Asian gambit for top UN post still
uncertain By Alexander Casella
Reports that the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) has endorsed Thai Foreign Minister
Surakiart Sathirathai as Asia's candidate for the post
of United Nations secretary general when Kofi Annan's
term expires in December 2006 have been received with
surprise by diplomatic milieus in New York. Most
observers feel that such a move is premature and that
the real campaigning for the post will only start around
mid-2006.
UN secretaries general are elected for
one five-year term and are generally re-elected for a
second term, with the post being rotated each 10 years
among the regional groups within the UN. An exception to
this unwritten rule was the Egyptian Boutros
Boutros-Ghali, who was elected as a representative of
the African group in 1992 but was not given a second
term when the US vetoed his re-election and promoted
Kofi Annan for the post. On paper Annan should have
served only one term, thus completing Africa's 10-year
tenure, but he was given a second term in 2002.
If the rotation principle holds - it is only a
custom and is not provided for by the UN Charter - the
next secretary general should be an Asian, which would
require that he have the support not only of ASEAN but
also of the Asian group within the UN.
According
to the UN Charter, secretaries general are elected by
the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the
Security Council. In practice this means that the
candidate is chosen by the Security Council, a process
that is subject to the veto of any of the five permanent
members.
Traditionally UN secretaries general
have come from small, more or less neutral countries
that are not controversial and don't have major
political agendas. Several of the past secretaries
general, before being elected, had some prior UN
experience as ambassadors for their respective countries
at the UN, as was the case of Kurt Waldheim and Javier
Perez de Cuellar. This experience is of considerable
relevance in ensuring that the incumbent does not
harbor, or subsequently develop, a distorted view as to
the nature of the post.
The UN Charter states
that the secretary general is the "chief administrative
officer" of the organization. His job is therefore to
administer the UN Secretariat, that is to say to
implement the decisions of the Security Council. Granted
that the secretary general may "bring to the attention
of the Security Council" matters that threaten
"international peace", this is however a purely
theoretical proposition, as the members are generally
better informed than he is of threats to peace and
security. Ultimately the secretary general has no power
and has a level of authority that is inversely
proportional to the importance of the issue he
addresses. When the current secretary general stated
that the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC) was Britain's
greatest gift to the world in the second half of the
20th century, the corporation rented space in the
International Herald Tribune to advertise this
endorsement. But when he appealed to Saddam Hussein or
to the Greek Cypriots to accept his proposals, they
thumbed their noses at him.
"The task of the
UN secretary general," commented a government official,
"is to do nothing but to do it well." Doing nothing
"well" is not an easy task if taken seriously. It consists of
administering the Secretariat within the narrow limits
set by the various committees of the General Assembly,
of building a good team, of listening to advisers but
not being manipulated by them. The secretary general
must not be unprincipled, but he must know how to manage
his principles. Ultimately the post requires a diplomat
who will not fall prey to the illusion of power, who can
be decisive without being abrasive, and who will not
seek in appearance refuge from substance.
The
role of secretary general is thus not one for a
politician, as Boutros-Ghali discovered to his chagrin.
The Egyptian was an intellectual giant who did not
suffer fools and made no secret of it. He played down
the human cost of the siege of Sarajevo, which was
front-page news, as compared with the genocide in
Rwanda, which was not and which the West did not want to
hear about. Ultimately he became an annoyance to the
Americans, who vetoed his re-election in favor of the
less abrasive Kofi Annan, whom they defined as the
secretary general they could "work with".
While
identifying a person with the right profile for UN
secretary general is not a given, the nationality of the
incumbent is a complicating factor. He cannot be a
citizen of a major power, which in the case of the Asian
group excludes a Chinese, a Japanese and an Indian. The
same applies to countries in conflict or in a conflict
area, which excludes a Sri Lankan, a Bangladeshi, a
Myanmar national or a Korean. Malaysia is controversial
and so is Indonesia, while the Philippines is considered
too close to the US. With the countries of Indochina
excluded because of their regimes, this only leaves
Thailand and Singapore in the running.
Excluding
front-line political figures, who might find the
position too constraining, some observers believe that
the ideal Asian candidate should have a profile that
would correspond to Singapore's Tommy Koh,
ambassador-at-large for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
or Thailand's assistant private secretary to the king,
Ambassador Tej Bunnag.
While there is a
consensus in New York that any lobbying at this moment
is premature, not to say counterproductive, the
possibility should not be discounted that things might
turn out differently.
Secretary General
Annan had a blessed first term, but a second term that
is turning into a nightmare. The mismanagement of
the return of the UN to Iraq, alleged corruption in
the oil-for-food program, and reported sexual
harassment within the UN have coalesced in an unprecedented
degree of staff antagonism toward Annan. The crisis has
been compounded by what some have interpreted as an
attempt by Annan to woo the John Kerry team with the hope
of obtaining a third term if the Democrats had won
the November US presidential election. The statement
by Annan in September qualifying the Iraqi invasion
as "illegal" was undoubtedly perceived by
the administration of President George W Bush as a
partisan one. That the former US ambassador to the UN,
Richard Holbrooke, who had promoted Annan at the time of
the Bill Clinton administration to the post of secretary
general, was one of the main players on the Kerry
foreign-policy team only fueled further suspicions in
the Bush camp.
While Annan has unambiguously
stated that he will finish his term, in the shadowy
world of diplomatic doublespeak, the fact that the
statement on Iraq was made at all raised eyebrows.
Ultimately, all will depend on the Bush administration,
on what the current investigation of the oil-for-food
program will unearth and to what use the information
will be put.
The current consensus is that Annan
will finish his term, though hardly in a blaze of glory.
In the remaining two years the Asian group needs to work
carefully and discreetly toward identifying a candidate
for the post of UN secretary general who corresponds to
the profile for the job rather than to the image that
has been created of it.
(Copyright 2004 Asia
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