UNITED NATIONS: African Diplomats Queue Up to Replace Boutros- Ghali

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 9 1996 (IPS) - When the U.N. Security Council meets Monday to consider possible replacements for the world body’s secretary-general, it will have a list of seven African candidates from which to choose.

Four nations Friday submitted candidates to the 15-member Council, which must choose a new secretary-general this month. The new candidates are Under-Secretary-General Kofi Annan of Ghana, Islamic Conference Secretary-General Hamid Algabid of Niger, former U.N. envoy Ahmedou Ould Abdallah of Mauritania, and Cote d’Ivoire’s foreign minister, Amara Essy.

Three other candidates are to be named on Monday, sources tell IPS. Senegalese President Abdou Diouf declared Friday that his country will sponsor its foreign minister, Moustapha Niasse. Two longtime U.N. officials — Habitat Secretary-General Wally N’Dow of Gambia and current Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Secretary- General Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania — are also to be named by then.

The Council will wait until Monday to ensure that all qualified candidates have had time to submit their names, Council President Francesco Paolo Fulci of Italy said. “In its meeting Monday, the Council will decide when to begin the process of selecting a name,” Fulci said.

But many of those candidates face daunting challenges in their hope to succeed the incumbent, Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros- Ghali. And Boutros-Ghali remains in the picture, although he suspended his own candidacy Wednesday after the United States maintained that it would veto him from another term.

Other countries, including Tunisia and Nigeria, are also reportedly interested in running candidates. The only thing that is certain for now is that the only choices up for consideration will be Africans, in deference to Africa’s wish to maintain the top U.N. post for two consecutive terms.

For now, however, the United States faces a central irony: To get rid of Boutros-Ghali, whom Washington blames as slow to implement U.N. reforms, the U.S. government may have to accept alternatives who are just as troublesome for U.S. interests as the incumbent was.

At the top of that list is Salim, who is expected to be nominated by his home country, Tanzania, by Monday. South African First Deputy President Thabo Mbeki said that his country would back Salim if Boutros-Ghali drops out. Salim is expected to win backing from all the southern African delegates on Monday.

African diplomats confide that the OAU chief would easily be the most popular of all the candidates among Africans. Salim, who has previously been Tanzania’s ambassador to China and Cuba, has long established his credentials among non-aligned and socialist states, and won plaudits from Beijing for helping to engineer the People’s Republic’s membership in the United Nations, at the expense of Taiwan, in 1971.