Keeping Colonel Qaddafi Off the Council

By Ian Williams

Despite efforts by the Western powers to intensify sanctions on Libya, they could not get a majority in the Security Council and abandoned the attempt. The sanctions were imposed in 1992 and tightened in 1993 for Tripoli's refusal to hand over suspects alleged to have taken part in the 1988 bombing of a Pan-American aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland, with the loss of 270 lives. Many member nations think that Libya's offer to allow the men to be tried in a neutral country, or even at the World Court in The Hague, is an entirely reasonable counter proposal, but the permanent members' Security Council vetoes ensure that the West can thwart any attempt to lift the sanctions. However, the veto cannot be used against the selection of temporary members of the Security Council, so there was consternation in July when the Organization of African Unity unanimously endorsed Libya as one of its candidates for a temporary seat on the Security Council for 1996-1997. The prospect has Western diplomats boiling with rage, and, it must be said, many in the Arab and non-aligned groups are at best lukewarm in their support for Colonel Muammar Qaddafi having a seat on the Council.

According to the U.N. Charter, the 10 temporary members are chosen with "due regard being specially paid, in the first instance, to the contribution of members to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the organization." In fact, many of the regions elect members to the Security Council on a rotating basis. The Africans pick their members according to a system of alphabetical order and subregional groups, complicated even more by a biennial flip between North Africa and the West Asian Arab countries, to ensure that there is always at least one Arab representative. This year, therefore, Libya would replace Oman.

As a result of such arrangements, many members who end up on the Security Council would be hard pressed to produce any significant evidence of their contributions to anything much at all. Western diplomats profess horror at the idea of a country like Libya sitting on the Council while Council resolutions against it are pending. Of course the same members regarded with equanimity the membership of Indonesia (East Timor) and Morocco (Western Sahara), and left to New Zealand the task of questioning the credentials of the genocidal Rwandan regime, which kept its seat on the Council even as the Council imposed an arms embargo on and discussed sending peacekeepers to Rwanda.

Based on that record, optimistic Libyan diplomats are looking forward to two years of sitting at the same table with their Security Council persecutors. However, perhaps their naivet? is one of the points against them. The next few months will see intensive lobbying, jostling and arm-twisting in the corridors and capitals by the British, French and Americans, who claim to be equally confident that they can muster enough votes to block the two-thirds majority in the General Assembly that Libya will need. They now have refined their objections to Libya to the point of objecting to a Security Council member having mandatory "Chapter Seven" action pending against it by the same body.

The next few months will see intensive lobbying by the British, French and Americans.

Perhaps their strongest suit is that if they succeed in defeating Libya in the Assembly, then none of the Arabs would have a voice on the Council. Of course, publicly most African and Arab diplomats look askance at this interference, comparing it with previous maneuvers against Cuba and Yemen. However, in private, having the maverick Colonel's diplomats representing the Arab world does not leave them ecstatic. One recalled that Qaddafi eccentricities include hosting the president of former Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, and calling on the Bosnians to recognize the Serbs as their true allies. This is a view with strictly limited appeal in the Muslim world.

Asked to assess Libya's chances, another Arab diplomat said gloomily, "None, with the result that if it goes to the General Assembly for a vote, there will be no Arab voice in the Security Council." Instead it is being whispered that Libya and a large neighbor will come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement before the vote. If so, it is possible that next year Boutros Boutros-Ghali's homeland may be on the Council.

Arafat and Clinton—Together Again

More successful than the Colonel in joining the insiders is Yasser Arafat, who will be speaking on the same bill, on the same morning, as President Bill Clinton. As Palestinian Ambassador Nasser Al-Kidwa said with quiet pride, "It's a big step forward for Palestine." To celebrate 50 years of the U.N., this year's General Assembly in October will feature some 160 heads of state or government representatives speaking—with much more brevity than usual, since they are each restricted to three minutes.

After some deft diplomatic footwork, notably by Australian Ambassador Richard Butler, it was accepted that there would be a ballot for the order of speaking, in which member states as well as non-member states—like Switzerland, the Vatican, and Palestine—would take part

In fact, there was no "of course" about it. The decision to include Palestine was in a committee report to the General Assembly—putting the onus on the U.S. and Israel to create a fuss about it if they wanted. And they did—privately. However, they bowed to inevitable defeat and kept quiet in public when it went through. Then they tried to argue that the decision on the ballot did not mean that Arafat should be treated as if he were a real head of state. Once again other U.N. member states found a face-saving solution to the U.S. and Israeli pettifoggery. The Palestinian leader, it was decreed, will speak at a delicately poised strategic time—after other heads of states and governments, but before foreign ministers and ambassadors.

There are more than the usual dull reasons of protocol for Palestinians to savor this occasion. The first time that Arafat spoke in New York, he was helicoptered into the U.N. compound and lodged in the U.N. medical section. And, of course, the second time he was to speak in New York, he didn't! The U.S. publicly reneged on the terms of its host country agreement with the U.N. and denied the Palestinian leader entry. So the entire General Assembly membership (with, of course, two exceptions) voted to move the General Assembly to Geneva to hear Arafat speak. With all the pains that have been taken, despite the mandatory brevity of his speech, the assembled U.N. membership will be listening eagerly for some sharp points to be made.

Western Sahara Referendum

Brevity is not a word to describe events in the Western Sahara where, after five years, MINURSO still is stuck in the sand. The latest Security Council resolution declares firmly that the countdown to the U.N.-supervised referendum finally has begun and that the process will finish in January. From Nov. 15, the Moroccans are supposed to reduce their forces in the Western Sahara to 65,000, and then 60 days later the referendum should take place. History teaches that no one should hold their breath about this.

U.N. Official Resigns Over Bosnia

Holding one's breath waiting for a U.N. staff member to resign over U.N. faint-heartedness in Bosnia during the first three years of that war could have been a fatal exercise. In July, however, former Polish prime minister and U.N. special rapporteur for human rights Tadeusz Mazowiecki quit in protest at the failure of the world community to take action to prevent the fall of Srebrenica and Zepa. The final straw, it seems, was when refugees from the enclaves turned their backs on him when he told them who he was working for. Unfortunately, it seems that current prime ministers and presidents are made of different stuff. They turn their backs on the refugees.

Hence all the smoke and mirrors of the NATO/U.N. talks, which resulted in the same people who used to say no to air-strikes, still being able to say no to airstrikes, and promising to defend the enclave least likely to be attacked while watching the others collapse in a puddle of blood. It is not a good time or way for the U.N. to celebrate its Jubilee.

Ian Williams, a British journalist based at the United Nations, is president of the U.N. Foreign Correspondents Association.