The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, warned during her two-day visit to South Africa that the World Conference on Racism in Durban later this year would have to address contentious and potentially divisive political issues.
Mrs Robinson also said she was worried about the erosion of the rule of law in Zimbabwe and had urged President Robert Mugabe to ensure the independence of the media and judiciary. She had written three letters to Mr Mugabe raising the issues but had received no reply.
Mrs Robinson identified two of the issues for the racism conference as slavery - the wholesale enslavement of Africans and their transportation, primarily, to the West Indies and the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries - and the present situation in "occupied Palestine".
The former president spoke of a "reluctance" to address these questions by unnamed participants in the conference. "We cannot afford not to engage them," she commented. "There is a need for catharsis."
Describing slavery as a "dark past" which had to be dealt with, Mrs Robinson said: "People were sold as less than human and used as less than human."
She conceded that black chiefs had collaborated with the slave traders but attributed major responsibility to white slave traders. In the global language of today, slavery would definitely be categorised as "a crime against humanity".
The illegal trafficking of women and children in the modern world was "a terrible new form of slavery", Mrs Robinson said.
On the question of "occupied Palestine", Mrs Robinson referred to a pending UN report which, apart from being "very strong", placed the controversy over the violence and bloodshed there in "the context of human rights".
Another not unrelated issue - particularly in the case of the slave trade - was that of reparations and compensation. Mrs Robinson observed that reparations had been addressed at the national level - in South Africa's case through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But, she added, the time had come for it to be tackled at the international level.
In 21st century terminology slavery would be labelled a crime against humanity. Possible ways of dealing with reparations on the international level included the establishment of a development fund and "affirmative action for identified groups", she told a briefing session.
The letters Mrs Robinson had written to President Mugabe referred to numerous complaints made to her Geneva office about issues including the right to life, security, and freedom of expression, opinion and association in Zimbabwe.