E/CN.4/2003/24 page 13 the Working Group. He made the point that the principle of reparations should not be excluded in the light of numerous precedents, particularly the agreed reparations by pro-slavers following the abolition of slavery, the financial sanctions France imposed on Haiti for many years and the reparations granted to the Jewish people after the Second World War. He considered, however, that priority should be given to moral redress. The Durban Conference had taken a first step by recognizing that slavery and the slave trade were crimes against humanity. A second form of redress is historical and consists in the opening up and accessing of archives in order universally to assess, publicize and teach the entire history of the basic causes and the material and human conditions of what the French historian, Jean-Michel Deveau, has called “the greatest tragedy in human history, in terms of scale and duration”. It will then be possible to demonstrate the direct link between slavery and the underdevelopment of Africa, the Caribbean and South America (owing to its demographic impact on several million persons and four centuries of total and radical destabilization of the production system of the African continent) and to relate this major fact to negotiations on development, and particularly the debt issue. Lastly, the third form of reparation must be that of memory, through the identification, restoration and promotion of all locations carrying memories of slavery and the slave trade (forts, castles, ships, cemeteries, slave markets) and of their intangible legacy (cultural systems constructed by individuals reduced to slavery in order to resist and survive). 26. This triple approach should make it possible to ascertain the responsibilities of all those who planned, encouraged and profited from the slavery system, in Europe and the Americas and the Caribbean, as well as the role of the feudal systems which aided and abetted them in Africa. 27. The Special Rapporteur also took a stand on the definition of persons of African descent and considered that it should include all members of the African diaspora, in the Americas, Europe and Asia. II. CONTEMPORARY EXPRESSIONS OF RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND RELATED INTOLERANCE A. Racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia in politics 1. Situation in Côte d’Ivoire 28. Since 19 October 2002 Côte d’Ivoire has been faced with a complex conflict, which, according to allegations the Special Rapporteur has received, has been accentuated by the exacerbation of inter-ethnic tensions and demonstrations of xenophobia. 29. Some sectors of the population have allegedly been engaged in incitement to ethnic hatred, acts of violence against the populations of the North and xenophobia vis-à-vis foreigners. On 24 October 2002 the Special Rapporteur, along with the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right of freedom of opinion and expression, issued a press release on the situation in Côte d’Ivoire and called for renewed vigilance by the country’s authorities against the risks of ethnic conflict and for the necessary measures to be taken urgently in order to put an end to activities arising from ideas or theories based on the superiority of one group of persons of a certain colour or ethnic origin. Since then human rights organizations in Africa (e.g. the