The Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organisation-AAPSO-enjoys the consultative status of ECOSOC. It participated at the World Conference against Racism (WCR) in Durban, South Africa, both at the UN Conference and the NGO Forum
Attention Ms Sandra
Aragon UNOG-OHCHR,1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland 5 June, 2004
Fax: 41-22-917 90 50
Although the institutionalized apartheid in South Africa had ended with the establishment of non-racial, democratic South Africa, the remnants of racism is still lingering in diverse forms.
The glaring example of racist practices is happening in Israel with the genocide policy of killing, perpetration of massacres,
bulldozing houses and destruction by bombings with sophisticated US-made armaments against the Palestinian people. The erection by the Israeli regime of the "wall" -rightly called wall of apartheid- is the another demonstration of its racist policy. Equally disgusting manifestation of racist phenomenon is demonstrated by the despicable acts perpetrated by US soldiers who brutally and savagely treated Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, adding it to the case of the detention camp of Guantanamo Bay to the extent of the dimension reached by racist-inspired behavior.
Two years after Durban Conference, trafficking in human beings as a form of racist manifestation is increasingly spreading worldwide. High level politicos of many countries, together with multinationals corporations, mafia-networking groups, organized crimes associations, are involved in human trafficking which is as well a modern form of slavery. This practice has reached an unprecedent dimension in the trafficking in women and children mainly in the developing nations ridden by poverty.
Poverty, underdevelopment, marginalization and economic disparities are closely associated with racism. But developed world doesn't stay immune from the racist plague: We know about these young girls and young women being lured from the developing countries by international gang or mafia based in rich countries. We know the open discriminatory practices perpetrated against the black people in the highly developed countries as well as against what is regarded as Muslim mainly in the aftermath of September 11th.
Branding peoples and countries as rogues or evils because of their stand, is a glaring manifestation of racist phenomenon, while closing eye before the very racist regime of Israel who, with US blessing, remains to be the big holder of nuclear armament in the region.
At the present time, racist practices like xenophobia or criminal acts are often associated with minority people, refugee issues, migration, civil wars, inter-ethnic or inter-tribal confrontations. These continue to be committed in Asia ( ie. dalits), Africa (ie. ethnic hatred in Ivory Coast), as well as in Latin America and the developed countries (ie. asylum seekers, refugees, migrant workers..).
Facing the challenges of the globalisation, the eradication of poverty should remain one of the top priorities of the humankind task.