*EPF410 08/09/01
Transcript: Lantos Says Success of Racism Conference in Doubt
(News conference at U.N. headquarters in Geneva) (6860)

Congressman Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, says the success of the upcoming United Nations World Conference on Racism is in doubt unless passages singling out Israel for criticism and equating Zionism with racism are removed from the proposed conference texts.

Speaking at an August 9 news conference at the United Nation's European Headquarters in Geneva, Lantos said he believes the conference, which is scheduled to open August 31 in Durban, South Africa, is "extremely important" and has "the potential of making a real and lasting contribution" to the fight against racism.

But, he added, repeated demands by some Arab nations to put language about Israel and Zionism on the agenda could turn the conference in a hypocritical exercise in "finger-pointing."

"Unless the effort to hijack the conference is stopped, unless the language of the document is purged of singling out one country and one issue while remaining silent on many others, my recommendation to Secretary Powell and to the president will be that we do not participate as a government," Lantos said. "To do so would make the United States a party to the lynching of Israel, which is the purpose of some delegates."

Lantos spoke shortly after Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged delegations at a preparatory conference in Geneva to work beyond their Friday midnight deadline if necessary to reach agreement on documents for the conference.

Lantos said he did not believe extending the deadline would have any impact. "I do not believe the issue is one of time. I think there is plenty of time to set things straight ... the issue is one of will," he said.

Lantos criticized a Non Paper put forward by a group of Arab delegations as "dripping with hate." He said the substitution of the word Israel with the word "occupying power" did not change the fact that Israel would be the only nation singled out by the conference.

"Israel is not the most horrendously negative phenomenon on the face of this planet. I could think of a few other countries that would more likely achieve that designation," he said. "I don't think there is a single nation participating in the conference which comes to the conference with clean hands.

"While the United States wishes to participate at Durban, the Durban Conference needs the United States more than the United States needs the Durban Conference. Let me be very candid about it," Lantos said. "We would like to go at the highest level to make a positive contribution. But if the Conference is built on hypocrisy, that will not be possible."

Following is a transcript of Lantos' news conference:

(begin transcript)

Representative Tom Lantos
Press Briefing
August 9, 2001
Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland

Representative Lantos: I'm delighted to be here. Geneva brings back many personal memories because many decades ago by shear chance year after year my wife and I would drive to Geneva always during Fetes de Geneve with our two little daughters. This was at a time when rooms at the Beau Rivage were twenty-five dollars and we knew the manager of the Beau Rivage. We drove up there and he said, every room is taken, but the Presidential suite has two bedrooms which are occupied, but the Salon with its priceless objects d'art is empty and I will put in four beds for you there. So we did that almost every year, and I never slept because I was deadly afraid that one of my little girls will knock off a Ming vase and I would spend the rest of my life doing dishes at the Beau Rivage to pay for it. So it is a very sentimental return for us.

Needless to say, I am delighted to be a member of the U.S. delegation. I deeply believe in the purpose of the conference at Durban. I am the only member of Congress in the history of the Congress who is a survivor of the Holocaust. My whole life has been devoted to fighting intolerance, racism, and discrimination in all its forms. For some two decades I have been functioning as the founding chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus which has dealt with human rights violations of all types across the globe. My wife is the pro bono head of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and the two of us have devoted much of our lives to this issue. So I believe Durban is extremely important. It has the potential of making a real and lasting contribution to the fight against the scourge of racism and discrimination and intolerance in all its ugly and manifold forms.

I also came here in my capacity as the ranking Democratic member of the House International Relations Committee to demonstrate, during the tenure of a Republican administration, the total solidarity of the Congress and the Administration on the issues of the Conference. I introduced a resolution in the Congress a few weeks ago. I believe many or most of you have copies, and if not, we can give you copies, dealing with the issues of the conference and I'm delighted to report to you that my resolution which basically outlines my approach to Durban was approved by a vote of 408 to 3 with 3 abstentions. Now if you put in a resolution in Congress stating that the sun rises in the East, you don't get 408 votes. So I believe that while I clearly have no mandate to speak for the Congress because every single one of us 535 speaks only for ourselves, this overwhelming bipartisan vote confirming the resolution I wrote indicates a very high degree of unanimity on the part of the Congress for the approach I outlined. And that approach can be basically summarized by suggesting that this conference could become a historic conference. I personally would like to see it succeed because Mary Robinson is a friend of mine and she has worked very hard on this conference and deserves to have success. But I think I would be less than candid if I did not tell you some profound disappointment and concern that I have with respect to the outcome of the conference. Although being an optimist I will not prejudge that outcome because there are still a few hours left here in Geneva that could be useful.

I am very much encouraged by the progress we are making on the issue of slavery and redress in all of its manifestations. I am delighted although not surprised to see the African states approach the conference in an extremely positive and constructive manner ready to accommodate, make compromises, as we all need to. Compromise is the currency of a free society, and only non-free societies have non-negotiable demands. So I want to commend the African delegates and I have spoken with many of them for their very positive approach, as I do my European and Latin American colleagues and many others.

Now there clearly is an attempt by some to hijack the conference and instead of allowing it to perform its intended purpose, fighting against racism, to have a conference attacking racism, they are trying to make this conference one of attacking the state of Israel. And this clearly is going to be unacceptable to the Congress of the United States, to the American administration as my friends in the administration have made clear, and I sincerely hope that this farce will not be allowed to unfold. There is plenty of blame to go around with respect to the past. And I would be the first one to say loud and clear, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, and I don't think there is a single nation participating in the conference which comes to the conference with clean hands. The tragedy, I suspect, as we enter the 21st Century, is that we are making mind-boggling progress in science, technology, medicine, you name it, but we are in the darkest of dark ages in terms of intergroup relations. And the purpose of the Conference is to move our ability to deal with one another, different religions, different ethnicities, different sexes, different languages, with a more tolerant, open inclusive, accepting fashion.

Now I find it almost mind-boggling that a universal conference which purports to deal with global issues, or with the issues of all nations and all problems, may be collapsing, in a sense, because of the insistence of a group of nations to single out a particular country and a particular problem. The past is easy to deal with, there are plenty of problems, tragedies, nightmares, slavery, the holocaust, racism, discrimination, etc, and if we all are prepared to say Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa, I think we will be ahead. When it comes to current issues the approach of some countries is even more puzzling to me, because this conference would reach into the midnight hours if I were to list the current problems on the face of this planet, problems of discrimination, slavery, geographic disputes. If the conference is to deal with a geographic dispute, I asked in a one-on-one with the distinguished Ambassador of India, why don't we deal with Kashmir? That certainly is a geographic dispute there between two nuclear powers which ought to be of some interest to the international community. Why don't we deal with, if we talk about discrimination, the palpable discrimination against women in so many countries? There is no need to list them; it is a long list. If we are to talk about religious discrimination, why don't we talk about the discrimination against Christians in some countries or Bahai in others, or many other religions.

So the dilemma I have in looking ahead to the conference - and I will be in Durban irrespective of the outcome in Geneva, as an individual I will be there. I would not like a conference which purports in a candid way to deal with these ugly facets of both contemporary life and history, be built on hypocrisy. And of course clearly singling out one nation and one geographic conflict at a global conference presumably dealing with all of the issues, is the ultimate hypocrisy. And unless in the next few hours there is a strong effort to deal with this issue, I do not predict a very positive outcome for Durban.

I was looking forward to more rational approaches here in Geneva. I was assured by some that they would be forthcoming. Zionism is racism was put to bed a good ten years ago. And I was looking forward, with a great deal of interest and good will, to receiving the Arab Non-Paper a couple of days ago. I think it is a most disappointing document and I find it outrageous in its cowardly attempt to rewrite history and to denigrate their neighbor. The authors of that document clearly did not come to Geneva seeking to reduce racism, but to perpetuate it. Unless the effort to hijack the conference is stopped, unless the language of the document is purged of singling out a country and an issue while remaining profoundly silent on may others, my recommendation to Secretary Powell and to the President will be that we do not participate as a government. I clearly have no idea what the decision will be, but I think it would be inappropriate under those circumstances for Colin Powell to dignify the conference with his presence. To do so would make the United States a party to the lynching of Israel, which is the purpose of some delegates. I very much hope that in the remaining time the problems will be resolved.

Perhaps the one arena where Mary Robinson and I profoundly disagree is the amount of time needed to resolve this issue. I have worked on many complex legislative matters. When in the Congress of the United States we deal with a 900-page document filled with enormous technical complexities, it takes time to it up. It doesn't take any time to clean up this document. All it takes is will. Within a couple of hours at the most the document could be made universally acceptable and it would then provide a solid basis for a successful conference at Durban. It is not the complexity of any issue that prevents the document from being cleaned up; it is the lack of will on the part of some. Ultimately, of course, and this is my only real regret, is that both Geneva and Durban are not about one country. The issues are infinitely larger. It is about tolerance towards all people, all races, all religions, and all sexes. It is about eradicating the stubborn and shameful stain of racism and discrimination in all its forms.

Now as all of you realize, I am an American by choice. And like so many other Americans by Choice, I am fascinated by American history. I've been fascinated by it ever since I was a small boy in Budapest, Hungary. And I know that every one of us who looks at the history of his own country has his own vision of that history. Let me tell you what my vision of American history is, because I think it is relevant to this conference and to what I have been talking about. When the founding fathers of the United States wrote those magnificent documents which certainly in the United States we have never been able to come close to in subsequent generations, while individually the founding fathers may have been giants, there was an enormous amount of hypocrisy in those documents. Those documents were dripping with hypocrisy. Because these people who said all men are created equal clearly did not say a word about women, and they were saying this magnificent concept while being slaveholders. And I view American history, some 225 years, as an attempt gradually to close the hypocrisy gap. We have come a long ways in closing the hypocrisy gap. We are a long ways from having closed it, but we have come a long ways towards closing the hypocrisy gap.

I was in Denmark on the 4th of July. As some of you may know, the Danes have the largest 4th of July celebration outside of the United States and it is up in the very modest hills of Denmark with about 20,000 or 25,000 families picnicking. Excellent sound system, and every year they have a Dane and an American speak about the meaning of the 4th of July. And I told them that it is sort of remarkable when you come to Denmark because you know you are in Denmark because everybody is blond, blue eyed and Lutheran, and if you describe a Dane, it's rather easy to describe a Dane in many of his manifestations, language, religion, looks, what have you. And I said if you come to the United States it is a very difficult undertaking, because we are many races, many religions, many languages and to the extent that we have any cohesion, it is a cohesion of our commitment to the values of a free and open society. And this closing of the hypocrisy gap, I think could conceivably, beginning with Durban, expand on a global scale. If the conference is not built on the rock of hypocrisy. So I very much hope that in the remaining time the problems in the documents will be remedied. If they are not, the conference will loose a great deal of its credibility because to have a global conference which singles out one country, one people who certainly in the 20th Century have suffered more than any other, and one geographic dispute as the focus of much attention, the conference at Durban will stand self-condemned as not a serious effort to deal with these very serious issues. I hope that my modest expectations will be materialized and fulfilled. I hope that in the remaining time, and there certainly is plenty of time, the problems will be resolved, and I can recommend to Colin Powell that he come to Durban and that we will have a very successful conference. Let me now take your questions:

Q: Clearly your assessment seems rather downbeat. You said in your opening statement on the 31st of July: "some of us will make an attempt in Geneva to turn things around. The chances for that are limited." Do you realistically feel, sir, that in the remaining few hours, your hopes of such change can be realized or do you really have to bite the bullet to accept the fact that the authors of this anti-Israeli language will persist and the Conference, as you say, will be much threatened? Thank you.

Lantos: I think there is still hope for the Conference to get off on the right footing. I think Mary Robinson bears a heavy responsibility. She has great deal of authority and is well respected. I don't think she can buy into accepting the notion that there is one contemporary issue, namely the Middle East crisis, that the Conference needs to deal with. There are plenty of fora for that. Many of us support the Mitchell approach. There will be many attempts in different fora to encourage the termination of violence, the return to negotiation, that is the hope of every civilized person. I do not believe the issue is one of time. I think there is plenty of time to set things straight. As I suggested, the issue is one of will. And if the will is lacking whether we have three days here or two days here or three weeks or four weeks before Durban, nothing will happen. Because if the will is not there, there will be no change. In which case the Conference will represent an incredible missed opportunity. It will not deal with all the positive and constructive things that many of us want to deal with. To give you one specific example, to talk for a moment about an issue of, quote-unquote redress. When the administration submitted its package to provide assistance in fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa, I labeled the package paltry and unacceptable. I worked on a bipartisan basis to increase it, we dramatically increased it, it passed the Congress. We have enormous plans for aid and assistance in all its forms, not only for the nations of Africa, but for other developing nations, and it would be such a pity on a global scale to have all of this constructive goodwill on a by-partisan basis, which exists in the United States at the moment, diverted and dissipated because of a racial or national vendetta. I also must say, in all candor, that a conference which deals with discrimination and chooses to deal with one country and one issue, doesn't deal with the palpable discrimination against women in Saudi Arabia. I mean that ought to be on the agenda if it becomes item specific. I would like to see an item about the Taliban's performance vis-?vis all kind of things from women to religious sites. I would like to deal with the issue of Tibet. I would like to deal with lots of issues. But if the Conference is to be a finger-pointing exercise, and the finger is pointed only at one of the participants, the phoniness and the hypocrisy of the Conference will make the Conference self-condemned. I hope that will not be the case. But my hope is probably explained by my naivete and youth.

Q: I gather from your remark just now, you don't think that Mary Robinson's appeal of this morning to extend the negotiations beyond the Friday midnight deadline will necessarily bring any benefits. It seems that one of the possible problems here is that the United State may lack leverage in this and I am just wondering if you think you found that not to be true in your talks with the Arabs on this issues. In others words, the threat of a boycott doesn't seem in having any impact on the Arab delegations, if that is possible. They don't seem to care if the United States goes or not. If I'm wrong on that, maybe you can set me straight. Or is there some other leverage that the U.S. can offer that's going to bring them on board?

Lantos: Excellent question. Let me first deal with the Mary Robinson issue and with the Arab countries issue. I had a meeting, an excellent meeting, with Mary Robinson yesterday and in the course of the meeting I told her that it is my intention to distribute the Arab non-paper to every single one of my colleagues, 535, so they know what we are dealing with, and to all the American media. Because I think that hateful paper speaks for itself. Last night when I came home, I had a message that Mary wanted to see me again this morning at 8 o'clock and I was delighted to see her again. And while we talked about a number of things, and I am very supportive of her efforts, I gathered two things, both from my morning meeting and from reading her speech this morning. She very much does not want me to distribute that paper, which I think says volumes. Because that paper is dripping with hate, which is an inappropriate document for a conference designed to diminish hate and division. Secondly in reading her speech, although many aspects of which I agree with, I profoundly deplore her buying into the notion that the issue should be on the agenda. The issue can be on the agenda in its most blatant form, "Zionism is racism" or it can be on the agenda in a muted or camouflaged or semantically more acceptable form. But as long as it is clear what that issue is, it would be unacceptable to the Congress of the United States and I believe the American administration.

The Non Paper substitutes the word "occupying power" for the word Israel. Now, if the paper would say "occupying powers," I would have very little difficulty with it because there are a lot of powers are occupying powers. Any general statement of a critical nature referring to the past or to the present is fully acceptable. Singling out is not acceptable. Israel is not the most horrendously negative phenomenon on the face of this planet. I could think of a few other countries that would more likely achieve that designation.

So, I also think that it is important to realize that while the United States wishes to participate at Durban, the Durban Conference needs the United States more than the United States needs the Durban Conference. Let me to be very candid about it, we would like to go at the highest level to make a positive contribution. If the Conference is built on hypocrisy, that will not be possible.

So we have no leverage other than a genuine desire to fight against racism and discrimination. And the determination that at the governmental level we will participate only if the Conference is a level playing field and does not single out one country and one issue as the focus of that conference. I very much hope that the African countries, which certainly want to see the Conference succeed, the Europeans, the Latin Americans, Asians, others, will prevail but if the majority view does not prevail, the Conference will have sort of given up its usefulness at the outset.

I will also have to say, if you allow me to expend further on your very excellent question, that actions have consequences. So, let me go back to a recent action here in Geneva, with which I had a great deal to do afterwards. As all of you know better than I do, the United States was removed from the UN Human Rights Commission. A lot of countries rejoiced at this, principally human rights abusers. Although I devoted much of my time in recent years to seeing to it that we pay our dues arrears to the UN, I fought very hard for that, once this to me difficult to justify action was taken, the leading champion of human rights removed from the UN Human Rights Commission, obviously because it is the most outspoken advocate of human rights, with my republican colleague Henry Hyde, who is the top Republican on the International Relation Committee, we introduced the resolution withholding the final tranch of our UN payments until the United States is restored to the Human Rights Commission. I hope that will happen. I would like the climate, in the Congress and in the country, to be very supportive of positive programs dealing with the legacy of slavery and racism and discrimination. If the United States will not participate, or will participate at a very low level at Durban, the climate in the Congress won't be there for legislative action to implement policies in the field of health, education, and infrastructure development in all these areas. So while some people view the Conference as a semantic duel, do we say racism is Zionism? Do we criticize Israel in some less obvious fashion? To me the Conference potentially is a substantive conference. I want the Conference to end in a glow of glory for everyone so that legislatures in more developed countries, and I can only speak for mine, will be galvanized to institute policies involving vast sums of money to redress the discrimination impact of the past. It is not an esoteric issue, it is not a semantic issue, it is not a hypothetical issue. It is an issue which will have consequences. If there is a defeat on the semantic issue, there will be many defeats on substantive issues which will hurt vast members of people. The United States is anxious and eager to participate and make a positive contribution. But it will not be a party to a hypocritical farce.

Q: Speaking about consequences, would U.S. aid to the Arab countries be affected?

Lantos: I obviously cannot speak for any congressional action because I am one of 535 members. I can tell you that my colleagues in the Congress will follow the outcome of both Geneva and Durban very carefully and each member will make up his own mind on various issues. The United States is passionately committed to improving living conditions in the region, not only of Palestinians, but of others. Our aid programs have certainly demonstrated that. I would hope that the climate would be such that we will be able to continue our very constructive efforts. But I think it is important to realize that words have consequences as they did with the respect to the action on removing the United States from the UN the Human Rights Commission.

Q: Since you brought up this recent incident, let me address my first question to that. Since it did not happen in Geneva, as you know, it happened in New York at the ECOSOC. And it was not countries like Sudan, Iraq, Cuba, China, or Pakistan who prevented the reelection of the U.S. into the Commission, but it was Europeans partners who prevented it by putting up more candidates for the three empty slots. My question would be whether in the meantime, you yourself, the Congress or the Government in Washington has opened a dialogue with Europeans about what their reasons and misgivings are or have been for doing that? On the issue of the Conference: if there is no outcome by tomorrow night or at any later deadline, if there might be one, and, if as you said, there will be nothing happening in the remaining three weeks to the 31st of August, wouldn't it be better to call off the whole Conference rather than having a huge confrontation in Durban with probably some majority-minority voting at the end and with an outcome that will not be helpful for anybody?

Lantos: You are absolutely correct with respect to the vote that it was within the European and other group that the vote took place. Let me make a prediction. Every time there are three slots and three European candidates and the United States on a Human Rights Commission, the United States is guaranteed not to be elected because it has chosen to be, for whatever complex set of reasons, the most outspoken advocate of human rights as the State Department Annual Report on Human Rights so dramatically demonstrates. So the question is, as you properly stated, in the hands of our European friends. They will either agree not to have three of their own candidates but only two so the United States can participate. Here again I would have to say that I believe it is much less important for the United States to be a member of the UN Human Rights Commission, than for the work of the Commission to have us there.

I am quite sure the Conference will not be called off. I don't think that is a viable suggestion and I certainly would not make it. I still hope the Conference can be constructive and valuable make a very positive contribution, but it cannot be built on hypocrisy. If it is built on hypocrisy, then it will limit itself to some very minor possible successes.

Q: La Conference de Durban certainement adressera le probleme de la crise en Macedoine. Mr Lantos, comment voyez-vous la situation dans cette region ou le conflit continue et les refugies affluent? (The Conference of Durban will certainly also address the question of Macedonia. Mr. Lantos, how do you see the situation in that region because the conflict is continuing and the refugee numbers are growing?)

Lantos: I can summarize the question in English. Basically the question relates to the crisis in Macedonia and in a broader sense the Balkans. It's one of the regions of the world I am very familiar with. Mrs. Lantos and I were the first American officials after half a century, to visit Albania when there were no diplomatic relations between the United States and Albania, we brought back a letter from the then President of Albania to our President which sort of started the process rolling for establishing diplomatic relations. We have been to Kosovo many times. We have discussed, years before it became a front-page item, human rights violation by the Milosevic regime in Kosovo, and we are deeply committed obviously to restoring stability in Macedonia. Macedonia is clearly a quintessentially good example of a multi-ethnic society which has still yet to evolve to the point where people of different ethnic backgrounds can have the necessary degree of respect and accommodation and tolerance that is present in more fortunate societies. I think that our European friends and we have attempted and are continuing to attempt to resolve the Macedonian issue peacefully. I am very optimistic that this will happen. I have been talking to both the European and the American diplomats who are working it and I believe this issue will be resolved effectively and successfully and soon.

Q: Since you are so concerned with the situation of the women in Saudi Arabia, why did the United States never address this issue at the Human Rights Commission when it was still a member? Concerning this kind of blackmail, threatening not to help the Africans on the health issues if the Conference addresses the issue of Zionism, don't you think that this blackmail is also a kind of hypocrisy?

Lantos: I am unaware that there was any blackmail in my comments. You must have attended a different press conference. What I stated, and I am happy for your benefit to state it again is that I led the fight in the Congress for increasing aid to fighting AIDS in Africa which was a successful attempt. I fully share the views of our Secretary of State Colin Powell that the United States should significantly increase aid to developing African nations. I am also rather puzzled in your tying my observations to aid to Africa. Clearly the African countries are not the ones which are insisting on including Zionism and the concept in this Conference. We all make our own decisions and we are responsible for our own actions. My hope is that the Conference document will be a clean document, that the Conference will unfold in Durban in a constructive spirit and that good policies will emerge particularly on the part of the developed countries like European Countries, other developed countries, and the United States in terms of redressing historic tragedies ranging from slavery to discrimination. So your interpretation of my comments could not be more erroneous. There is no blackmail, none whatever. There is no criticism of the African nations. There is a recognition that a group of countries, a minority, are attempting to highjack this conference which is designed to be a conference against racism, into a conference against Israel. The United States will not participate in that. This is not a blackmail, that's a principled position.

Q: What about the women in Saudi Arabia?

Lantos: The United States, as you may well recall, both at the Beijing Conference and in all fora has been has been the leading advocate of sex equality. In terms of our own internal policies, which were certainly not praiseworthy in earlier times, we have moved and are moving towards full sex equality. I firmly favor it. I think our government does. We do not have a total power in dealing with these issues in international fora and I think it is important for you to realize that our congressional members who are women are passionate in their leadership on this issue and have the support of a vast majority of male members of Congress. So I think you are pointing in the wrong direction.

Q: I have been attending these human rights meetings over a period of roughly 20 years and in the beginning the conference was about six weeks long and the first two weeks were devoted completely to South Africa and obviously trying to bring about a very big change of that government which eventually happened. The second two weeks were devoted to Israel entirely, and the tirade that you have mentioned against Israel now has practically nothing to do with what was said in those days. The blood libel would come up and then there would be a lot of exchanges about that, and you think it would have been finally settled one way or the other and then you wait two years and the blood libel comes up again. All this is to say that I don't see anything that has changed. There are even meetings at the World Council of Churches which I attended at the time, big public meetings, where the rhetoric got so intense that as somebody very new to this I couldn't understand what was going on. And it was clearly said, it is going to happen sooner or later, and the Palestinian thing which said Israel should be pushed into the sea, I don't know who or what has carried this on, but if I may say so, I don't think there is any question, there wasn't then and over this period of yeas there is no question in my mind now that one way or the other that the rhetoric about Israel will continue whether the U.S. is there or not in these meetings, and that the deed will be done. Maybe you can all call me absolutely crazy and that I shouldn't have said it at all, but I have attended it and there seems to be a clear pattern and you might as well give up and send money.

Lantos: Let me just say that I agree with you, there will be voices of hate both at Durban and beyond Durban. I think there is a difference between individual countries or delegates expressing their hate-filled views, and the official document incorporating such issue. That is what I am addressing myself to. Clearly, as a member of Congress I believe in free speech. But I think there is a difference between governments creating a document which is palpably discriminatory vis-a vis a conference designed to fight discrimination. That is the issue I am addressing. I have no illusions that the rhetoric of hate will vanish from the planet between now and the Durban Conference. I am talking about a document which provides the framework and the official basis of a conference and my point is that this document can either engage in finger-pointing vis-?vis large numbers of nations and countries and societies which is not productive but it is fair. Or it can single out one, which is singularly unfair.

Q: Do you think that the position of the United States is being helped by the attitude of the present Israeli Government in not admitting for example international observers, or letting the policy of settlements continue to the detriment of the Palestinian population? That has been criticized even by Mrs. Robinson.

Lantos: I am glad that a question came up on the issue of Israel itself. I am more than happy to answer that. Although we are all aware of this in this room, it is sort of useful to remind ourselves from time to time, that there was not a single settler, quote-unquote, in 1966. As I recall, the United Nations' Partition Resolution in the late 40s, called for two states: a Palestinian state and a Israeli State. The Israeli authorities and government accepted this UN Resolution. The neighboring Arab States did not and invaded Israel. There are been subsequent wars with which we are all familiar, one of them, the 1967 war, which give rise to settlements. Now I have very clear views about settlements, but that is not the issue at the moment. I personally believe many of these are counter-productive, unnecessary, and inappropriate. Not all, but, I don't find it unique in the History of the 20th Century, that after loosing wars, boundaries are redrawn. If I may remind you, Germany lost the Second World War and German boundaries were redrawn to the extend of moving Poland two hundred miles to the West. That was the outcome of that war in terms of geographic settlement of that particular border. There are today, I don't know, ten, twelve million Polish settlers on German soil. Nobody calls them that. It is now Poland. There are many other geographic disputes. They all deserve discussion in the appropriate fora. Kashmir, as I indicated earlier is a very serious geographic dispute. Both Pakistan and India claim it, and both are nuclear powers. Now Durban will not deal with Kashmir. Durban will not deal with any other territorial dispute. But presumably it will deal with this one. It is the singling out aspect that we in the Congress of the United States find obnoxious. Others might not find it obnoxious, and they will deal with it. But to whatever extent our presence is of value, it will have to be predicated on a fair document and on a level playing field. Finger pointing at India, at Pakistan, at Saudi Arabia, at China, on many issues, would not make for a very constructive conference. We do not believe that the finger-pointing should stop before it reaches the State of Israel. We believe singling out an entity, the only democratic entity in the region I might add, and the only people who had one of the most horrendous experiences of the 20th Century, is not an appropriate preparatory work for the Conference. Time will tell, whether we will be at Durban or not, I don't think it is the ultimate question of the 21st Century. It's a decision that our Government will make and I have full confidence that Secretary Powell will make the right decision.

Q: Why does the United States find it difficult in the paragraphs on colonialism, slave trade etc, to use the phrase apology feeling that this might have legal implication for law suits. I ask this question especially after having looked at recent bilateral agreements where Austria agrees to the moral obligation and the moral responsibility and was assured by the Clinton administration that this would not have any legal implication so why is the phrase apology a more problematic one.

Lantos: I have to answer it in two ways. Number one, I am a professional economist, not a lawyer, so I cannot deal with the legal ramifications. Secondly, my understanding is that there is great progress being made as we speak in resolving this matter in a universally satisfactory fashion. Thirdly, in terms of legislative action, policies and programs there is widespread and clear support for a broad approach of redress of grievances which I believe will resolve this matter.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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