E/CN.4/2001/21 page 12 between the imperialist Powers, thereby interrupting historical and social trends, including the equilibrium achieved between ethnic groups in Africa, in an artificial and violent manner; 6. The development of economic processes based on dependence and slavery, and particularly the exploitation of slavery for commercial capitalist purposes on the American continent, which gave rise to the enforced shipment of Africans across the Atlantic; 7. The absence of real political will on the part of the international community to meet the challenges presented by the underdevelopment of the countries of the south. Instead of promoting the harmonious development of different countries and regions, the majority of developed countries have opted for a closed door policy and restriction of the rights of immigrants; 8. The principle of equal opportunities promoted by the liberal bourgeois democracies and by neo-liberal capitalist globalization in the context of a world where inequity prevails has the effect of aggravating and perpetuating inequality. A philosophy of cooperation and solidarity needs to be developed, comprising positive discrimination and affirmative action on behalf of individuals, peoples and nations that have been disadvantaged; 9. The concentration of international economic and political power in a small group of countries, and even in minority sectors within such countries, on which the maintenance of their exclusive and discriminatory political privileges is based; 10. The monopoly control of international media by small private groups in the developed countries, which hamper the media in their important task of acting in the public interest, and the fact that they are used to promote the superiority of the western model of civilization and its political culture. 23. The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance should be a milestone in the fight against racism. Cuba attaches special importance to the contributions the Special Rapporteur may make to the preparations for and development of the conference, particularly in the discussion of emerging topics, such as reparation and compensation for the victims and descendants of the victims of slavery and the transatlantic capitalist trade in Africans, which lasted for centuries until only a little over 100 years ago, and which constituted a crime against humanity. The reparation and compensation recently granted to victims and their descendants in the case of the Jewish Holocaust, which took place more than 50 years ago during World War II, shows that there are legal and moral grounds for meeting the just claims of victims of the capitalist slave trade of persons from Africa and all the peoples concerned, whose development was interrupted as a result of the abduction and forced transfer of more than 50 million members of their economically active population, to which was added colonization.