As U.N. Deals With Middle East, Anomalies Multiply

By Ian Williams

The relationship between the United Nations and the Middle East has always been full of anomalies, but May and June saw it getting more anomalous than ever. Western Sahara, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine/Israel, Cyprus, Somalia, Bosnia and Lebanon all produced their oddities.

One problem is the relationship between Jericho/Gaza and the United Nations. My suggestion that it should be called "Pisgastan," after the Palestinian Interim Self-Governing Administration defined in the negotiations has, perhaps not surprisingly, fallen on deaf ears. Whatever it is to be called, the United Nations Development Program signed an agreement on its work there with Farouq Qaddoumi, the PLO foreign minister, which immediately provoked protests from Israel. So just who is in charge? The Palestine Observer Mission to the U.N., technically, represents the PLO, not authorities in "Pisgastan," and the Israelis, or at least Yitzhak Rabin, are still trying to pretend that the new authority is not a state, and is not intended to be one.

Gaza/Jericho: "Too Many Actors"

In the meantime, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has appointed a special representative, Norwegian Ambassador Terje Roed Larsen, to oversee the work of the U.N. and its agencies in the occupied territories, and what one can hardly call the unoccupied territories. He is going to find it difficult to coordinate but he can hardly complain, since it was his work in Norway that brought PLO and Israeli negotiators together to draft the Declaration of Principles.

As Boutros-Ghali told reporters, "One of the problems in Gaza and Jericho is that you have too many actors, too many donors. You have, first of all, the various programs of the United Nations: UNDP [United Nations Development Program], UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East], UNICEF [United Nations Children's Fund]. Secondly, you have, first of all, the different United Nations agencies: UNESCO, ILO, the World Bank. Then you have the different donor countries that are offering assistance on a bilateral basis. Then you have the European Union, which is also offering assistance.

"If we continue like this, it will be a mess. We need someone who will coordinate among the different donors on the ground. His role will be to coordinate first within the United Nations, the different programs, agencies and funds of the United Nations, and secondly—because this is on a voluntary basis—between the United Nations and its various organs and the different agencies and regional organizations, such as the European Union. Thirdly, he will coordinate between the United Nations and the NGOs [non-governmental organizations].

"The important thing is that he has the support of both the Israeli government and the Palestinians. Both Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat were quite pleased that Larsen was selected. This is already a positive element in the work he will do, because he will also have to coordinate between the Israelis and the Palestinians."

The Norwegian diplomat started his unenviable task on June 1. Perhaps symbolic of the problems, another U.N. agency had persuaded Mahmoud Zahar of Hamas in Gaza to attend a seminar in Copenhagen on democracy in the territories. As we go to press, he cannot attend, since the Israelis, even if they wanted to issue travel documents to a Hamas member, now say that it's up to the new Palestinian authorities. They say that they will not be in a position to issue passports until late June.

Lebanon: Cluster Bombs and Water Theft

There is tension between Peres and Rabin, who seems unwilling to face up to the logical consequences of the peace agreement that he does not know whether to mourn or celebrate. Nor does the Security Council seem able to deal with Rabin's approach to Lebanon. As Israel attacked the young men in a Hezbollah area in the Bekaa valley, thereby sending their own message of peace to Damascus, Lebanese Ambassador Khalil Makkawi once more tried to get the Security Council to discuss the issue. His letter charged that the Israeli attackers used cluster bombs and napalm in the attack in which between 30 and 45 people were killed. As always, however, his letter went unanswered. Interestingly the cluster bombs and napalm are referred to in the Arabic text but not the English summary.

At the beginning of June, Boutros-Ghali dismissed a report from one of his own agencies that the Israelis were stealing water from the Litani River in Lebanon. The U.N.'s Economic and Social Commission for West Asia reported as fact what has often been heard as rumor, that the Israelis had built a concealed pipeline diverting water from the territory they occupy in south Lebanon.

Boutros-Ghali claimed that UNIFIL forces had investigated the claims in the past and had been unable to substantiate them. However, his rebuttal did not convince many diplomats who pointed out that on every occasion that the Israelis had been able to take water, they had done so. If the Israelis were occupying parts of Lebanon in defiance of U.N. resolutions, why should they be any more scrupulous about the water they covet so much? As we go to print, the controversy is unresolved.

Agreement on Yemen

Much more successful was Prince Bandar, Saudi ambassador to Washington, who came to New York to lobby the permanent five members of the Security Council to take action on the conflict in Yemen. Initially he met with a frosty reception. The U.N.'s inefficacy in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda had made many members swear off involvement in what could be cast as civil conflicts. However, after a week, and supported by pressure from the Arab League, Egypt, the Gulf states, and the sympathies of Boutros-Ghali himself, the Saudi envoy's initiative led to a Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire and an arms embargo.

North Yemen forces celebrated the cease-fire with a rocket attack on Aden, which hardly seemed conducive to persuading the city's citizens of the benefits of unity with San'a. There was little doubt that the hard-pressed southerners welcomed the initiative of the Saudi and Gulf monarchies, and that the tribalist and conservative northern leaders, who backed Saddam Hussain in the Gulf war and who now are backed by Ba'thist Iraq, did not, although both parties to the Yemeni fighting ostensibly accepted the cease-fire.

For a region often short on democracy, the unity and democratic elections of united Yemen had seemed too good to be true. So, whatever the rights or wrongs of the parties, the dispute has added sadness. Following on the resolution, Boutros-Ghali appointed former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi as his special representative to the area. Mr. Brahimi previously was in charge of the U.N.'s election-monitoring operation in Africa. The sad experiences of his own homeland may prove even more useful for the circumstances of Yemen.

Western Sahara: Inching Forward?

At the other end of the Arab world, after many fits and starts, it seems possible that the Western Sahara referendum is inching forward. On June 1st, the Identification Commission of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) began identifying voters qualified to participate in the referendum. The U.N. claimed that a large number of applications has been received on both sides in Western Sahara itself and in the refugee camps in the Tindouf area. The commission now is preparing notifications to would-be voters, advising them when and where to appear for registration, and that they must provide identification and proof of eligibility to vote before the commission will register them on a preliminary voters list. But then the Moroccans and Polisario will begin the battle to eliminate each other's supporters from the rolls.

For exasperated governments eager to cut back on peacekeeping expenditures, the MINURSO mission is one of the most vulnerable. The referendum MINURSO is charged with conducting is now some four years overdue.

Turks Blamed on Cyprus

While many diplomats privately blame King Hassan of Morocco for the lack of progress in the Western Sahara, in Cyprus the U.N. has now gone on the record to blame the Turkish Cypriot side for the failure to implement agreements which could lead to winding down yet another overlong-lasting peace force. It had been agreed that Nicosia Airport could be opened with both sides using it, and that a zone in Varosha (Famagusta) would be opened up. The secretary-general reported, however, that such hopes have been dashed because of a "lack of will on the Turkish Cypriot side." His report considered but did not endorse "coercive" measures against the recalcitrant side.

Double Standard in Bosnia

Unfortunately, realpolitik often dictates that the U.N. is better at coercion against the weaker parties, as the Bosnian military embargo testifies. Having watched the Serbs break cease-fire after cease-fire with impunity until they controlled over 70 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina, some Security Council members are now deeply concerned at the reluctance of Bosnian forces to accept a lengthy cease-fire. There is an old story about the sign on the lion cage in the Paris Zoo that warned, "This animal is dangerous. When attacked it defends itself." French diplomats in particular seem to have missed the funny side of it and, sources suggest, were at one point on the verge of persuading the Americans to declare Brko a safe area to be protected by NATO strikes.

Brko is an "ethnically-cleansed" Serb-held city that controls the mile-wide corridor between the Serb-occupied territories. It is now under pressure from the Bosnian forces on the south and Croat forces on the north, and the happily averted initiative would have committed NATO to defending Serb supply lines. It would not, one suspects, have played well in Congress, which finally seems more concerned with ensuring Bosnian supply lines than guaranteeing Serbian genocide its gains.

Iraqi Sanctions Upheld

In May, the Security Council once again decided not to lift sanctions on Iraq, one could almost say because of rather than despite an Iraqi public relations offensive, which included a press conference at the U.N. at which the heavily populated speakers table outnumbered the press. A gathering of intellectuals from around the world denounced the effect of sanctions on Iraq, but undercut their message by forcing journalists to listen to far too many of their speeches. Iraq's able ambassador to the U.N., Nizar Hamdoon, is hampered by instructions from home. Asked if it would not help his country's case to make an unequivocal statement of Kuwait's right to exist, he diplomatically referred to statements two years ago by Tariq Aziz which, to say the least, were equivocal on the matter.

Since the sanctions are open-ended, it takes only one veto to stop them from being lifted. Regardless of the terms of the actual Security Council resolutions, there is little doubt that the U.S., Britain and France have their own list of desiderata—at the top of which is the departure of President Saddam Hussain. However, he remains unlikely to oblige them, voluntarily at least.