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John
Tessitore is available for
Media Interviews: JohnTessitore@MaximsNews.com
JOHN
TESSITORE
Senior
Editor and Contributing
Columnist, MaximsNews
The
U.S. vs. the U.N., redux!
John
Tessitore
is the Senior Editor and
Contributing Columnist of www.MaximsNews.com.
Formerly he was the
Executive Director of
Communications for the
United Nations Association
of America. Previously
he had been at the Carnegie
Council on Ethics and
International Affair as
Communications Director
and Editor-in-Chief of Worldview,
an award-winning
monthly magazine on U.S.
foreign policy and
international affairs. Please
see his full Bio
JohnTessitore@MaximsNews.com
UNITED NATIONS -
22 February 2005
/ www.MaximsNews.com
/ For
Those whose memory
of international affairs
dates back beyond
yesterday's headlines, the
name Boutros Boutros-Ghali
will no doubt strike a
familiar and rather
discordant chord.
Whether
one was on the side of his
supporters or his
detractors, there is no
question that Mr.
Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian
who was U.N. secretary
general from 1992 to 1997,
was the bete noir of
American foreign
policy.
It
was Boutros-Ghali who
called the conflict in
Bosnia and Herzegovina
"a rich man's
war," alluding to the
fact that the
international community
was wringing its hands
over the war in Europe
while virtually ignoring
the genocide taking place
in various parts of
Africa, notably Rwanda.
It
was also Boutros-Ghali who
declared that the American
government regarded him as
a "wog" -- an
outdated but still
stinging disparagement
dating from British
colonialism.
But
what even the more
attentive followers of
international affairs may
have forgotten is that in
1992 Boutros Boutros-Ghali
was without question the
foremost U.S. choice for
U.N. secretary general.
Given
the unwritten rule that
the position must rotate
geographically, there was
at the time a firm
understanding within the
international community
that the next secretary
general had to come from
an African nation.
Indeed,
the continent put forward
no fewer than eight
candidates, including more
than one former head of
state.
It
was the United States, in
an effort to make an
end-run around those
candidates, that put forth
Boutros-Ghali.
After
all, the Americans
declared, with their
tongues placed firmly in
their cheeks, wasn't Egypt
an African nation?
Indeed,
wouldn't it amount to
racism for the black
Africans to ignore their
lighter-skinned neighbors
in the north of the
continent?
As
obvious a ruse as it was,
given the power of the
United States in the world
organization -- a power
that is forever being
underestimated and
underreported by anti-U.N.
forces in America -- the
U.S. candidate easily
prevailed.
Alas,
Boutros-Ghali turned out
to be a rather badly
trained poodle, insisting
on performing his own
tricks, much to the
embarrassment of his
would-be masters.
And
so when it came time for
re-election, five years
later, the free-thinking,
free-speaking Egyptian was
shown the door.
The
events that followed were
quite entertaining for
those of us who were close
enough to watch the
intrigue on a daily basis.
Most
of the Africans, of
course, were none too sad
to see Boutros-Ghali go,
having never really
regarded him as one of
their own.
But
they also insisted that
their continent had a
right to a two-term
secretary general, given
that Latin America had
just had one (the Peruvian
Javier Perez de Cuellar),
as had Europe (the now
notorious Austrian Kurt
Waldheim, with his Nazi
background) and Asia (U
Thant, of Burma).
With
more than 60 African
nations, each with a vote
in the General Assembly,
that continent was in a
position to play
hardball:
Either
it got an African
candidate -- a
"real" African
candidate -- or it would
stonewall the election.
Ever
resourceful, the U.S.
State Department was not
to be outmaneuvered.
I
recall the day that I was
host of a panel of
Washington journalists
some months before the
election.
About
a hundred people were in
attendance, from all parts
of the U.N. system and the
nongovernmental-organization
(NGO) community, when an
editor of a major
Washington paper declared
that he knew absolutely
who would be the next
secretary general!
As
he told the story, he had
recently attended a
Washington dinner party at
which a high-ranking
member of the State
Department told him that
the United States would
see that Kofi Annan was
elected.
The
room was stunned.
Of
course, everyone in the
room knew Annan, a native
of Ghana.
He'd
been in the U.N. system
since 1962, almost upon
graduation from Macalester
College, in
Minnesota.
He
had headed U.N.
Peacekeeping
Operations.
But
no one had ever heard his
name mentioned for
secretary general.
After
all, "SGs" came
from outside the system;
none had ever been elected
from within.
Once
again, the United States
was making an end run
around the African
candidates, choosing a man
of African origin educated
in the United States and
with long ties to this
country.
The
rest, as they say, is
history.
The
State Department got its
man, or at least so it
thought.
And
all seemed storybook-fine
until, lo and behold, once
again the poodle began to
dance to its own tune,
rather than that of its
master.
And
once again, the
relationship began to
sour.
Not,
perhaps, as it had done
with Boutros-Ghali --
precipitously and
publicly.
This
time it was more a slow
deterioration,
accelerated, of course, by
the United Nations'
refusal to simply fold in
the face of the Bush
administration's
insistence that Iraq had
weapons of mass
destruction.
As
The Minneapolis
Star-Tribune wrote, on
Dec. 4:
"This
is really all about
Annan's refusal to toe the
Bush line on Iraq, and the
administration's generally
unilateral approach to
foreign affairs.
The
right-wingers hate Annan
and saw in the
oil-for-food program a
possible chink in his
armor."
Regardless
of what happens to Annan,
the next secretary-general
election is just a year
away.
It
will be interesting, to
say the least, to watch
the process unfold once
again.
JohnTessitore@MaximsNews.com
[The Providence
Journal, Rhode Island,
2005]
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