Castro attacks Western nations' role in slavery

Cuban president Fidel Castro yesterday used the world racism conference to call on industrialised countries to pay compensation for the ills of colonialism and slavery.

Fuelling the already bitter war of words between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli delegations, he termed Israel's current clampdown of the uprising a "genocide''.

The 75-year-old president said Europe and the United States should pay compensation for sins of the past. "The developed countries ... have been the main beneficiaries of the conquest and colonisation, of slavery, of ruthless exploitation ... of countries that constitute the Third World."

Criticising the US for its boycott of the week-long conference in Durban and EU countries' low-level turnout, he said: "[Nobody] has the right to set preconditions to the conference or urge it to avoid the discussion ... [of] the way we decide to rate the dreadful genocide perpetrated, at this very moment, against our Palestinian brothers."

Earlier, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan conceded that the conference was threatened by rows over the Middle East and controversy over how to handle the historic issue of slavery. "All is not lost,'' he said. "The conference has given the world an opportunity to face the issue of racism squarely. There are two issues which threaten consensus – the Middle East and slavery.''

Last night, a parallel conference of 4,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) was due to deliver its recommendations for the final declaration of the conference – due at the end of the week – and a plan of action. A draft of the NGOs' proposals seen by The Independent on Sunday indicated that they wanted the issue of compensation for the trans-atlantic slave trade to be tackled "within a year'' by an international UN tribunal. The NGOs condemned anti-Semitism and called for more efforts to highlight the horrors of the Holocaust. But they went much further in their defence of human rights in present day Palestine.

President Castro's call for Europe and the US to pay reparations for slavery and colonialisation was the most explicit so far at the conference. Generally, the call is made by African-American lobby groups, for whom the reparations issue represents a powerful tool in domestic US politics.

The view of African leaders was clearly spelt out yesterday by Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. He told the conference: "For us in Africa, an apology is a deep feeling of regret. The recipient of the apology forgives and the issue of reparations ceases to be an option.''

The United States, Canada, Israel and the European Union have sent only junior- level delegations to the conference on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related Intolerance, which is being attended by more than 6,000 delegates in the South African port city of Durban.

Observers close to the organisers say the US is widely considered to have used the issue of Zionism as a distraction so as to deflect attention from the issue of compensation for slavery. This tactic, they say, has suited EU delegations – especially former colonisers such as France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Portugal and Spain – who are terrified of the reparations issue.

Yesterday, former South African president Nelson Mandela 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". Speaking in a video broadcast because he is in Johannesburg for treatment, he said: "Racism kills many more than any contagion. It dehumanises anyone it touches."

But Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat kept up the pressure in a speech yesterday, and branded Israel as racist. "The ugliness of these Israeli racist policies and practices against the Palestinian people has become manifest and obvious during the Intifada," he said.