From the birthplace of passive resistance, a call for tolerance.

• Position: Durban Conference against Racism

The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance ended in Durban, South Africa, with a call for the international community to eradicate those scourges. Durban: where Gandhi began his movement of passive resistance against apartheid and colonialism. South Africa: the birthplace of a model for a future of understanding and respect.

After nine days of intensive and often difficult deliberations that threatened to unravel hard-won compromises, the Conference adopted a Declaration and Programme of Action that commit Member States to undertake a wide range of measures to combat racism and racial discrimination at the international, regional and national levels. Determined to draft a text before the official end of the Conference, participants worked into the following day to finalize an agreement. An apology for slavery and "a recognition" of the plight of Palestinians in Israel were both part of the final document. A number of delegations made known their reservations or disassociations on certain issues, including those relating to the Middle East and the legacy of racism.

On the Middle East, the Conference called for the end of violence and the swift resumption of peace negotiations; respect for international human rights and humanitarian law; respect for the principle of self-determination; and the end of all suffering, thus allowing the Israelis and the Palestinians to resume the peace process and to develop and prosper in security and freedom. Expressing concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation, its Declaration recognized their inalienable right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent State. It also recognized the right to security for all States in the region, including Israel, and called upon all States to support the peace process and bring it to an early conclusion. On slavery, the Conference agreed on a text that acknowledges and profoundly regrets the massive human sufferings and the tragic plight of millions of men, women and children as a result of slavery, the slave trade, apartheid, colonialism and genocide. Acknowledging these were appalling tragedies in the history of humanity, it further acknowledged that slavery and the slave trade, especially the transatlantic slave trade, are a crime against humanity and should always have been so.

"I do not claim that this Conference has solved the problems of racism, racial...