Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

China's turn as UN secretary-general in two years

We may be seeing an Indian secretary-general under China’s influence.

Observers said it will be Asia's turn to provide a successor to Kofi Annan when the time comes. Beijing, which likes to keep a low public profile in the United Nations, may not want to appoint a Chinese diplomat to the post, but China will exercise considerable influence in the choice. It's too early for names to be mentioned, but observers say one possibility is that the Chinese may back a prominent Indian statesman as secretary-general.

Note: We purposely weakened the UN.
Albright fought for Annan because he appeared suited to effecting a low-profile stewardship of the UN organisation; someone, above all, who would work better as a manager of the institution and not a maker of diplomatic waves. The United States wanted an efficient chief executive whose first task would be to instill some order into the morass of UN bodies and agencies and bring about the reforms that Boutros Ghali had been so reluctant to carry through, or a puppet. It is within this framework of an organization whose leadership we have purposely picked as unchallenging, that we choose to obey certain rules or discard those that do not fit our needs further serving to degrade the effectiveness of the body.

And we have Moscow urging expansion of the UN Security Council
#msg-4081047

This could be very interesting. Some important changes that have the potential to make things tough for Bush.

-Am

Analysis: Corridors of Power


By Roland Flamini
Chief International Correspondent


Washington, DC, Sep. 17 (UPI) -- Over the last 18 months U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made no secret of the fact that he neither supported nor approved of the Iraq war. But this week Annan went further, calling the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain an illegal act -- and thereby provoking swift reaction from U.S., British and Australian officials.

Annan made the remarks in a BBC interview. The war, he said, "was not in conformity with the Security Council -- with the U.N. Charter." When pressed by the BBC reporter, he added, "It was illegal, if you wish. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal."

Because Britain and the United States launched the attack without the backing of a U.N. resolution, its legality has been the subject of debate among governments and experts in international law. But what gives Annan's blunt comment added significance is his timing.

Next week, President George W. Bush is scheduled to deliver the opening address of the U.N.'s 59th General Assembly. It was from the same platform two years ago that Bush warned the world of the imminent danger from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction which, Bush said, the Iraqi leader was capable of giving to international terrorists.

By setting forth his view now, Annan has reminded the General Assembly of his opposition to the U.S.-led war, and perhaps delivered an early warning that the United Nations might be having second thoughts about overseeing elections in Iraq in January. A U.N. Security Council resolution commits the United Nations to organizing and supervising the elections, but Annan has refused to deploy a full-scale staff in Iraq without security guarantees. He is determined to avoid a repetition of the tragic disaster of last August when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 staffers.

Whatever his reasons for speaking his mind, the U.N. chief has certainly not improved his already difficult relations with a White House not known for its admiration of, or commitment to, the world body which he runs. The irony is that the Bush administration initially resisted giving the United Nations any role in post-war Iraq, but in the end had to give in to pressure from its allies.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. As the violence has increased rather than lessened, it's the United Nations that is having second thoughts about its Iraqi involvement. Annan has insisted on keeping its in-country staff to a maximum of 35 people. Under those conditions, the likelihood of being ready for polling by the January deadline has seemed increasingly remote. "You can't have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now," Annan said in his BBC interview.

Annan's second term still has two years to go, and they could be difficult ones in the event of a Bush victory in November, and another conservative administration. The Ghanian diplomat -- who owed his appointment to vigorous U.S. support in a battle with France, which favored a second term for Boutros Boutros Ghali of Egypt -- now finds himself supported by the French, originally his opponents. France threatened to use its veto to block Annan's appointment, but in the confrontation with the United States, France blinked first.

Annan was the first secretary-general to be appointed from within the United Nations itself. He had spent three decades in the organization and held senior posts in some of the United Nation's most difficult departments. Before his election, he was head of U.N. peacekeeping. The United States -- the richest and most influential U.N. member -- backed Annan because Washington saw him as the man to reform the bureaucratic and (as Americans saw it) inefficient U.N. structure.

After successive secretaries-general from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, observers said it will be Asia's turn to provide a successor to Kofi Annan when the time comes. Beijing, which likes to keep a low public profile in the United Nations, may not want to appoint a Chinese diplomat to the post, but China will exercise considerable influence in the choice. It's too early for names to be mentioned, but observers say one possibility is that the Chinese may back a prominent Indian statesman as secretary-general.




http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040917-070011-7459r.htm