and Protection of Minorities

48th Session

5-30 August 1996

Agenda item 5:

Elimination of racial discrimination.

Mr Chairman,

I would like to discuss the question of in what forms racial discrimination can exist.

Is is easier for members of the international community to recognize and respond to cases of racial discrimination and protect its victims when discrimination exists openly and is even laid down in law, as was, foe example, the case in Southern Africa.

A more difficult situation present itself when racial discrimination exists in a partly hidden form. This can happen, foe example, when discrimination is institutionalized by the regional authorities, whereas the central government ignores this. This sometimes happens despite gross violations of the national constitution and repeated protests of the victims of discrimination. For the international bodies it is difficult to monitor human rights on the regional levels, and the central government has the tendency to deny its responsibility. This occurs particularly in large countries with a system of regional autonomy, such as India, Russia, the Ukraine (in relation to the Crimea) or Tanzania (in relation to Zanzibar).

A similar situation of "underground" discrimination exists when the violation of political, social and cultural rights and fundamental freedoms of some ethnic group is officially based not on racial considerations but on some other factor which in practice have the same effect. For example, knowledge of the official language which is foreign to a distinct ethnic group; obligatory employment; permanent settlement, and so forth. We know this is the case in Tibet, Eastern Turkestan, West Papua, east Timor, Kosova, Sanjak, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the Lakota Nation, Hawaii and with respect to the Batwa of Rwanda, to name but some example.

A situation can also exist where neither on the national nor on the regional level human rights are officially restricted by law. But in reality the government does not protect the rights of some ethnic groups, and does not prosecute violators of those rights. In effect, the non-intervention by governments and the refusal to prosecute offenders promotes the continuation of human rights violations against specific ethnic groups.

Such a position allows the responsible government to project an image of tolerance and of compliance with human rights standards, while in fact permitting or even encouraging human rights abuses. This situation exist in the Ukraine, where the government has failed during the past 6 years to denounce the Crimean government policy of limiting the repatriation and resettlement of Crimea Tatars homeland, Crimea. The government has failed over the past year to grant Ukrainian citizenship to over 200,000 Crimean Tatars who returned to their homeland since November 1991. That same government also failed to persecute the special militia troops who, in June of last year, killed two and wounded 20 Crimean Tatars who were protesting the refusal of the authorities to take action against criminal

acts of terror aimed at Crimean Tatars.

Mr Chairman, I believe that the important role of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and protection of Minorities would be enhanced if it could focus attention and action on these somewhat hidden but systematic forms of discrimination which many peoples experience.

Thank you Mr Chairman!