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POLITICS: South Backs Beleaguered U.N. Chief

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 2 2004 (IPS) - The largest political group at the United Nations is expected to pledge its ”strong support” to beleaguered U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose resignation is being demanded by right-wing newspapers and neo-conservative politicians in the United States.

The overwhelming backing for Annan, a national of Ghana, by the 116-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), is expected to follow a similar stand Wednesday by 54 African nations, who sent him a letter of support.

A meeting of NAM countries, chaired by Malaysia, is scheduled for next week, and ambassadors from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are expected to publicly express confidence in Annan.

”This will be a slap in the face of U.S. politicians who are demanding Annan’s head,” an African diplomat whose country is a NAM member told IPS.

”The United Nations has 191 member states – and the future of the U.N. secretary-general cannot be determined by a single country, however powerful,” he added.

With two more years to go, Annan’s second five-year term as secretary-general is expected to end in December 2006.

The administration of U.S. President George W Bush, annoyed by Annan’s recent comments that the 2003 U.S.-led war against Iraq was ”illegal”, has so far refused to express confidence in the U.N. chief.

The only administration comments, described as ”mild” by one African diplomat, have come from former U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, who said Monday, ”I don’t think that the U.S. government rushes to judgement before all the facts are in.”

The demand for Annan’s resignation has been prompted primarily by allegations of bribery and mismanagement of the now-defunct, U.N.-supervised ”oil-for-food” programme in Iraq.

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is accused of collecting over 21 billion dollars in illegal oil revenues by subverting the programme, which was designed to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people caused by an economic embargo on the nation.

The programme is currently under investigation by a U.N. committee created by the U.N. Security Council and chaired by former U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Paul Volcker. The committee is expected to release its preliminary findings in January 2005.

The secretary-general’s son, Kojo Annan, is also under scrutiny because of his links to a Swiss company that had contracts with the United Nations for the oil-for-food programme.

The demand for Annan’s resignation is being orchestrated by Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican who chairs the U.S. Senate’s permanent sub-committee conducting a parallel probe into the programme.

”Mr Annan was at the helm of the United Nations for all but a few days of the oil-for-food programme, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the U.N.’s utter failure to detect or stop Saddam’s abuses,” Coleman wrote in an op-ed piece in Wednesday’s ‘Wall Street Journal’, one of the major newspapers campaigning for Annan’s ouster.

”As long as Mr Annan remains in charge (of the United Nations)”, Coleman said, ”the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the U.N.’s collective nose.”

In a report released in October, the chief U.S. arms inspector in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, said that Russia, France and China – all permanent members of the Security Council – were the top three countries in which individuals or companies received ”lucrative vouchers” for discounted oil purchases from Iraq.

Several U.S. companies were also indirect beneficiaries of contracts given to Western companies, along with firms from Belarus, Lebanon, Indonesia, Jordan, Poland, Turkey, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, added the report.

Some U.S. politicians have threatened to reduce U.S. funds to the United Nations if Annan refuses to resign. Washington is the largest single contributor to the United Nations – and also the largest single defaulter – accounting for about 22 percent of the world body’s regular budget.

According to U.N. figures released last week, the United States owes about 529 million dollars in unpaid contributions for 2004 and previous years. Of the 15 major contributors, the only other two countries in arrears are Brazil (75 million dollars) and Mexico (9.5 million dollars).

Asked if Annan would relent to the demands by a ”growing chorus” of politicians and newspaper columnists, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard shot back: ”A few voices don’t make a chorus.”

”Everything on oil-for-food is being looked at by Mr Volcker. So, we’re not going to talk about that until Volcker finishes his work. And as for judgement calls, I think it’s much wiser to wait for the full investigation to be completed before allocating blame,” he told reporters Wednesday.

Asked about the impact of the spreading crisis on the work of the United Nations, Annan told reporters Monday: ”We have very serious work to do in the coming year, the years ahead, and I would want to focus on that.”

”Obviously, in this climate and with this oil-for-food discussions, it is not going to be easy. It wasn’t going to be easy anyway,” he added.

”We do have work to do, and I hope that the member states and governments concerned will see the value in focusing on the reform (of the United Nations) and the development issues that will be (debated next year)”.

But there are lingering fears here that those tasks are going to be undermined by recent developments.

”I fear we have a reprise of the tactics by right-wing conservatives in the 1990s to discredit the secretary-general and the United Nations itself,” says Margaret Karns, who teaches courses on international organisations, foreign policy and diplomacy at the University of Dayton in Ohio State.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who stood up to Washington during his last years in office, was also a victim of U.S. retaliation. When he ran for a second five-year term in December 1996, he received 14 of 15 votes in the Security Council. The United States, the only dissenting voice, exercised its veto against him, paving the way for the election of Annan as the new secretary-general.

”They have found a new ‘tool’ to attack the United Nations and discredit its secretary-general (and potentially a scapegoat for problems in Iraq as well),” Karns told IPS.

Asked if the 191-member General Assembly should adopt a resolution backing Annan, Karns warned, ”a stand by the General Assembly would inflame the situation much as the ‘ritual’ votes on North-South and Middle East issues did in the 1970s and 1980s.”

According to Joan Russow of the Canada-based Global Compliance Research Project, Annan, who once appeared to be doing U.S. bidding (on Iraq) is now in disfavour after affirming that Washington’s invasion of the country was ”illegal”.

”The United Nations is at a defining moment: it can either stand up for the rule of international law and for the years of commitments made and obligations incurred by member states, or it can succumb obsequiously to the demands of the United States,” Russow told IPS.

She added that the persistent use of U.S. funds to influence U.N. policy, ”either through the U.S. threatening to withdraw funds from the United Nations, or through the U.S. threatening to withdraw funds from member states if they do not support U.S. policy, is in itself corruption and intimidation at the highest levels.”

“Only when the U.N. General Assembly has the power to oppose the United States in its undermining of the United Nations – whether it be when Washington furthers its own military interests or when it intimidates member states to support the removal of ‘irritants’ to U.S. unilateralism – will the there be a more secure world,” added Russow.