The Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, made an impassioned plea to conference delegates to stand by the Palestinian people and condemn Israeli racism in the Middle East.
His hard-hitting speech raised tensions over the Middle East issue, which has already led to friction between Arab states and Israeli and US delegates.
Both Israel and the US have sent only middle-level representatives to the UN world conference and are insisting that references to "racist" Israeli actions against the Palestinians be removed from final texts.
Mr Arafat shared a platform with a dozen other world figures at a round-table session yesterday afternoon. Among the heads of state and government present were the Presidents of Rwanda and Uganda as well as the Cuban President, Dr Fidel Castro, who received a partial standing ovation after his address.
The Palestinian leader said: "I come to you from my country, Palestine, which is suffering abhorrent occupation, aggression, settler colonialism. I am hoping this conference will say what is bad and what is just in the face of this bloody tragedy that has befallen my country. It is a colonial, racist plot, very aggressive uprooting and taking over of land, as well as laying hands on all that is holy."
Mr Arafat said the plot had trodden on all international instruments, with the government of Israel usurping Palestinian rights and resources. An Israeli withdrawal from occupied land was required.
His people had "always condemned all racial practices that befell the Jews in contemporary history", he said. Palestinians looked forward to "returning to the path of peace to achieve the legitimate objective of our people within a just, durable and comprehensive peace for all the peoples of the region".
Dr Castro charted colonialism, exploitation, slavery, pillaging and upheavals around the world, from Greenland to India. These were all inseparable factors in any analysis of racism and discrimination, he said.
A conference dealing with racism and "related intolerance" could not ignore the fact that poverty was intolerable. "We have a rich world and a poor world, and that is intolerable, and it has its origins in conquest, colonisation and enslavement," he said.
He said 50 per cent of children in the Third World died before the age of five from infectious diseases. "Let us suppose that we are able to cast a blow on racism. Does that mean that in the Third World children will no longer die? Only 1 per cent of children in wealthy countries and developed nations die from those diseases," he said.
Cuba had reduced infant mortality rates to the same level as the developed world, and this had been possible despite the US blockade.
The Cuban leader joked about the fact that the depleted ozone layer meant that people with black skin were more protected against the sun's harmful rays. "Now that we are losing the ozone layer perhaps everyone will have to become black again", he added.
Dr Castro acknowledged his legendary tendency to speak at great length. As he exceeded his allocated speaking time, the South African President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, who was chairing the event, had to gracefully ask him to wrap up his contribution.
The Ugandan President, Mr Yoweri Museveni, said racism was a lot of nonsense, as anthropology showed that all human life began in Africa. "All these people here - Chinese, Europeans - are emigrants from Africa", he said. "Now it is amazing to see those emigrants coming back to Africa and disturbing us and saying you are the ones who are inferior."