POLITICS-UN: Arab World Squabbles Over UNESCO Post

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 2 1999 (IPS) - The Arab world is squabbling over who should become head of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural organisation (UNESCO) – a fight that even has divided the royal family in Saudi Arabia.

The post of director-general at UNESCO falls vacant by the end of this year and, currently the main contenders for the top job are Ismail Serageldin of Egypt – a Vice President of the World Bank in Washington – and Ghazi Algosaibi, the Saudi ambassador to Britain.

According to Arabic newspapers, Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd has personally phoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to seek support for Algosaibi.

As a result, says the Arab media, the Egyptian government is not publicly supporting its own national despite the fact Serageldin has been endorsed as the sole African candidate for the job by the 52-member Organisation of African Unity (OAU), of which Egypt is a member and Saudi Arabia is not.

On the other hand, the 22-member League of Arab States – which includes both Egypt and Saudi Arabia – has endorsed Algosaibi by consensus but Egypt and Iraq nevertheless have expressed reservations.

According to Serageldin, some Egyptian officials have said they will “pursue his candidacy by other means.”

Algosaibi also has been unanimously endorsed by the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – comprising Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia; and, while King Fahd is fully supportive of his countryman, there has been a dissenting voice from within the Saudi royal family over Algosaibi’s candidature.

Addressing a recent conference of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Cairo, Prince Talal bin Abdel Aziz, a brother of King Fahd and a longtime supporter of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), publicly declared his support for Serageldin.

When he was reminded that there was a Saudi candidate for the job, Talal was quoted in the Al Quds al Arabi newspaper as saying it was not in Saudi Arabia’s interest to expose itself to politically sensitive issues.

These include human rights, press freedom and the advancement of women – all of which are part of UNESCO’s mandate.

Other sections of the media have speculated that Algosaibi would have difficulty in establishing the credibility of his candidacy among many UNESCO member states, as well as women’s groups.

The magazine “Nature” quoted an unnamed UNESCO official as saying that UNESCO stands for freedom of expression and the rights of women, “something for which Saudi Arabia – a country in which women are not allowed to drive on public roads – is not generally known.”

As one of the front-runners for the job, Serageldin has won endorsement from more than 34 Nobel Laureates – including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jose Ramos-Horta, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer and James Tobin – along with more than 200 recognised leaders and eminent persons in the fields of education, science, human rights and culture.

“These are the real stakeholders of UNESCO,” Serageldin told IPS. “If it was up to this group to decide, I would have been elected director-general but the “sad aspect” of most UN elections is that they are dictated by politics.”

Serageldin also believes that the United Nations “will be best served if they choose persons with the strongest credentials to fulfill the mandate of the institution.”

“I am an optimist and am therefore hopeful they will do the right thing at UNESCO,” he says.

Asian delegates at the United Nations have pointed to the fact that the UNESCO job always has gone to nationals of Europe, Africa and Latin America and have declared the next director-general therefore should come from their region, not from Africa.

Additionally, an Egyptian is already head of a UN agency: Mohamed el-Baradei, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

Last month, former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans threw his hat in the ring as an 11th hour candidate as part of the drive by Canberra to be recognised as part of Asia and the Pacific, although it is a member of the Western European Group at the United Nations.

The other four declared candidates for the UNESCO job are: Ambassador Matsuuara Koichiro of Japan, Under-Secretary Rosario Gonzales Manalo of the Philippines, Ambassador Senake Bandaranayake of Sri Lanka and Ambassador M. Makagiansar of Indonesia, most of whom are based in Paris – the site of UNESCO headquarters.

At a UN press conference recently, Manalo complained that no one from the Phillipines hold any high ranking jobs in the UN system.

Manalo, who is Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Secretary- General of the UNESCO National Commission in the Philippines, also stressed the fact that she is the only woman candidate for the job.

Her candidacy comes at a time when women’s groups have complained that the majority of all senior UN jobs are now held by men.

Japan has been making a strong push for the job on the ground that is one of the major contributors both to the UN and UNESCO budgets. By 2000, Japan will be the second largest contributor, ranking next to the United States.

Sri Lanka has claimed that its candidate, who is a vice- chancellor of a university and a professor of archaeology, is ideally suited for UNESCO. Essentially an academic and researcher, Bandaranayake has spent most of his adult life in university environments at home and abroad.

According to an unwritten rule, the new director-general should come from an Asian developing country which has never held the job since the Paris-based UN agency was created 53 years ago.

Since 1946, the director-general’s job has been held by John Huxley (Britain), Jaime Bodet (Mexico), John Taylor and Luther Evans (United States), V. Veronese (Italy), Rene Maheu (France), Amadou M’Bow (Senegal) and the current incumbent Federico Mayor (Spain) who was elected in 1987.

The 58-member UNESCO Executive Board, which is empowered to elect the new director-general, will meet Sept. 10. The seven candidates are expected to submit to the Board a 2,000-word paper each, in English and French, setting out their own visions for UNESCO.

The Executive Board will meet again in October for an in-depth interview of the candidates. The Board will submit either a short list of candidates or recommend a single candidate. The recommendation will go before the 186-member UNESCO General Conference in late October for final approval.