Much to the disappointment of the Dalit caucus, United Nations SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan today once against reiterated that he had nothing more to sayon the Dalit issue except what he had already told the agitating Dalit activistsat the NGO plenary forum two days ago.
Replying to a question while addressing the international media at the WorldConference Against Racism (WCAR) for the first time Annan said: ``I think in mystatement to the plenary I did clearly mention that all forms of discriminationshould be abolished.....by race, descent or whatever.... I have made thatclear.''
Ever since the acrimonious plenary with the Secretary General at the NGOforum, the Dalit groups have been facing a hard time in trying to put thingstogether for their campaign which so far had managed to gather internationalattention.
Advertisement
Their main agenda to push for inclusion of caste as a form of discriminationin WCAR declaration received another setback yesterday when the Swiss governmentwithdrew its support to Dalit cause. It came as a rude shock to the Dalit groupsfor the Swiss government had so far stridently stood by the Dalit cause.
It is learnt that as a salvage exercise the Dalit caucus had to manage thesupport of a Latin American country to retain the agenda on the charter.
Meanwhile the Dalit lobby lead by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rightshas fielded former chairperson of National Council for Women Mohini Giri, seniormember of People's Union for Civil Liberties Dr R M Pal, Dalit activist RuthManorama among others for lobbying with various delegation.
Advertisement
Minister of State for foreign affairs Omar Abdullah is heading the Indiandelegation will be making his speech at the plenary session on September 3.
India had already made its stand clear on the caste issue stating that it wasthe country's internal matter and that the matter of caste was no way related tothe racial discrimination.
Middle-East
The conflict between Israel and Palestine continues to dominate the proceedings.The last week at the NGO forum witnessed great tension between the two combatinggroups that almost hijacked the agenda.
Both the groups present in large numbers successfully invaded all committeemeetings and used every possible platform to garner support of the worldcommunity for their cause.
In his press conference, Kofi Annan acknowledging that the issue ofreparation and the Middle East had dominated the talks, maintained, "weshould not allow any single issue to derail the conference. Those who derail itwill be held responsible by the rest of the groups.''
Many countries have also objected to the militant activism of the groupsbelonging to the two nations saying they were not allowing other voices to beheard at the conference.
