Mr. President,

I still remember your positions and the conditions of your administration concerning your participation in the Third World Conference of the United Nations against Racism and Racial Discrimination in 2001. Through the voice of the White House spokesperson at the time, Mr. Ari Fleischer, you opposed the comparison of Zionism to racism, as well as the inclusion on the agenda of reparations for colonialism and slavery. You clearly showed your true face. Mr. President, it is a matter of courage. Your participation would have been a symbol of reconciliation of America with itself. On this planet, the Black race is the one that has known most humiliation and suffered most from discrimination.

In 1998, the victims of the Holocaust obtained payment from the Swiss banks of 1.25 billion dollars in the World Jewish Congress. Mr. President, the Holocaust is indeed a drama that belongs to humankind. An insufferable drama. Why not Blacks? It has been proven that big American companies such as Fleet Boston and R.J. Reynolds were very active in the slave trade.

We cannot compare the Black slave trade to the Holocaust. Both are tragedies that belong to the history of humankind, and, Mr. President, there is no measurement scale in matters of crimes against humanity. As was said by a traditional chief of the Akan people of the Ivory coast, “You cannot cure old wounds, but you cannot ignore them.”