BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 17. Executive Director of the Baku Initiative Group, Abbas Abbasov took part together with representatives of 57 OSCE participating states, OSCE institutions and other executive structures, intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs in the OSCE Warsaw Human Dimension Conference held in Warsaw, Poland, on October 7-17 this year, Trend reports.
Abbasov delivered speeches at three plenary sessions of the conference, covering global issues such as racism, xenophobia, discrimination, religious intolerance, human trafficking and fundamental freedoms.
In his speeches, Abbasov regretted that a number of countries still continue their colonial and neocolonial policies and brought to the attention of the participants the real facts about the bitter consequences of this.
In this regard, recalling the atrocities committed by Belgium in Africa, he presented Congo as one of the most terrible examples of exploitation and human suffering. He called it unfair that the crimes against humanity committed in Africa are still not adequately assessed by the international community.
He also noted that during the colonial period in Congo, Belgium destroyed local religions or forcibly imposed cultural norms, as a result of which deep cultural and moral wounds remain that continue to this day.
Furthermore, Abbasov pointed out that in the overseas territories of France - such as Kanaky - New Caledonia, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Mayotte - indigenous peoples live in the status of second-class citizens.
He highlighted that in Guadeloupe and Martinique, the Caribbean population of African descent is systematically excluded from decision-making processes and denied equal economic opportunities.
On the island of Mayotte, the majority Muslim population is subjected to a policy of deliberate exclusion, and the island has been transformed into a militarized fortress.
The official added that in French Guiana and Réunion, economic dependence, unemployment and environmental disasters have forced local populations into displacement and become targets of human trafficking networks, while human trafficking in those territories is a modern-day continuation of colonial slavery.
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