Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities 50th Session, August 1998
1 October 1999
Prevention of discrimination against and the protection of minorities
The theme of Minority Rights Group Internationals presentation today is the importance of early warning leading to early action. We will make four recommendations for early action.
The situation in Kosovo has reached a major crisis point, with hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons fleeing their villages in the last months. The ingredients for the current conflict have been well known for many years. In 1993 MRG, with the Danish Centre for Human Rights and other like minded NGOs, organized a conference at the European Parliament entitled Preventing the Spread of the War in the Balkans. The conference called on the international community for immediate action to prevent a new violent conflict.
Early warnings were ignored, and today the international media reports on the Albanian civilian population being driven out of villages by theYugoslav Federal Army in its scorched earth policy of combating the Kosovo Liberation Army.
We recommend that, in its Chairman?s Statement, the sub-commission suggests partnership with the Commission on Human Rights to consider how they can play a constructive role in acting on early warning signs of violent conflicts.
The role of the media in the birth and development of the conflict in Former Yugoslavia was very well documented by our colleagues of Article XIX in their book entitled Forging the War in the Balkans. The attitude of the media in presenting minorities and manipulating information to incite ethnic hatred and ethnic conflicts is also well documented by the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression. He joined us, with other experts of the sub-commission, in a seminar on Media and Minorities that we convened last May, together with the International Service for Human Rights. This was at the request of the working group on Minorities and preceded its last meeting. A number of highly constructive ideas and proposals emerged, but we must express our concern that the working group did not take early action to plan and time its agenda carefully and discuss these issues.
MRG commends the decisions of the working group to restructure its agenda and rationalize its methods of work. We also invite the sub-commission to undertake an in-depth discussion of the report and to review the recommendations of this seminar.
Looking positively, MRG would like to commend the work and commitment of the members of the Working Group on Minorities, as well as those of the secretariat. Last May saw the fourth session of the working group and an important increase in the number of participants to the session. There were many more representatives of minority communities from all regions of the world, as well as a number of experts on minority issues who presented well researched and interesting papers on aspects of minority rights, which will be invaluable in furthering the understanding of minority rights across regions and among minorities themselves.
However, we were disappointed that despite the encouragements of the sub-commission, the working group did not devote sufficient time to considering the legal, political and economic legacies of the African slave trade and how they affect all communities of African descent in the Americas. We recommend that the working group pays particular attention to this issue at its next session, with a view to making recommendations to the sub-commission. The participation at the working group of persons representing these communities also needs to be encouraged.
We were also disappointed that there was little representation from governments generally, with mainly Central and Eastern European governments regularly present in the room. If the working group is to become a constructive forum for dialogue between minorities and governments and between minorities themselves, it is important for all parties to be present. During the last three sessions, there were successful examples of dialogue between, for example, representatives of the Russian speaking minority in Estonia and the Estonian delegation, between Arab Palestinians living in Israel and the Israeli delegation, between Crimean Tatars and the delegation of Ukraine. These examples need to be built upon, as the dialogue function of the working group can be particularly helpful when dialogue is more difficult at the local level. The working group needs to find ways to attract governments to attend its meetings, by discussing issues not discussed elsewhere. For the members of the working group to understand a situation it is important that they hear the views of both the minorities concerned and the governments, so that they can suggest constructive ways forward. This should be considered in the working group review.
An obvious example of dialogue is with UN agencies. This year, a useful dialogue took place between minorities and UN agencies such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization (UNESCO). The presentations of ILO and WHO were excellent, while some agencies gave tokenistic statements and others were regrettably absent. This exchange was deemed potentially very useful by minority representatives, although they felt that some of the presentations and responses could have been more substantial. MRG commends the recommendation of the working group that minorities should put forward their questions in writing prior to the session, and that agencies prepare their response and foster a more in-depth debate.
Another forum to promote early action on root causes of conflicts is likely to be the forthcoming World Conference on Racism. Early action is needed to ensure that all key stakeholders, as defined by the commission in resolution 1998/26, are involved at an early stage. It is essential that this world conference does not become an acrimonious forum of abuse, but a platform for a constructive programme to ensure that racial discrimination is effectively abolished in society, and all human beings are considered and treated as equals in dignity and rights, and to celebrate diversity and cooperation between communities.
MRG invites the sub-commission to urge the High Commissioner for Human Rights to appoint a senior co-ordinator as soon as possible.
In conclusion, Mr Chairman, MRG recommends that the sub commission takes early action to:
- Open a dialogue with the Commission on Human Rights on action on situations such as Kosovo.
- Accept the proposal of its working group to re-organize its agenda.
- Consider the recommendations on the seminar on Media and Minorities.
- Adopt a resolution on the World Conference on Racism.