The Hindu Business Line : UN Bush-whacked

THE resignation of Mr Benon Sevan, a senior official of the United Nations (UN), as also the arrest of another senior official, Mr Alexander Yakovlev, following an independent inquiry headed by Mr Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, into corruption in the oil-for-food programme for Iraq comes, most fortuitously for the US, shortly after Mr John Bolton presented his credentials as the new US Ambassador to the world body.

While there is not much scope for doubting that corruption did possibly mar the oil-for-food programme, one wonders whether the public release of the Volcker findings within a few days of Mr Bolton's arrival in New York is a happy — for the US, that is — coincidence or whether there is a connection between the two events.

After all, there is no denying that with the UN finding itself in disrepute, the Bush Administration will find it considerably easier to divert world attention from its own corruption on a much more sweeping scale, not to mention an assortment of other, much more reprehensible, crimes in Iraq and other countries.

It is relevant to note here that Mr Bolton, opposed by Democratic Senators, was installed in his post by the US President, Mr George W. Bush, in a so-called recess appointment that permits him to make such appointments when Congress is not in session. Mr Bolton can reasonably expect to hold on to his job until January 2007, when a new Congress will be sworn in.

The reasons for Mr Bush's enthusiasm for Mr Bolton are fairly evident: The latter had served as an Assistant Secretary of State for International Organisations under the former US President, Mr George H. W. Bush, and had proved extremely vigorous in lobbying Security Council members in 1990 to approve a war against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait.

In the circumstances, an unbiased observer can only agree with the editorial in The New York Times which, in a highly perceptive comment on Mr Bolton's appointment, had noted sardonically that if there is a positive side to the development, it is that as long as Mr Bolton is in New York, he will not be wreaking diplomatic havoc anywhere else. "Talks with North Korea, for instance, have been looking more productive since Mr Bolton left the State Department, and it's hard not to think that Secretary of State Ms Condoleezza Rice's generally positive performance in office is due, in part, to her canniness in dispatching Mr Bolton out of Washington."

"But," The New York Times had added, "the appointment is, of course, terrible news for the United Nations... "

It now remains to be seen how exactly Mr Bolton, who once described the UN as "irrelevant," will tweak the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan's ambitious reform programme which world leaders will be called upon to endorse in one form or other at a UN summit in mid-September.

We will not have to wait very long as just a few weeks remain for the summit and intense wrangling is already on about the components of the final reforms plan — an expansion of the Security Council, changes in the UN secretariat, an overhaul of the UN's human rights machinery, a definition of terrorism, and the protection of civilians facing genocide and war crimes — which all 191 member states will have to agree on.

What are the reforms that the Bush Administration would like to see in the UN?

The reforms will include:

The introduction of changes in the UN system which will improve internal oversight and accountability, identify cost savings and allocate resources to high priority programmes and offices;

The establishment of a Peace Building Commission as mooted by Mr Annan;

The replacement of the Commission on Human Rights with a "smaller, action-oriented" Human Rights Council "whose membership should not include states with a record of abuse";

The adoption by the UN of "democracy promotion" as suggested by Mr. Bush in his September, 2004, General Assembly speech;

The adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on Terrorism (CCIT) which the Bush Administration has been plugging for quite some time now, amidst controversy; and

Support for good governance and sound economic policies.

This is the US State Department version of what the UN reforms should be about.

And then there is the version embodied in a Bill introduced by the Conservatives in the US House of Representatives last June — the so-called Henry J. Hyde United Nations Reform Act of 2005 — which stipulates a set of changes designed to pretty much put the UN out of business... failing which it insists that the US should not pay half of its UN contributions if the `reforms' are not implemented. The Bill could be summed up as a very Bush variation of the mugger's refrain ("My money or your life") and has very little to do with the reforms that Mr Kofi Annan is working towards and nothing at all to do with the reforms favoured by other governments.

As far as Mr Kofi Annan is concerned, he has made it clear in diverse fora that the US — as also other countries — which are pushing for reform should expect an ongoing process as against a one-time event at the up-coming annual summit. Parenthetically, he has also been very courteous about Mr Bolton's arrival at the UN and has said that the US ambassadorship to the UN is a post which is "too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about UN reform."

As for the views of countries other than the US and its client states, the leaders of various African nations, for instance, have been vigorous in their advocacy of the "reorganisation and democratisation of the UN."

The recent African Union (AU) Assembly of Heads of State and Governments in Sirte, Libya, had made it abundantly clear that the African continent believes that the UN is operating undemocratically with only powerful countries having veto power and that Africa should be given at least two permanent seats with veto powers in the UN Security Council.

India, too, is convinced that it deserves a seat in the Security Council, presumably on the basis of its delusion that it is a super-power.In sharp contrast to all this is Mr Bolton's view of what the UN should be like, reflected in his widely quoted statement that "there should be only one member of the UN Security Council — the United States".

One hopes that he does not succeed in prevailing upon Mr Bush to "invade" the UN office on the grounds that it harbours the representatives of some countries which either have weapons of mass destructions or terrorists — or both.

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