June 20th, 2007 by NGO Monitor Staff | Category: Durban Conference, UN

As NGO Monitor has reported, in November, 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to convene a 2009 follow-up to the World Conference Against Racism. The follow-up event will yet again take place in Durban. This item represents NGO Monitor’s ongoing monitoring of events and preparation leading up to Durban 2009.In a June 15^th, 2007 press release, UN Watch, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva whose mandate is “to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter,” announced that well-known human rights abuser Libya will be the Chair of the preparatory meetings June 25^th-29^th in Geneva for the UN anti-racism conference to be held in 2009, and may be selected as overall Chair for the Durban conference. Libya was chosen a preparatory conference Chair in 2003, a decision which drew outcry from international human rights groups. Hillel Neuer, executive director on UN Watch, had the following pointed response: “Choosing Colonel Khaddafi to head a world anti-racism conference is like appointing a pyromaniac to be town fire chief.” “How can a regime that consistently ranks as one of the most notorious violators of human rights…be charged with promoting fundamental principles of human dignity and equality?” Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia will also be among the 15-member bureau directing the preparatory meetings, it has been announced. A number of international NGOs are expected to participate in the Geneva meetings this month. At Durban 2001 the NGO Steering Committee of the UN World Conference Against Racism was established to coordinate NGO involvement with UN anti-racism meetings.

Last week, in related criticism, Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Dr Shimon Samuels, expressed in a statement to 56-State OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) conference in Bucharest deep concern that the upcoming UN anti-racism conference, and the major conference planned for Durban 2009, will continue to perpetuate the strategy outlined at Durban 2001 to delegitimize the State of Israel through a blueprint which, as Samuels reports, has been refined into the slogan “B.D.S” - “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.” Samuels urged the OSCE, “as an assembly of democracies,” to “act as the bulwark against the next Durban.”