LONDON – During the last U.S. presidential election campaign, the Republican candidate, Bob Dole, used to say in almost every speech he made, referring to the controversy over the use of American soldiers in UN operations: “I will be in charge of making that decision not Boooutros Booooutros Ghali” The school boy effort to ridicule the UN Secretary-General always raised a laugh and helped charge President Bill Clinton’s campaign to have the able Egyptian diplomat stand down. Xenophobia was regarded by both contestants as an electoral asset.
Set against the campaign of four years ago, the tenor of the current one seems to be on another plane. The cheap shot at the UN is out. In its place, if not enthusiasm, there is at least a passive recognition of its value. It would, perhaps, be going too far to surmise the candidates realize that for all America’s almighty economic strength and the political and military power that is its corollary, it simply cannot be sure of getting its way when it chooses to act. Often enough it can, but there are many occasions when it needs at least to give the impression it is prepared to work with others, if it is to demonstrate the moral conviction essential to political, even military, success.
This is part of it. But another part is that, of late, the UN appears to be having some success. Not least, it has won the attention and engagement of big time U.S. politicians who, in recent years, have ignored it when they weren’t spurning it. First, vice-president Al Gore decided to personally launch a U.S. sponsored month of Security Council concentration on Africa. Then he handed the baton to Richard Holbrooke, the high profile, former Bosnia trouble-shooter, and now the current U.S. Ambassador to the UN, who makes little secret of his desire to be Secretary of State should Gore win the election. Holbrooke in turn invited Congress’ arch-enemy-in-chief of the UN, Jesse Helms, to address the Security Council. Although it had a predictable tone to it- “No UN institutions, not the Security Council, nor the Yugoslavia [War Crimes] tribunal, not a future International Criminal Court, is competent to judge the foreign policy and national security decisions of the U.S.”- the meeting at least ended on a civilised note, promising to continue the dialogue.
Gore and Holbrooke’s single-mindedness has breathed life into last year’s moribund attempt to deploy 500 UN cease-fire monitors, supported and protected by 5,000 armed UN soldiers, into the war-ridden Congo. It may well be too small a contingent to do the job, yet it is large enough to be a scapegoat for what has a good chance of going wrong. Nevertheless, it marks (along with decision on intervention in East Timor late last year) a 180 degree turn around in American policy. The U.S. has stood apart from peacekeeping operations ever since Clinton’s decision to cut and run from the U.S. participation in a UN peacekeeping operation in Somalia in 1993. His reaction to the death of 18 American Rangers in what in fact was a U.S. authorized and commanded operation was to put the whole blame publicly on the UN, who had not even been forewarned of what was intended and who were reduced to trying to save the besieged American soldiers.
It always helps to change an attitude if the last experience has been a success. So it is with the UN which is now basking in the shine from its operation in East Timor. The first reaction to the UN-sponsored referendum on whether or not the territory should remain part of Indonesia seemed to be a decision by the high command of the Indonesian army to punish the populace by any means at hand (for which atrocity the ex-chief of the army, General Wiranto, has now paid the penalty this week of losing his cabinet seat). It was the quick deployment of UN authorized peace enforcement troops, led by Australia, which quickly stabilized the situation. Early estimates of massive and widespread deaths were revised steadily downwards. On Tuesday this week the enforcement troops handed over to a UN peacekeeping force led by the Philippines. And now in East Timor the mood, once so sour and angry, is upbeat and largely positive. The task of restoring the economy and preparing it for independence is going better than anyone dared hope.
Perhaps western politicians in particular will now begin to recall the other UN successes of recent years to offset their hitherto unhealthy fascination with failure. Namibia, Mozambique and Cambodia, all countries beset by horrifying continuous warfare, in the latter country the worst since the Second World War, have all found peace through UN mediation and have now been put back on their feet. (In the case of Namibia and Mozambique impressively so- the latter is presently the fastest growing economy in the world.)
Conflict mediation carried out by the UN, on many occasions by the Secretary General himself, is often unsung. A conflict prevented is not news, and often not even a provable historical episode.
But if the UN is to continue forward with this renewed momentum much hangs on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and its present campaign. During the Clinton presidency the UN was wrongly denigrated and it was cruelly sabotaged, as on the occasion of its urge to head off the Rwanda genocide, which Bill Clinton later apologized for. If there now looks to be a turn for the better, recent history teaches us to cross our fingers. Still, compared with this time four years ago, it is almost the difference between night and day.
Note for editor: 1) Copyright JONATHAN POWER 2) dateline London 3) I can be reached by phone on +44 385 351172 or by e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
