Associated Press
August 16, 2001
By Dina Kraft

PRETORIA, South Africa - Waving anti-American and anti-Israeli signs, some 2,000 South African workers demonstrated Thursday against the United States for threatening to boycott a U.N. conference on racism.

Gathered outside the U.S. Embassy, the demonstrators criticized the United States for warning it would skip the meeting over references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and African demands for slavery reparations in a proposed convention document.

The contentious issues have overshadowed planning of the World Conference Against Racism which begins Aug. 31 in the South African coastal city of Durban. The Americans' staying home would diminish the gathering's credibility.

Sipho Pityana, director general of the South African Foreign Ministry, said progress had been made in diplomatic discussions, noting that language singling out Israel as racist has been dropped.

"There is a general understanding we have to move away from the more heated language," Pityana said at a news conference Thursday.

Pityana said that the questions of reparations for slavery and a proposed apology by former slave-holding nations remained unresolved.

"This is not Africa with a bag and a bowl asking for assistance," Pityana said. "It is about the legacy of the past we are grappling with."

The United States opposes demands for compensation from countries that benefited in the past from slavery and colonialism.

Pityana said that if attempts for compensation fail, suggestions have been made for symbolic gestures such as the building of monuments in memory of the victims of the slave trade and colonialism.

At the demonstration arranged by local unions and the South African communist party, protesters waved signs that read, "Stop Apartheid Israel" and "United States: Stop Supporting Racism."

Jan Tsiane, leader of a local political group, said those protesting Thursday identified with the Palestinian people and the current uprising against Israel.

"(We) would have opted for the same option of becoming suicide bombers," Tsiane told the marchers, referring to the Palestinian militants who have killed scores of Israelis in recent terror attacks.