From April 20 to 24 of next year, the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance will be held in Geneva in order to assess fulfilment of commitments of the Durban Declaration and Plan for Action of 2001.  In preparation, a conference of Latin American and Caribbean governments was held this week (June 17 to 19) in Brasilia, preceded by a civil society forum. During the opening ceremony, the Afro-Costa Rican leader Epsy Campbell Barr offered the following words in the name of civil society.

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Greetings to the government representatives and other delegates present at this Latin-American and Caribbean Conference for the review of Durban.  We especially greet the Brazilian government and the Special Secretary for the Promotion of Racial Equality (SEPPIR) for your commitment, demonstrated both nationally and regionally, to this Governmental Conference and in support of our recently concluded Civil Society Conference of the Americas.  Greetings, also, to my friends in the social organizations that have given life and meaning to the agreements and commitments of Durban.

As a woman of African heritage, one of the more than 150 million persons of African descent in the region who have historically been victims of racism and discrimination, it is both an opportunity and a responsibility to address you in this opening ceremony.

Durban allowed for states to recognize that racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related forms of intolerance are realities in all countries of the region--realities that affect tens of millions of individuals, peoples, and whole communities by making them into victims with limited citizenship and without full rights: indigenous people, persons of African descent, migrants, gypsies, women, youth, LGBT, those with disabilities, those living with HIV/AIDS, all of them are denied freedoms because of their race, ethnicity or gender, and in general face unacceptable conditions.

The last seven years have borne witness to progress, but the reality of exclusion, poverty, and the denial of rights persists for the majority of victims of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia. We applaud the affirmative actions promoted in different countries, such as Brazil and its actions for the benefit of youth of African descent in the universities. We celebrate that many countries have, in different degrees, advanced to meet the commitments of Durban. Nevertheless, we also recognize that the budgetary and financial resources have been absolutely insufficient to fully deal with this problem. The greatest challenge is the implementation of affirmative actions with universal policies that mainstream the reality of the victims into all actions and programs of government. We recognize the actions within the UN System, but we consider them insufficient, excessively narrow and without proper financial backing.

We regret that certain governments that signed the Durban agreements have once again asserted internally that racism does not exist, and we point to groups that, under the guise of progressivism, hinder actions in support of victims of racism, maintaining unequal societies where millions of persons are mired in exclusion.

More than new agreements, this revision of Durban should set forth challenges to be met with deadlines and both regular budgets and significant special funds, as well as mechanisms for accountability, which would guarantee the active participation of the victims of racism.

Some of the actions should be framed in a census based on concrete indicators, disaggregated by gender, race, and ethnicity; programs and policies targeted at young afro or indigenous people; addressing existing racial violence with policies to handle the criminalization of afro-descendant youth, and genocide justified by the fight against delinquency; concrete actions that support internal migrants; policies for women that combat sexism and racism; the incorporation of the reality of racism into all agendas: democracy, food crises, energy and environmental crises, trade agreements; indigenous and afrodescendant land and territorial rights; and the creation of an emergency action plan for indigenous and afro-descendant children and adolescents.  The Millennium Goals should be fully implemented for all indigenous and African descendant peoples and communities, and it is not enough to settle for national goals that obscure the realities of internal inequalities.

The quality of the democracy and development of this region is directly related to their inclusion of the victims of racism and discrimination. We celebrate this conference and the process of revising Durban, and we pledge once again to be protagonists in this process, contributing proposals and undertaking our role of vigilance by society.


See the Declaration of Civil Society (in Spanish):  http://alainet.org/active/24730