Excellent Firsthand Account
Concerning Mary Robinson and Durban

by Gil Troy

Thursday, May 6, 2004

I've read a lot this week -- this is the BEST account I've found that explains not just where Durban went wrong but details Mary Robinson's role, which according to this document was not just passive -- she actively subverted American attempts to stymie the anti-Israel -- and anti-Western pile-on. This firsthand account proves that the conference was "Hijacked" by anti-Zionism, that it was the main conference as well as the NGO forum that was problematic, and that at key points, Mary Robinson's intervention MADE MATTERS WORSE. The author, Tom Lantos, is a veteran Democratic congressman, who establishes his credibility with Canadians early in the piece by bashing the Bush Administration -- seriously, he is one of the most revered human rights activists in DC --as evidenced by the fact that the Republican Bush administration -- which he did critcize -- trusted him to play such a crucial role in such a sensitive conference.

On Durban, Representative Tom Lantos, a member of the US delegation, has written one of the most damning analyses of Robinson's direct role. Here are two quotes and there are many more in the text -- Tom Lantos - Durban Debacle "To many of us present at the events at Durban, it is clear that much of the responsibility for the debacle rests on the shoulders of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who, in her role as secretary-general of the conference, failed to provide the leadership needed to keep the conference on track."

"At the beginning of August 2000, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust, learned that Israeli passport holders and Jewish non-governmental organizations would be barred from attending. The Wiesenthal Center requested that Robinson transfer the meeting to an Asian host country that would not discriminate against delegates. She rejected the request, however, maintaining that throughout the fall and winter that the Iranian government understood that all NGOs must be allowed to attend."