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Preventive Diplomacy Is
Half-Embraced at UN, Haysom Admits Push Back, Asks for More War Stories
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
June 17 -- Are the UN's attempts at
preventive diplomacy limited by the undue influence of the
veto-wielding
Permanent Five members of the Security Council, or by the
Secretary-General's
concern about winning a second term, which any of the P-5 could block?
Inner City
Press put the question Tuesday to Ban Ki-moon's seldom-seen Political
Affairs
Director, Nicholas Haysom. "You need powerful nations behind you in an
initiative," Haysom replied, "whether in the P-5 or not. You have to
take the powerful on board." He went on to say that there's a "danger
in viewing everything through the prism of the P-5. There are
Secretary-Generals who've done so and lost support among a broader
range"
of countries.
The
academic tone of Haysom's answer was in keeping with the setting, a
discussion
of Bertrand Ramcharan's book "Preventive Diplomacy at the UN."
Ramcharan also answered the P-5 question oblique, with a story about
Richard
Holbrooke at Dayton. "I was the only UN person at Dayton," Ramcharan
said. "We had better deals" than Holbrooke's, but the UN "lacked
power... to twist arms." Ramcharan described the Secretary-General as
"in the midst of power, trying to play a role to the extent that power
permits him."
Vijay Nambiar, Ban Ki-moon and Nicholas Haysom, power of P-5 not shown
Haysom
tried to apply these abstract concepts to the actual docket on the UN's
38th
floor this year. He rattled off the year's preventive diplomacy
missions, to
Myanmar and now Zimbabwe, Kofi Annan's work in Kenya, even Ban's
no-comment
approach to Kosovo. Haysom called this an attempt to "minimize
conflict" from the declaration of independence. He said he had returned
just two days about from Iraq, where he'd previously worked on the
Constitution, this time considering the administration of Kirkuk issue.
To his
credit, Haysom detailed some of the year's failures, characterizing of
failures
of, or push-back against, preventive diplomacy. He said there is a
resistance
to preventive diplomacy among member states, leading to the blocking of
reform
and regional offices of the Department of Political Affairs -- he
ascribed the
most strenuous opposition to Latin America -- and to resistance to the
Responsibility to Protect doctrine and Ed Luck's appointment as special
advisor
on the topic. He said that the Security Council at times does not given
clear
guidance, for example this year on Ethiopia and Eritrea. He even
offered
constructive criticism of Ramcharan's book, saying he would have liked
"more war stories." Those will be in the next book, Ramcharan said.
We'll be on the lookout.
Footnote: in light
of Ramcharan's Balkan story,
it's worth noting Reuters'
report on a case in
the Hague against the UN about Srebrenica. Because it has previously
been said
that UN invoked, and even prevailed on, its immunity, Inner City Press
on
Tuesday asked UN spokesperson Michele Montas if the UN is still in the
case.
She said she'll ask the Office of Legal Affairs. The lack of responses
by
Nicolas Michel may soon be coming to an end. But who'll be his
replacement?
Watch this site.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
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