Powell to attend racism conference if U.S. conditions
are met
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday he would like to
attend a U.N. conference against racism but wants references to Israel and slavery
changed. "We are not threatening to boycott," Powell said on CNN television's Inside
Politics. "The answer is let's fix this so that the conference will serve its intended purpose
and the United States wants to be there."
Earlier, the State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that while Powell wanted
to attend the conference, his participation depended on whether anti-Zionist and other
objectionable phrases are removed from a conference declaration. "Our participation depends on how some things turn out," Boucher said. "We are very concerned about
some of the issues that are being raised in the preparatory part of the conference."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the United States also opposed demands for
compensation from countries that benefited in the past from slavery and colonialism. Fleischer also said President George W Bush opposes paying compensation to black Americans for slavery. "The United States intends to go to this conference," Fleischer said. "The only thing that would stop the United States from going is in the event that this
conference and its organizers equate Zionism with racism in the agenda leading up to the
conference or if they look backward at the very tangled question of reparations and slavery."
In Geneva, where negotiators are working on the anti-racism document, there was apparent headway Wednesday on removing anti-Zionist phrases. "It's an important
conference," Powell said. "It should be a forward-looking conference. But we should not let the conference be sidetracked to deal with a contemporary political issue." At the same time, he rejected an assertion by Rep. Cynthia McKinney that the Bush administration had adopted an intransigent, if not outwardly hostile, view of the entire conference.
She said the administration's opposition was a clear example of their indifference to
racism. In reply, Powell said this kind of absurd language is not helpful for public dialogue. "It has nothing to do with the administration being racist. That's an unfortunate statement
on Congresswoman McKinney's part," he said.
"Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner heads a U.S. delegation that will go to Geneva
later this week to work hard on the negotiations," Boucher said. "We would like to go to
the conference. The secretary has said he would like to go to the conference," Boucher said.
Rep. Tom Lantos, who will represent Congress in the delegation, said he had been
assured by Middle Eastern and U.N. diplomats that phrases equating Zionism with racism
will be removed. But, Lantos said, the campaign against Israel will take the form of
denouncing Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in Gaza as a form of colonialism.