It was supposed to be a landmark gathering to strike a charter against racism for the new millennium; an international show of solidarity in the land that overcame apartheid.

In a Seamus Heaneyesque turn of phrase at the opening ceremony of the UN world conference eight days ago, Mrs Mary Robinson said a breakthrough in the struggle against racism would connect with millions worldwide, "in the way that poetry connects and will be heard by that inner ear".

But when the applause for such noble sentiments from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights died down, it was politics, not poetry that dominated the third world conference against racism in Durban, South Africa.

Delegates from some 170 states did not heed the lofty calls to rise above their disagreements on bitterly contentious issues such as the Middle East and apologies and reparations for slavery and colonialism.

Instead, they reverted to political bickering and horse-trading over painful injustices of the past and present. This transformed what Mrs Robinson had hoped would be a "forward-looking and progressive" event into to an acrimonious and tense gathering which remained unresolved up to the eleventh hour.

It was a tired and weary Belgian Foreign Minister, Mr Louis Michel - the chair of the EU delegation at the negotiations - who admitted at around 8 p.m. yesterday that he did not know if there would be an agreement. "I hope there will be an agreement but I am discouraged, tired and a bit disappointed," he said. While there was still a chance to make the gathering a success, it would be very difficult, he added.

A collapse of the conference against racism would be a devastating disappointment to the UN, Mrs Robinson as the conference's secretary general, South Africa as its host, and the fight against racism.

The walk-out of the downgraded Israeli and US delegates last Monday in protest at "hateful" anti-Israeli language in initial conference draft texts on the Middle East was a significant blow in itself, setting the tone for the week.

Mrs Robinson put a brave face on matters the following day, insisting the summit was "significantly back on course" and urging the media not to ignore the voices crying out for human dignity.

Members of India's lowest "untouchables" caste, the Dalits, embarked on a hunger strike to promote their claim to be recognised as people facing discrimination in the conference text. Kurds living in Turkey, Tibetans, refugees, women, gays, indigenous peoples of America and Asia and African-Americans made known their plight. Irish Travellers and other nomadic minorities, the Roma, Gypsies and Sinti, won recognition in the conference texts.

And in the packed darkened Hall 1 of the International Convention Centre each lunchtime, tearful testimonies were delivered by victims of modern-day slavery in Nigeria, ethnic cleansing and sex crimes in Bosnia, racial discrimination in postApartheid Africa and genocide in Rwanda. The inherent value in the ventilation by these people of their experiences on a world stage goes beyond politics.

The problem was that the voices highlighting the sorts of injustices that should have been central to this event became a sideshow while frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations on contentious world issues took centre stage.

The writing had, of course, been on the wall. The two previous UN world conferences against racism, on colonisation in 1978 and apartheid in 1983, were unsuccessful. The US and Israel walked out of both amid anti-Zionism sentiments and attempts to isolate Israel and the final documents were not considered credible. In 1978, the British delegation walked out during the final debate. The EU withdrew in 1983.

Durban was billed as being different. Almost every time she spoke to delegates at the main conference, Mrs Robinson said no country was free from racism, and she urged them to come out with national action plans and concrete follow-up measures.

But while most governments were happy to scrutinise other states' shortcomings and discuss racism in the abstract, few were going to acknowledge, much less be held accountable for, racial disharmony in their own back yards.

In the run-up to the event, governments had already fixed their positions on domestically uncomfortable issues and lobbied other sympathetic states.

India battled hard to keep the blatantly discriminatory caste system off the agenda, counting among its supporters Pakistan, fearful that its own caste system might come under the spotlight. Many other states kept their heads down, fearing that India might retaliate. African states which called for the west to make amends for the trans-Atlantic slave trade ignored slavery on their own doorsteps as well as the historical Arab-led slave trade in east Africa.

Ireland's problems in coming to terms with a multi-cultural society were modest compared to the issues faced by many other states at the event. The 30-strong Irish delegation included representatives of ethnic minorities such as asylum-seekers, refugees and Travellers who praised officials' willingness to take on board their concerns during negotiations.

Yet in advance of the release this week of an Amnesty International report showing disturbingly high levels of racism against ethnic minorities in Ireland, the speech by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, gave a nostalgic almost Bord Failte impression of a state "determined it would not suffer the curse of racism".

A member of the Irish Human Rights Commission, Mr Michael Farrell, seized the opportunity to set the record straight in his address to the conference when he said racism was a "real and present evil" in Irish society, not a theoretical future possibility.

Even a parallel gathering of about 6,000 non-governmental groups in Durban ahead of the conference struck a discordant note, with almost daily shouting matches between Arab and Jewish delegates. The event was a fiasco, with many groups including the Irish delegates dissociating themselves from its final declaration which included calls for an end to Israeli "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" in the Middle East.

Mrs Robinson, a major supporter of non-governmental groups and champion of the power of civil society, said she was "distressed and disturbed" by the document, which she could not recommend to conference delegates. None of this is to deny that progress was made at the event on the non-contentious elements of the two documents due to emerge from the conference - a declaration against racism and a programme of action.

The texts would be a foundation for governments seriously committed to dealing with these issues domestically. People working to combat racism may be deeply disappointed that this global summit was pathologically focused on politics of both the present and the past.

There were concerns, too, that the programme of action and declaration were watered down in the headlong dash to finalise the texts in the event of agreement on the issues dividing delegates. Paragraphs "urging" or "calling upon" governments to take measures were downgraded to "invites".

The test of any accord yet struck in Durban will lie in the months and years ahead, including the implementation and monitoring of national action plans and adequate funding for the anti-discrimination unit in Mrs Robinson's office.

A final declaration and programme of action would not be legally-binding documents, but rather commitments which would only be realised where the will exists.

The week has taken its toll on Mrs Robinson, who worked tirelessly for months to ensure its success. Up to the last minute she was striking a positive note publicly, while using her office behind the scenes to forge a consensus. If she looked drained yesterday, it was with good cause.

Deep and bitter divisions, hatred, prejudice, hypocrisy and disrespect for human dignity were alive and well in Durban this week, just as they are alive and well in the world. It would be naive to expect that a gathering of this nature to do anything more than reflect this uncomfortable reality.