Senior South African figures slammed the United States yesterday for threatening to boycott a U.N. conference on racism and condemned the “evasive” language of draft declarations. National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala, attending a preparatory conference in Cape Town, said she found it unacceptable that the United States, which guaranteed freedom of speech in its Constitution, wanted to exclude Zionism and reparations for slavery from the agenda of the conference. The South African Non-Governmental Coalition earlier accused the United States of arrogance bordering on self-interest for threatening to boycott the conference. Its director said it’s ironic that the nation that claims to be the defender of the free world consistently uses its considerable economic and military might to pursue its own narrow interests.