The
Bolton appointment
could rock the UN ship
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
May 20, 2005
LONDON - Dag Hammarskjöld, the
most revered of past UN's secretary-generals, once
described the institution as a "Santa Maria", battling
its way through inclement weather and unsheltered oceans
to a new world, only to find that the people on board
blamed the storms on the ship itself.
The trouble is that the UN ship
belongs to everyone and yet to no one. Nevertheless, if
you are a big enough power or a strong enough group, you
can throw the ship wildly off course with the flip of a
switch. The Soviet Union did this in the 1960's when
Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk in the
Assembly, accused the UN of being American controlled,
and later demanded that the secretary-generalship be run
by a troika. The Third World nations did this when they
invited Yasser Arafat to address the Assembly still
wearing his gun holster and shortly afterwards passed the
infamous resolution equating Zionism with racism. The
Bush administration could be preparing to do it now, with
the nomination of John Bolton ("I don't do carrots") as
its next ambassador to the UN.
The U.S. Senate appears to realize
the UN is at a critical juncture. Hence the drawn out
hearings on the confirmation of Bolton. A majority of the
Senate, as are a big majority of American voters, is in
principle in favor of the UN. But the Republican majority
doesn't want to see the Administration humiliated on an
issue it attaches much importance to and this will
probably override other considerations.
All this debate comes against the
backcloth of Kofi Annan's personal drama. Although
officially exonerated by the commission of enquiry led by
Paul Volcker into impropriety in the awarding of
contracts for the oil-for-food scheme for Iraq, he can't
quite escape the cloud hanging over him. There are the
unanswered questions why key relevant documents in his
office were shredded and why he gave so much of his
scarce time to meeting with his son's employers, Cotecna,
who appear to have cut some corners in the Iraqi import
monitoring business, for which it had a UN contract.
Later Cotecna also paid Annan's son a retainer, albeit a
modest one, for little or no apparent work. The issues
stay in the news as two dissident members of Volcker's
investigation team pursue their doubts publicly in front
of three congressional committees.
For some diplomats and observers
Annan has never come out from under the clouds of the
meticulous inquiry, "Of the Actions Which the UN Took at
the Time of the Genocide in Rwanda", commissioned by the
secretary-general and headed by Ingvar Carlsson, the
former prime minister of Sweden. In it Annan was roundly
criticized because as head of peacekeeping "he did not
brief the secretary-general" about a key cable warning of
what was likely to happen from the UN's commander in
Rwanda, General Romeo Dellaire of Canada, and the
Security Council "was not informed". Carlsson later told
me that in a democracy such a serious infraction would
normally be a resigning matter. Instead Annan was
promoted to secretary-general.
The fact was that the Clinton
Administration wanted his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-
Ghali, regarded as anti-American, out of office. To
placate the African bloc whose "turn" it was supposed to
be another African had to be found. Annan with his record
was considered pliable and most of the time reasonably
able. But after his stance on Iraq, when he termed the
American invasion "illegal", the Bush Administration has
had little time for him. The main reason why it has not
joined the pressure from some in Congress demanding his
resignation is that the White House is well aware that
Annan's term will be up in 18 months and is confident
that Annan, with so many albatrosses around his neck,
will not prove difficult anymore.
Once Bolton is in place Washington
can rock the UN boat to ensure they get the
secretary-general they really want. We can expect for
Washington to push for some low key, grey, bureaucrat
&endash; another Kurt Waldeim, but without a secret Nazi
past, again a piece of history that the Soviet Union
used, as perhaps the U.S. did as well, to keep him in
line. (The only other possible candidate acceptable to
Bush would be the by then ex prime minister, Tony Blair.
But this, after Britain's role in Iraq, would cause
uproar.)
The Bush Administration suffered
grievously from the way the UN stymied its efforts to
mobilize world opinion behind its invasion of Iraq. But
this will not be allowed to happen again. With a no holds
barred ambassador and a pliant new secretary-general the
way will be open for Washington to get its way more often
on the issues that it believes matter.
Copyright © 2005 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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