Human rights situation in the OT – CHR/57th session – Summary record (excerpts)

COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Fifty-seventh session

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE 14th MEETING

Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva,

on Tuesday, 27 March 2001, at 10 a.m.

Chairperson : Mr. DESPOUY (Argentina)

CONTENTS

STATEMENT BY MR. AGBÉYOMÉ MESSAM KODJO, PRIME MINISTER OF TOGO

STATEMENT BY MS. BENITA FERRERO-WALDNER, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF AUSTRIA

STATEMENT BY MR. JOSCHKA FISCHER, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF GERMANY

STATEMENT BY MR. FELIPE PÉREZ ROQUE, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF CUBA

STATEMENT BY MR. DIEGO GARCIA-SAYAN LARRABURE, MINISTER OF JUSTICE OF PERU

STATEMENT BY MR. GUSTAVO BELL LEMUS, VICE-PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA

ORGANIZATION OF WORK

RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION ( continued)

The meeting was called to order at 10.10 a.m.

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STATEMENT BY MR. FELIPE PÉREZ ROQUE, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF CUBA

40. Mr. PÉREZ ROQUE (Cuba) said that the Commission on Human Rights was currently more divided than ever and on the verge of reaching an irreversible point of disrepute. On the one hand, there were the representatives of the third world, hostages to debt, victims of the unfair international disorder, facing hunger, poverty, illiteracy and mother and child mortality. It was those countries, whose suffering had sustained the opulence of their exploiters, which always stood accused at the Commission. On the other hand, there were the representatives of the rich and developed countries. They were the creditors, those who consumed almost everything produced in the world, those who squandered and polluted, forgetting that they owed their wealth to the third world. They were acting as accusers and judges.

41. The time had come to put an end to that hypocrisy and double standard. The United States had to explain why it had voted against considering famine, which affected nearly 1 billion people, as an outrage to human dignity and why, at the same time as it attempted to accuse Cuba, it refused to condemn the flagrant, large-scale human rights violations committed by the Israeli army against the courageous Palestinian people.

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RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION (item 6 of the agenda) (continued ) (E/CN.4/2001/20, E/CN.4/2001/21 and Corr.1, E/CN.4/2001/22, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/5, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/11, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/28, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/38, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/41, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/57, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/58, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/61, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/62, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/73, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/155, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/162, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/164, E/CN.4/2000/NGO/11 and Corr. 1, A/55/304)

68. Mr. MBOMIO (North-South XXI) said …

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70. The fact that the World Conference would be held on the emblematic soil of South Africa also served as a reminder that apartheid was a hideous practice thanks to which white colonialists, whose strength was their only claim to legitimacy, had occupied the country’s best land. The same racist phenomenon had appeared 50 years earlier in Palestine, where the State of Israel, made up of colonialists from around the world, occupied and surrounded Palestinian territory, administering it as so many Bantustans, at present under the leadership of a person who had once been involved in the Sabra and Chatila massacres.

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86. Ms. LUPING (Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies) believed that the international community had an obligation to ensure universal respect for human rights, including the fundamental right to protection against discrimination of the Palestinian people. The Palestinians were one of the indigenous peoples on the lands of Israel and Palestine; they had lived there for millennia. By protecting them against discrimination and by holding Israel to account, the international community would not be discriminating in any way against the Jewish people, but simply helping to eliminate discriminatory Israeli policies. The Israeli military had always clearly stated its twin aims: to ensure the domination of the Jewish majority in Israel and the occupied territories and to bring about segregation and geographical, economic, social and cultural separation between the Palestinians and their Jewish neighbours. That policy applied to Palestinian Israeli citizens living in Israel and to Palestinians living in the occupied territories.

87. The discriminatory and segregationist policies of Israel were strikingly similar to those adopted in apartheid-era South Africa and in illegally occupied Namibia. It was only thanks to the measures taken by the international community, in particular the United Nations, that discrimination and apartheid were brought to a halt. Accordingly, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies asked the international community to take measures, impose sanctions and decree a boycott against Israel, as it had against South Africa, to protect Palestinians and combat the last apartheid regime.

The meeting rose at 1.05 p.m.