By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 3 1998 (IPS)

The United Nations, in a belated attempt at pursuing demilitarisation with the end of the Cold War, is creating a new department to disarm the world at large.

The establishment of the Department of Disarmament Affairs – unanimously approved by the 185-member General Assembly four days ago – comes at a time when the world body is saddled with the burden of monitoring a rash of new conventions on disarmament. These include U.N. conventions against landmines, chemical weapons, international terrorism and nuclear weapons.

The new department, to be set up in New York in early 1998, will be headed by an Under-Secretary General to denote the importance of disarmament in the U.N. system.

Despite strong reservations by Pakistan, Russia and Ukraine, the department will absorb the existing U.N. Centre for Disarmament in New York headed by an Assistant-Secretary-General. All three countries argue that there is no need for a department of disarmament in New York when there already exists a Geneva- based Conference on Disarmament, described as the largest single multilateral body on disarmament. They also point out that appointing an Under-Secretary-General is an overkill for the new department.

In October, a Geneva-based coalition of 21 developing nations, including India, Pakistan, Cuba, Brazil, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Iran, Nigeria and Indonesia, said the new office would dilute the importance of the Conference on Disarmament.

Amjad Hussain Sial of Pakistan told delegates last week that in the interest of consensus, his country had “reluctantly agreed” with the proposal for the creation of the new department.

“The role of the U.N. Secretariat in disarmament was largely confined to servicing the negotiating bodies, and that role had been fulfilled adequately under the existing structure, ” he said.

Pakistan has also pointed out that the Secretary-General’s action was an attempt to move “the entre of gravity in the disarmament field, away from Geneva where it belongs, to New York where it does not belong.”

But U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who initiated the proposal, disagrees. Annan says the new department will help enhance the U.N. role in global disarmament and play a particularly important role in stemming the heavy flow of small arms used in civil wars devastating parts of Africa, Asia and Europe.

At the height of the Cold War, the United Nations did have a section to deal exclusively with disarmament. But in 1992, former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali downgraded the “department,” reducing it to a “centre.”for disarmament.

“I think it was a mistake to have downgraded disarmament,” says Annan, “And I am correcting that mistake.”

Annan argues that with the end of the superpower rivalry, nations everywhere have come to recognise their stake in the success of multilateral negotiations and the monitoring of weapons developments. “As a consequence, the United Nations has taken centre stage in the worldwide effort to limit both weapons and conflict,” he said.

Annan says the emergence of new dangers and actors have added new urgency to the tasks that the United Nations is called upon to play in the area of disarmament.

“In the post-Cold War period, there is a growing threat from the spread of nuclear weapons technology and material, as well as a wider interest in acquiring biological and chemical weapons and means of delivery for such weapons,” he notes. “Regional warlords, criminal syndicates and various terrorist groups have, during recent years, become involved in trading in and the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.”

Annnan’s original proposal was for a “Department of Disarmament and Arms Regulation.” But some countries feared that “arms regulation” was a codeword to pursue a hidden agenda: nuclear non- proliferation. They pointed out that Western nations may use the newly-created department to monitor and track down developing countries on the verge of producing their own nuclear weapons.

As a result of protests from several countries, including Pakistan and Egypt, “arms regulation” was dropped from the mandate of the department.

Meanwhile, the department is also expected to be play a lead role in the fourth special session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York – to be devoted to disarmament. No dates have been finalised for this meeting.

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