By Bert Wilkinson, in Bridgetown, Barbados October 4 2002

Delegates at an international conference against racism cheered as they voted to expel whites, saying it was too traumatic to discuss slavery in front of them.

"I think this is a mistake," said Doug Norbeg, a white cameraman filming for San Francisco-based Collision Course Video Productions.

He was among a dozen whites and a couple of Asians at the African and African Descendants' World Conference Against Racism, hosted by the Barbados Government, who walked out without protest on Wednesday.

Those expelled included several interpreters and members of non-governmental organisations.

The vote to restrict the six-day conference to blacks was proposed by a 60-strong delegation from Britain. More than 200 approved, including a group of black Americans living in Israel, and about 50 others abstained.

"This is an African family occasion and therefore they should not be allowed to sit down and talk with us," said Garadina Gamba, a spokeswoman for the British delegation.

The conference chairwoman, Jewel Crawford of the United States, said: "There are a number of black people who have been traumatised by white people, and they suffered psychologically and emotionally, and as a result of that trauma some of them did not care to discuss their issues in front of them."

A few conference officials disagreed. Jean Violet Baptiste, spokeswoman for the Guyana-based African Cultural and Development Association, said organisers should have made it clear that only blacks were welcome.

A big issue at the meeting is a plan by black activists from the Caribbean and North America to sue France for making Haiti pay millions of francs for recognition of its independence nearly two centuries ago.

France officially recognised Haiti's independence in exchange for 150 million francs in gold in 1838, 33 years after Haitians defeated Napoleon's army in the first and only successful slave revolt against a colonial power.

The Barbadian Attorney-General, Mia Mottley, said France forced Haiti to make payments between 1825 and 1922. "And then we wonder why the systematic underdevelopment of Haiti," she said.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2002