GENEVA (AP) - After threatening to boycott a U.N. conference on racism, the United States moved closer Monday toward a compromise with African nations that are demanding an apology from former slave-trading nations.
African negotiators to the upcoming World Conference Against Racism have demanded that a draft declaration include ``an explicit apology'' and compensation from countries that benefited from slavery.
The United States has warned that it would skip the meeting in Durban, South Africa, if a compensation demand - and what it considers unacceptable criticism of Israel - remain on the conference agenda by the end of the week. The conference begins Aug. 31.
A new U.S. proposal does not include the word ``apology'' or call slavery a ``crime against humanity'' but would denounce the practice. Diplomats say using the word ``apology'' could be used as a legal basis for future claims.
``We express our deep regret and profound remorse for the terrible suffering caused,'' the proposed U.S. wording says.
South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said she had yet to see the U.S. proposal and would have to study it before commenting.
But she said the African group was trying to compromise, and that the United States also had to be willing to make concessions.
``We will give, but we would also like to take,'' she told reporters in Geneva.
Ahmed Ben Bella, a leader of Algeria's drive for independence from France in 1962, said the West should acknowledge that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was a crime and compensate by forgiving Africa's current debt.
``The world community should recognize that the slave trade and the enslavement of Africans as well as colonialism constitute crimes against humanity,'' Ben Bella said Monday.
``The Holocaust, in which 7 million Jews died, has been recognized as a crime against humanity,'' he said. ``The death of 142 million Africans during the slave trade was a holocaust too.''
Ben Bella belongs to a group known as the Goree Initiative launched in June in Senegal to push the Durban conference to address the issue of slavery. Goree, an island off Africa's west coast, is where captured Africans were held before being shipped across the Atlantic and sold into slavery in the Western Hemisphere.
The African group has proposed having the final declaration say: ``The World Conference recognizes that slavery, the slave trade, colonialism and apartheid constitute crimes against humanity.''
It also would recognize ``the urgent need'' to address problems stemming from the past practices, and call ``on those who have benefited from these practices to assume full responsibility.''
Steps could include ``enhanced remedial developmental policies, programs and concrete measures,'' the African proposal says.
U.S. officials also have said they were disturbed by proposed wording equating Zionism with racism, but Arab delegates have indicated they are willing to drop the criticism of the movement that led to the founding of the modern state of Israel.
Nonetheless, there are many other condemnations of Israel laced through the 88 pages of draft text, and the United States wants all of them removed as well.
PHOTO CAPTION:
A billboard near Johannesburg City centre advertises the upcoming Racism Conference in Durban later this month, with the slogan "You're not a Racist Right?". South African papers rounded on the United States on August 6, 2001 for Washingtons threatened boycott of a United Nations racism conference if it equated Zionsm with racism and urged reparations for slavery. The agenda is mired in controversy after the U.S baulked at attempts by Arab state to equate Zionism and Israel settlement policy with racism. REUTERS/Juda Ngwenya
- Aug 06 7:42 AM ET