Groups Seek Attention at Racism Meet 

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) - Some of the less powerful victims of discrimination say their
causes are not being addressed at the world conference on racism, which has focused on
Israel and slavery reparations.

As delegates try to hammer out compromise language for the final declaration to prevent the
European Union from joining the United States and Israel in pulling out of the conference, a
less-watched effort had been under way to draw up a list of the victims of discrimination.

Many groups were fighting to get on the list - including Kurds in Turkey and the
untouchables in India - but say that they have no country to champion their cause and thus
no voice on the declaration drafting committees.

``This conference, when it comes to Kurds and many others, is itself a conference of
discrimination,'' said Bakhtiar Amin, a Kurd trying vainly to get his people mentioned in the
conference's final document. ``They are selective and unfair in their approach to many
victims of suffering.''

However, the group debating who would be on the list reached a compromise late Thursday
not to draw up a list at all. It was still debating whether to expand what grounds for
discrimination would be recognized by international law, said Arturo Hernandez Basave, a
Mexican diplomat mediating the talks.

Turkey does not recognize its 12 million Kurds as a minority and views Kurdish cultural
identity as a threat to the Turkish state. Turkish troops have fought a 15-year war against
Kurdish rebels in the country's southeast. Some 37,000 people have died as a result of the
conflict.

Dalits, also known as India's untouchable caste, worry that the paragraph that deals with
discrimination ``on the basis of work and descent'' - a U.N. euphemism for caste - will be
removed at India's behest.

India's minister of state for foreign affairs, Omar Abdullah, said his country strongly opposed
even the ``work and descent'' wording.

Condemning the caste system would equate ``casteism with racism, which makes India a
racist country, which we are not,'' he said.

Canada and the European Union want to add protection on the basis of language and
religion, while African and Asian delegates want to stick to currently accepted grounds of
race, skin color, descent and national or ethnic origin.

``Many delegations want to include other forms, such as age, sexual orientation, HIV/AIDS
status and economic status,'' Hernandez said. ``Africa and Asia say that will expand the
scope so that everyone will be considered a victim, and therefore laws against racism will be
diluted.''

Other areas of the conference's draft declaration are also being challenged.

Gay groups are angry that references to discrimination based on sexual orientation are still
under attack.

Before the conference, indigenous peoples had waged a successful battle over an ``s,''
demanding they be described as ``indigenous peoples'' instead of ``indigenous people.''

They felt that as peoples they would be recognized as distinct groups with the right to self
determination, rather than simply a collection of people, said Juana Majel, executive officer
of the National Congress of American Indians.

Now they are worried the ``s'' might be dropped and are furious over the likely inclusion of
two caveat paragraphs that say their rights are subject to the power of the countries where
they live, Majel said.

``That is unacceptable,'' she said. ``We are sovereign nations.''

Proposed text demanding protection for asylum seekers also appears to have been eliminated
and activists worry that the only two paragraphs regarding refugees still in the document
were about to be watered down or dropped completely.

``It leaves you wondering whether governments really care about the plight of refugees,
given the scale of the refugee problem worldwide,'' said Rachael Reilly, refugee policy
director at Human Rights Watch. ``There is a vacuum of moral leadership.''
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