compromise since Monday over language in a draft resolution on Israeli-Palestinian violence, and a second stumbling block over slavery.
European Union states said they broadly welcomed Pretoria's proposed text, but Arab and Islamic countries are pressing for some form of condemnation of Israel.
The latest draft recognized the ``plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation'' and included a statement that said all states, including Israel, had a right to security.
Hundreds of people, mostly Palestinian, have died in almost a year of violence that erupted last September when peace talks stalled and Palestinians launched protests against Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
DISCRIMINATION, NOT RACISM
Diplomats said Islamic states were not now insisting Israel be accused of racism. ``We are talking more of discrimination,'' said one diplomat.
The conference teetered toward collapse on Monday when the United States and Israel dramatically walked out in protest at anti-Israeli language in the proposed U.N. document.
The conference, which had been billed as a milestone in the international battle against racism, has also struggled with demands from African states for apologies from their former colonial masters for centuries of slave trading.
African states refused to drop demands for an apology and reparations for slavery and colonialism, casting doubts on the possibility of an agreement on past injustices.
``We are hours from the end of the conference and we have still had no compromise proposed,'' one European diplomat said.
African countries are demanding an explicit apology for slavery from countries involved in the former transatlantic traffic in humans and other examples of white domination including colonial rule.
Europe, afraid of anything that might lead to legal demands for compensation, is willing to express regret but fears that a full apology may spark a wave of costly law suits. It also does not want to link aid cash to past wrongs.
On Thursday, Namibia's Herero people said they had brought a 2 billion suit in a U.S. court against three firms for alleged German colonial atrocities a century ago.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Demonstrators hold a candlelight protest against attempts by the United States and other western governments to eliminate language condemning racism from documents of the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), in the coastal city of Durban September 5, 2001. Africa was headed for a showdown with its former masters over demands that states that profited from the slave trade and colonialism apologize and pay reparations for the damage done. (Mike Hutchings/Reuters)