Zulu and Ubangi Nations call for apology along with Castro? Zonist racist issue is dead - Jesse Jackson makes demands and what? What is Shirley Temple doing to earn her money? Wouldn't she be rather a source of embarrassment considering her old movies where she tolerated the plantation slaves with their children who bowed at all fours? So apologies why? Reparations? There was no law agains slavery in Africa for it was Black Africans who sold us the "refuse from their shores" that nobody else wanted.....some in chains? I say they want an apology well that is okay by me so long as they return them all back to Africa - AIDS you see is not considered important but regardless I have list of all the slave ships and would be easy to get names of those who owned their very own slaves.....my great etc. grandfather had many many slaves now they might have picked cotton, but they sure as hell did not design the house nor did they say build the cathedrals like Notre Dame .... I agree apology necessary for we are truly sorry some greedy bastads running slaves as they do today to Israel (just got caught) brought all these black slaves to USA - get them all one way tickets with right to return> saba Afri African leaders press for apology Mideast tensions threaten to derail U.N. conferenceSept. 1 -- Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo speaks Saturday to the World Conference Against Racism in South Africa. NBC's Dana Lewis reports on the controversy surrounding the meeting. MSNBC NEWS SERVICES DURBAN, South Africa, Sept. 2 � �While African leaders at a U.N. conference on racism Saturday asked for Western countries to apologize for their role in colonialism and slavery, Middle East tensions threatened to sink the meeting despite pleas by Nelson Mandela to seize the chance to end the contagion of discrimination. The mood at the meeting was soured when thousands of non-governmental organizations, meeting on the margin of the conference, voted early Sunday to condemn Israel as a "racist apartheid state." � � �� � � � � � � '(Racism) kills many more than any contagion. It dehumanises anyone it touches.' � NELSON MANDELA Former president of South Africa � � � �MANDELA, THE father of South Africa's multi-racial democracy, made an impassioned call for delegates to put aside differences and act to rid the world of a disease that was an "ailment of the mind and the soul." � � � �"It kills many more than any contagion. It dehumanizes anyone it touches," the 83-year-old former South African president said in a recorded speech on the second day of the U.N. Conference Against Racism. � � � � RIGHTING 'A HISTORICAL WRONG' � � � �President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Africa's most populous state, said an apology was the only way to heal the wound left by the human trafficking and that an apology did not necessarily open countries to financial claims. � � � �Some 12 million Africans were shipped to north and south America, often in chains, during the some 400 years in which the slave trade flourished until the 19th century. � � � �"We must demonstrate the political will and assume the responsibility for the historical wrong that is owed to the victims of slavery," Obasanjo told the conference. � � � �German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, one of a small number of top Western government officials at the Durban conference, offered his country's apology. � � � �He said a recognition of guilt was the way to restore to the victims and their descendants "the dignity of which they were robbed." � � � �"I should therefore like to do that here on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany," he told the conference in a speech. Germany was a former colonial power in Africa. � � � �But the U.S. and most other European countries are wary of offering too explicit an apology for fear of legal litigation and have rejected any notion of reparations. � � � � CASTRO CALLS FOR REPARATIONS � � � �In a rousing speech frequently interrupted by applause, Cuban leader Fidel Castro called directly on the United States to pay reparations for slavery. Advertisement � � � �"After the purely formal slavery emancipation, African-Americans were subjected during 100 more years to the harshest racial discrimination, and many of its features still persist," Castro said. "Cuba speaks of reparations, and supports this idea as an unavoidable moral duty to the victims of racism." � � � �Cape Verde President Pedro Verona Rodrigues Peres called for voluntary reparations and financial support for Africa. � � � �But Obasanjo said reparations could split Africa from black people living in "the diaspora," and an apology would suffice. � � � �"Apology is intrinsic in the healing process," he said. "Apology closes the door to bitterness and anger ... and does not promote any reprisals and litigation." � � � � ARAFAT CRITICIZES ISRAEL � � � �Despite the debate over slavery, attention at the conference focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the NGO Forum accusing Israel of "systematic perpetration of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing." � � � �The declaration, adopted after voting by 3,000 non-governmental organizations in 44 regional caucuses, shocked Jewish groups. The Israeli government delegation to the U.N. conference blasted the NGO resolution as an incitement to hatred of Jews. � � � �"The decision of the conference of the NGOs adopted this morning is outright incitement, whose only purpose is to delegitimize the Jewish state and its people," said delegation spokesman Noam Katz. � � � �"(It) adds fuel to the attempts that are being made to demonize Israel," he added. � � � �Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who on Friday accused Israel of ethnic cleansing by driving Palestinians from their homes in the occupied territories, repeated the charge on Saturday. � � � �"The ugliness of these Israeli racist policies and practices against the Palestinian people has become manifest and obvious during the Intifada," he said. � � � �He was referring to the 11-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation in which at least 548 Palestinians and 157 Israelis have been killed. � � � �On Saturday the Palestinians accused Israel of assassinating a senior official in a car blast in Gaza. Israel has denied responsibility. � � � � FINAL DECLARATION IN QUESTION � � � �As the leaders spoke, conference committees worked behind the scenes on the wording of a final U.N. declaration to be adopted at the end of the eight-day summit. � � � �The Arab League met Saturday morning to coordinate its position on the declaration. Amr Mousa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, said a section condemning Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and the recognition of the Holocaust were both open to negotiation. � � � �"There are racist policies and practices by Israel and they have to be addressed (just) as Israel wants us to address the problem of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and so on, so its a package." � � � �The White House, which has called parts of a draft declaration anti-Semitic, said American diplomats would leave the conference if the provisions condemning Israel weren't removed. � � � �The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the American civil rights leader, announced Thursday that Arafat had agreed to lobby to have language removed from the declaration that called Israel a racist state and condemned Zionism as racism. � � � �Zionism, the religious and philosophical underpinning of the movement that founded Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people, has also come under attack in street demonstrations. � � � � WashPost: Mood mixed at racism summit � � � �Palestinian officials later accused Jackson of being "overzealous" and said they would still seek condemnation of what they called Israel's "racist practices." � � � �Katz reiterated that his country felt that the racism conference wasn't the appropriate forum to discuss the Mideast conflict. � � � �"We are not here at the conference to discuss, to deal with specific political problems," Katz said. "We are here to create a united front against racism." � � � �U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated Saturday that the Zionism clause had been removed from the declaration. � � � �"The question of Zionism versus racism is dead," he said. � � � � � � � �The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. � � � �� � � � � � � �African leaders press for apology�WashPost: Mood mixed at U.N. racism summit�Govan Mbeki, father of president of S. 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