Delegates preparing for next month's World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, should drop attempts to include in a draft document wording equating Zionism with racism, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said at today's opening of a two-week preparatory conference in Geneva. 

"The United Nations has already dealt with this issue at great length," Robinson said in a departure from her prepared speech.  The United States and Israel in 1991 obtained a repeal of a 1975 UN General Assembly resolution against Zionism, and White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said Friday that the United States will boycott the Durban conference if Arab states continue to pursue the disputed language.

Although Robinson said she is "acutely aware of the suffering of the Palestinian people and dismayed at the continuing toll of deaths and injuries on a daily basis," she called it "inappropriate to reopen this issue in any form here," adding that "anyone who seeks to do so is putting the success of the Durban conference at risk" (Associated Press/ABCNews.com, 30 Jul).

The director general of South Africa's Foreign Affairs Ministry said the United States will appear indifferent toward the topics the conference seeks to address if it boycotts the event.  "If they do not come, people will see it as a sign of indifference toward these subjects," Sipho Pityana told the South African Press Association.  "It will be a signal given to their own citizens and the rest of the world" (Agence France-Presse/Cyberpresse.ca, 30 Jul, UN Wire translation).

The United States and some European countries also oppose addressing the issue of reparations for slavery and colonization, a cause championed by some African countries.  The preparatory meeting that opened today was made necessary when a May session ended in stalemate (AP/ABCNews.com).  About 30 heads of state, 12,000 delegates from 194 countries and 3,000 nongovernmental organizations are expected in Durban (AFP/Liberation, 30 Jul, UN Wire translation).

The 18-member UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is holding its 59th session today through 17 August in Geneva to examine periodic compliance reports by countries party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.  The committee will hear reports from China, Cyprus, Egypt, Italy, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, the United States and Vietnam and look into the situations of Barbados, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Liberia, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen, whose periodic reports are overdue.

The committee will also continue its consideration of the prevention of early warning systems, urgent action procedures and other measures to prevent racial discrimination and will study, in closed session, communications from people claiming to be victims of racism (UN release, 26 Jul).