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| A US proxy for UN | | |
- By S. Nihal Singh
As the UN Security Council goes through the well-rehearsed process of "straw polls" on its way to picking up a new Secretary-General, the contours of a possible successor to Kofi Annan are beginning to emerge. The conventional wisdom in New York is that none of the declared candidates, including India’s Shashi Tharoor and South Korea’s frontrunner Ban Ki-moon, will figure in the final list.
The truth is that no candidate has enthused the cognoscenti and, as usual, the major powers, particularly the United States, are cloaking their favourites by refraining from giving them a kiss of death by signifying early approval. It is almost universally agreed that it is Asia’s turn in the unofficial rotation process, although the US has declared that merit, rather than geography, should determine the choice.
A candidate for the top job cannot succeed if he or she invites the veto of a permanent member; the Security Council sends one name to the General Assembly for approval in an opaque process that has led to calls for transparency and reform. It was not so long ago that the US single-handedly blocked the traditional second term for Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali to bring in its favourite, Kofi Annan.
This time around, the US is manoeuvring to win a majority in the Security Council for a Singaporean candidate, a cynical choice determined by the island state’s pro-American leanings and dealings and its possible acceptance by China. The Singapore candidates finding favour in America are former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and its ambassador in Washington, Chan Heng Chee, a woman to boot.
The UN Secretary-General’s is, in many respects, an impossible job. He is officially only the world organisation’s chief administrative officer, although given the option of bringing a threat to world security to the Security Council’s attention. In practice, it depends upon the calibre and astuteness of a person to shape the job in a volatile world setting. Brian Urquhart, a retired long-serving UN official and astute observer of the organisation and the world, has recently suggested that the most essential aspect of the job is the holder’s character, rather than mere experience. His premise is that given the nature of the job, only a person of character and leadership qualities can command the respect of the world.
This is as good a job requirement as any proposed by experts. Whatever the anomalies of the job, a Secretary-General of the only truly international organisation rules on the basis of his moral authority. Clearly, Mr Annan’s authority was affected by the criticism in the Volcker committee report of his oversight deficiencies in the oil-for-food programme — reframed to save him his job — and even more his son’s less than open dealings. On second thoughts, the US chose not to make an example of him even as he developed a backbone in criticising American policies as he was coming towards the end of his final term.
Judging by the form of governance Singapore practises, more akin to the attributes of a police state than the democracy it professes, what kind of moral leadership can a Singaporean Secretary-General of the UN provide? The divergence between American and world perception of the job is that while Washington really wants an efficient chief administrative officer who is not tempted to exercise a wider role that might collide with its interests, most other nations want a person who can lend moral weight and authority to the organisation.
There are others with their own agendas. A recent entrant to the already crowded field of aspirants is Latvia’s President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a supporter of the American-led Iraq war and an American ally batting on the feminine wicket by seeking to break into the "all-boys club." Her chances are close to zero because she is viewed as an American proxy and would surely invite the Russian veto.
But the top UN job is far from being a beauty contest. There are hard-headed reasons why the permanent members of the Security Council flaunt the threat of their vetoes. France, for instance, looks unkindly on any candidate who is not proficient in French language, one of the principal UN languages. Russia has yet to reveal its hand, but American and Chinese interests could converge on Singapore. China aspires to a system of governance akin to Singapore’s "nanny state" after it can shake off its "socialism with Chinese characteristics," and the US, despite its rhetoric on spreading democracy around the world, is quite happy to accommodate Singapore for promoting its own interests in a new age tending to slip out of its grasp.
Whether the other permanent members of the Security Council, barring proxy Britain, can summon the will to frustrate America’s designs remains to be seen. But the question much of the world is asking is, what happens to the reform process? Everyone pays lip service to the need for reform of the Security Council, the key policymaking body in the world organisation. Efforts by the group of four — India, Germany, Japan and Brazil — have dissipated somewhat, with Japan choosing to go its own way after America publicly declared its support, and Germany has since graduated to an honorary membership by virtue of the formula adopted in discussions on Iran. For its part, India weakened its case by proposing its candidate for the Secretary-General’s post.
There are a whole set of other reforms, one of which, the conversion of the UN Human Rights Commission into a less anachronistic Human Rights Council, has been partially achieved. But the cleavage between the US and much of the rest of the world remains stark. The Bush administration has its own neoconservative agenda of reducing regular budgets in favour of voluntary contributions better to control the system. In any case, UN-bashing, a favourite pastime of American neoconservatives and the world organisation, finds favour with US policymakers only when it suits them to promote their partisan interests.
Will the world organisation get a Secretary-General it deserves, rather than a proxy of one member of the organisation, admittedly the most powerful? That is the question.
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