UNWRA Infrastructure: "A Birthday Present for Palestine"?

By Ian Williams

When the state of Palestine is established, UNWRA, the United Nations Works and Relief Agency for Palestinian refugees, will probably staff many of its services. The 18,500 Palestinians employed by UNWRA already provide the health and education for 2,400,000 Palestinians in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and, of course, the occupied territories.

This past March, Ambassador Ilter Turkmen of Turkey became commissioner-general for the body, responsible for its $250 million annual budget. A 64-year-old career diplomat since 1949, he was Turkey's foreign minister from 1980 to 1983, and has been his country's ambassador to Greece and to the Soviet Union. All this gave him a realistic view of his new role. "I knew I could not do anything revolutionary, but I also knew we could be very useful both in this difficult period and in the interim period to follow the peace negotiations, " he told the Washington Report.

It is not an easy task. In Lebanon, UNWRA has to cope with civil war and Israeli raids while, in Israeli-occupied territories, the authorities can range from uncooperative to outright hostile. In the last year, UNWRA medical facilities had to deal with 14,000 people seeking emergency attention for injuries received at the hands of Israelis.

Get It In Writing

On relations with Israeli officials, UNWRA has a secret weapon carried in every field director's pocket. "It's a copy of the 1967 written agreement between Israel and UNWRA," Turkmen explains. "We have to remind each new set of officials of its existence. " More than 50 UNWRA staff members either have been imprisoned after trial or are in administrative detention. "We intervene in the case of each staff member, " the commissioner-general says. "Even in Israel itself, our legal officers go to the camps. We have absolutely insisted on it."

Within the constraints of his limited budget, the ambassador says, "We are trying to make some reforms, putting more emphasis on small-scale income-generation projects, and vocational training centers in fields like computers."

This is building on the biggest asset UNWRA has developed, which is "our success in education. The Palestinians are very well-educated people. Palestinian professionals, doctors are working across the world. We anticipated other agencies' emphasis on human resource development. In 1952, for example, we opened the first vocational training center in the Middle East at Kalandia."

That commitment to education is being sorely tried now that the return of Palestinians from the Gulf is causing overcrowding in UNWRA-operated schools, which are educating 350,000 children. At the beginning of November, Turkmen wrote to donor countries appealing for additional funds to build and staff more classrooms.

There also are problems with donors. "Many countries think that UNWRA is a Western responsibility, " Turkmen explains. "We are trying to broaden the donor community. Already Kuwait gives $1.5 million and Saudi Arabia $1 million, and we are hoping to get Eastern European countries to donate. At the moment, we are looking at symbolic support rather than substantial donations from them.

"For the future, economic connection between the West Bank and Gaza will be needed, a free trade area. At the moment exports from the territories are taxed—but not vice versa!"

"The most heartening thing is that the Palestinians for the first time have spoken with their own identity," the Turkish diplomat explains. "They have a dialogue with the US, which is very important. They have great confidence in the US."

He is pleased that "the government of Lebanon is now in the process of enacting new legislation to regularize the position of Palestinians in Lebanon to accommodate them as part of the workforce. But, " he cautions, "that only applies to those with UNWRA cards who came in 1948, not those who came later."

The peace talks have imbued him with optimism. "I hope that at the end of the interim period, we will be able to just close the shop, " he says. He cautions, however, that "If all doesn't go well, if the peace process fails, it will be very much resented in the area. It will cause a lot of frustration. I was surprised at the genuine enthusiasm of Palestinians for the peace process." He adds, however, that enthusiasm was less pronounced in the camps outside the occupied territories.

UNWRA now is engaged in a major infrastructure development, a 200-bed hospital in Gaza. The commissioner-general is in the final stages of negotiating a $15 million grant from the European Community.

"Some of our construction programs for things like clinics, sewage works and schools have been rejected by the Israelis, " he says. "When we wanted to build a four-story school, they said we need an elevator. They relented eventually. Now perhaps they see it is to their advantage. We got very good cooperation over the Gaza hospital, about the site, and services like water and electricity."

"By the time the hospital is ready," he muses, "perhaps it will be a birthday present for Palestine. If the peace process works, we have to transfer a good infrastructure to the Palestinian authorities."

The Bomb in Israel's Basement

While the world's media spotlighted the showdown between UN/IAEA nuclear inspection teams and Iraq, diplomats at United Nations headquarters in New York attempt to remind the world about the bombs in Israel's basement.

Security Council Resolution 487, passed unanimously on June 19, 1981, noted that "Israel has not adhered to the non-proliferation treaty" and strongly condemns Israel for its attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor. Forgotten perhaps, and certainly unenforced, is its injunction that Israel should "place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards."

The resolution is invoked regularly both at the UN General Assembly and the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Seymour Hersh's new book, The Sampson Option, details the fudges and evasions of US policy on the matter. It perhaps reflects US media values that Hersh's revelations have given the matter greater prominence than the repeated UN resolutions moved by concerned Arab states.

Iraq is not, perhaps, the best state to raise the question. So it is not surprising that its attempt to introduce a specific reference to UNSC Resolution 487, when the IAEA report came before the General Assembly in November, was unsuccessful. Asking for the amendment, Iraq said: "An increasing clamor was raised about Iraq's nuclear program. Yet, Israel was not being confronted, despite the fact that it actually possessed more than 300 nuclear warheads aimed at the heads of the international community's Arab friends." Not surprisingly, Kuwait voted not to act on the amendment. It is significant, however, that the rest of the Arab states supported it or abstained. In fact, Egypt repeatedly has raised the issue. The Arabs find that Sharon's or Shamir's finger on a nuclear trigger now is more disturbing than the possibility that, five years down the line, there might be a Ba'thist bomb.

The response shows which way the nuclear wind is blowing. In the First Committee, which deals with political and security matters, a resolution was introduced in November deploring Israel's refusal to renounce possession of nuclear weapons, and expressing concern at its collaboration with South Africa. It was passed with only three votes against—the US, Israel and Romania. While 65 nations voted for it, no less than 64 abstained.

The 65 votes for the November resolution represented the Islamic countries and the hard core of the non-aligned. The abstentions included the old Eastern bloc. These voting patterns may have significance in determining whether the US tries to rescind 3379, the "Zionism is Racism" resolution, in this session. If the majority of the 64 can stick together and persuade others that the "delicacy of the moment" indicates that the issue should not be raised, then it makes President Bush's promise difficult to keep.

One non-Islamic Third World diplomat told the Washington Report that he had been approached by the US but had told them that the years of Likud rule and the intifada meant that, if anything, the resolution was more true now than when it was passed in 1974.

A New Secretary-General

In addition to having an Arab president of the General Assembly, the UN will for the next five years have an Arab secretary-general, Boutros Boutros Ghali. Currently, Ghali is Egypt's deputy prime minister for foreign affairs and minister of state for immigration and Egyptians abroad. The nonaligned states held together better than many observers expected, and allegedly foiled a plan by some Western members to maneuver a deadlock between Ghali and Zimbabwe's Benard Chidzero, allowing a non-African candidate to be brought in.

French-educated Ghali, however, had the active support of France and, as an Egyptian, the less visible support of the US. Illustrating his talent for being all things to all nations, Ghali also was the choice of The New York Times, helped no doubt by the lack of overt Israeli opposition, and of Yemen. the only Arab state on the Security Council. The Yemeni delegate described Ghali's election as "a victory for the non-aligned, and a good thing for the Arabs."

Also essential was Egypt's claim to "African-ness, " gaining Ghali the support of the non-aligned movement which had backed Africa's claim, on a rotational basis, to the position. Some Western diplomats had raised objections to Ghali's age, which is officially set at 69. The term is for five years, and previous incumbents have been elected to a second five-year term. That objection was overshadowed by the coalitions the tireless Egyptian had assembled to support his frequently voiced claim that he was "made for this job."

Born in Cairo, Ghali is from a wealthy Coptic family. His wife, Lea, is Jewish and from Alexandria. He graduated in law from Cairo University, before moving to Paris where he studied public law, economics and political science. He specialized in international law, and also was a Fulbright research scholar at Columbia University in 1954-55. In 1974, he became the Arab League's special representative to Africa. By 1977, he had become minister of state for foreign affairs. He soon was involved in negotiations with Israel, taking the place of Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmi, who had resigned at the time Anwar Sadat made his precedent-shattering trip to Jerusalem.

At the Camp David negotiations in September 1978, and the peace talks in Washington which followed, Ghali struck up a friendship with Moshe Dayan. He later visited the hawkish Israeli leader in his hospital room, and attended Dayan's funeral. The Egyptian diplomat arrives at a time when the UN is in the process of transition. He says he expects to serve just one term. The question will be whether he has the strength to carry out the necessary reforms in the UN while resisting the conflicting political and economic pressures buffeting anyone in his position.

Can he calm the suspicions of much of the world that the US decides what happens at the UN? Can he satisfy the countries that provide the lion's share of UN funding by reforming the unwieldy Secretariat? Can he resist pressures from countries around the globe, and close to home, to place their own nationals in good positions? Can he get the UN involved in a constructive role in the Middle East peace process, from which Israeli obduracy has so far excluded it?

Even this talented Arab diplomat, a Christian married to a Jew, a master of three world languages, and a lawyer steeped in economics and political science who has been a participant in history, will have to overcome skepticism that anyone on earth could be "made for this job."

Bogged Down in the Western Sahara

MINURSO, the UN's peace-keeping mission to the Western Sahara seems to have bogged down in the sands. Explanations range from incompetence by the UN staff planning the operation to their actual complicity with the Moroccans. When he announced the mission, its head, Johannes Manz, pointed confidently to the Spanish census of the territory which, he said, provided a definitive list of the 70,000 Sahrawis who would be eligible to vote.

Since then, King Hassan has discovered another 120,000 potential voters, repeatedly has emphasized the "Moroccan-ness" of the territory, and has made things difficult for the UN staff already there. The king also has announced a replay of the "Green March" by which he took the territory in 1975. This time he expects 170,000 Moroccans to cross the border.

The UN has stayed silent. High-ranking UN staff members have been dismissive of the calibre of the mission, which was, at the very least, seriously misbriefed on the king's opposition. The London Independent in November alleged that a senior UN official had fed Morocco confidential information provided by Polisario, like details of those on the census lists who are now dead. A UN source explained, "You have to remember, senior staff are often conservative, they have an in-built deference to existing governments, like Morocco's."

Ian Williams is a British journalist based at the United Nations.