Bush's Hit List At the United Nations
By Ian Williams, Foreign Policy in Focus
May 9, 2002
Quietly, and without the fanfare that accompanies the campaign in the mountains of Afghanistan, the administration has begun a long march through multilateral institutions. At the UN and elsewhere, the U.S. has mounted a campaign to purge international civil servants judged to be out of step with Washington in the war on terrorism and its insistence that the U.S. have the last word in all global governance issues.
The first and most prominent to go was Mary Robinson, the former Irish president whose work as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been acclaimed by human rights groups across the world. Officially, she retired after a one-year renewal of her contract. In fact, the U.S. ferociously lobbied against her reappointment. UN officials and Western diplomats also said she was "difficult to work with" the usual euphemism for not willing to be dictated to. Most human rights activists see this as precisely her strength in an organization where not rocking the boat seems to be genetically engineered into many officials.
The U.S. could not forgive her for her stands on the Middle East issues or for her endorsement last year of the results of the UN's Durban Conference on Racism, which both the U.S. and Israel walked out of. The rest of the world stayed and adopted a toned-down document, and subsequently Washington began its campaign to force Robinson out.
Another recent victim of the U.S. campaign was Robert Watson, the much-respected chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On Apr. 19, the U.S. administration succeeded in replacing him with Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian economist. The panel is (or perhaps was is the correct tense) an independent scientific body established to assess the degree of climate change and the contribution made by human activities such as burning fossil fuels. The panel's work had come to a consensus, not shared by the Bush administration, that human activity is a factor in climate change.
A leaked memo from ExxonMobil had previously asked the White House, "Can Watson be replaced now at the request of the U.S.?" The memo goes on to recommend that the administration "restructure the U.S. attendance at upcoming IPCC meetings to assure none of the Clinton/Gore proponents are involved in any decisional activities." Apparently, the administration heeded ExxonMobil's recommendation. Pachauri himself attributes his selection to being the developing world candidate, but environmental NGOs ascribe it to U.S. lobbying.
A few days later, on Apr. 22, the U.S. right achieved a new level of success with the deposition of Jose Mauricio Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a mere year after he had been unanimously elected for a second five-year term. The voting was 48-7 with 43 abstentions.
The OPCW was created by the Chemical Weapons Convention, which outlaws the production of chemical weapons. It arranges regular inspections of member countries' facilities to ensure that no one is cheating. Bustani, a Brazilian, has headed it from its creation five years ago, and his inspectors have overseen the destruction of 2,000,000 chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world's chemical weapon facilities in the past several years. They have carried out 1,100 inspections in more than 50 nations.
From the beginning of 2002, however, the U.S. has treated Bustani almost as if he were some form of bureaucratic Bin Laden. Bush administration officials accused him of "ongoing financial mismanagement, demoralization of the Technical Secretariat staff, and ill-considered initiatives." Only last year he had been reelected unanimously, with plaudits from all, including Colin Powell. Moreover, his staff pointed out that the organization's finances and management were controlled not by Bustani but by a U.S. government appointee.
So what had changed? Not Bustani, but Washington. His main persecutor was John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton earned his right-wing credentials when he served as the house UN-basher for the Heritage Foundation. But his anti-UN convictions have never stopped him taking money from the organization himself. Most recently he served as assistant to James Baker on the failed Western Sahara mission.
For years, Bolton had argued that the U.S. should get out of the United Nations. At the same time, however, Bolton served as a consultant to Taiwan advising the government how it could get into the UN, according to The Nation. Although Bolton may have flexible principles, like many of Bush's hard right entourage he has a rigid line in grudges and he soon developed a major one against Bustani.
Having Bolton in charge of disarmament is like letting a pyromaniac have the run of a fireworks factory as his recent hardnose attitude to nuclear limitation talks with Russia, and staunch advocacy of the "Star Wars," Strategic Defense Initiative suggests.
Bustani first started running into problems when he resisted American efforts to dictate the nationality of the OPCW inspectors assigned to investigate American facilities. What's more, he had opposed a U.S. law allowing the president to block unannounced inspections in the United States and banning OPCW inspectors from removing samples of its chemicals.
Diplomats suggest that Bustani's biggest "crime" was trying to persuade Iraq to sign the convention, which could mean that OPCW inspectors would inspect Iraqi facilities. The hawks in the administration resented these "ill-considered initiatives." If Iraq would sign the convention and allow UN inspectors, it would deprive Washington of a quasi-legal justification for military action against Baghdad.
Earlier this year the U.S. asked Brazil to recall him, but the Brazilian government pointed out that Bustani was not a Brazilian appointee but rather was elected unanimously by the entire OPCW. Then Bolton, personally, asked Bustani to resign. After he refused, the U.S. then attempted to have the OPCW Executive Council sack him. Failing that, Washington called for a special session of member states to fire him, threatening that the U.S. would not pay its dues if he were reappointed.
Faced with losing an effective and popular disarmament agency, a majority of states succumbed to this blackmail. This acquiescence to Washington was in stark contrast to the willingness of so many countries to defy the U.S. by ratifying the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court only two weeks before.
In the end, it seems most members of the OPCW, with varying degrees of pragmatism and reluctance, decided that the survival of one of the most successful disarmament organizations was more important than the fate of its director. However, they set an ominous example and possibly gave the hawks in Washington a strong scent of blood to follow.
As Bustani presciently told the kangaroo court, "By dismissing me an international precedent will have been established whereby any duly elected head of any international organization would at any point during his or her tenure remain vulnerable to the whims of one or a few major contributors. They would be in a position to remove any Director-General, or Secretary-General, from office at any point in time."
By Ian Williams, Foreign Policy in Focus
May 9, 2002
Quietly, and without the fanfare that accompanies the campaign in the mountains of Afghanistan, the administration has begun a long march through multilateral institutions. At the UN and elsewhere, the U.S. has mounted a campaign to purge international civil servants judged to be out of step with Washington in the war on terrorism and its insistence that the U.S. have the last word in all global governance issues.
The first and most prominent to go was Mary Robinson, the former Irish president whose work as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been acclaimed by human rights groups across the world. Officially, she retired after a one-year renewal of her contract. In fact, the U.S. ferociously lobbied against her reappointment. UN officials and Western diplomats also said she was "difficult to work with" the usual euphemism for not willing to be dictated to. Most human rights activists see this as precisely her strength in an organization where not rocking the boat seems to be genetically engineered into many officials.
The U.S. could not forgive her for her stands on the Middle East issues or for her endorsement last year of the results of the UN's Durban Conference on Racism, which both the U.S. and Israel walked out of. The rest of the world stayed and adopted a toned-down document, and subsequently Washington began its campaign to force Robinson out.
Another recent victim of the U.S. campaign was Robert Watson, the much-respected chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On Apr. 19, the U.S. administration succeeded in replacing him with Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian economist. The panel is (or perhaps was is the correct tense) an independent scientific body established to assess the degree of climate change and the contribution made by human activities such as burning fossil fuels. The panel's work had come to a consensus, not shared by the Bush administration, that human activity is a factor in climate change.
A leaked memo from ExxonMobil had previously asked the White House, "Can Watson be replaced now at the request of the U.S.?" The memo goes on to recommend that the administration "restructure the U.S. attendance at upcoming IPCC meetings to assure none of the Clinton/Gore proponents are involved in any decisional activities." Apparently, the administration heeded ExxonMobil's recommendation. Pachauri himself attributes his selection to being the developing world candidate, but environmental NGOs ascribe it to U.S. lobbying.
A few days later, on Apr. 22, the U.S. right achieved a new level of success with the deposition of Jose Mauricio Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a mere year after he had been unanimously elected for a second five-year term. The voting was 48-7 with 43 abstentions.
The OPCW was created by the Chemical Weapons Convention, which outlaws the production of chemical weapons. It arranges regular inspections of member countries' facilities to ensure that no one is cheating. Bustani, a Brazilian, has headed it from its creation five years ago, and his inspectors have overseen the destruction of 2,000,000 chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world's chemical weapon facilities in the past several years. They have carried out 1,100 inspections in more than 50 nations.
From the beginning of 2002, however, the U.S. has treated Bustani almost as if he were some form of bureaucratic Bin Laden. Bush administration officials accused him of "ongoing financial mismanagement, demoralization of the Technical Secretariat staff, and ill-considered initiatives." Only last year he had been reelected unanimously, with plaudits from all, including Colin Powell. Moreover, his staff pointed out that the organization's finances and management were controlled not by Bustani but by a U.S. government appointee.
So what had changed? Not Bustani, but Washington. His main persecutor was John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton earned his right-wing credentials when he served as the house UN-basher for the Heritage Foundation. But his anti-UN convictions have never stopped him taking money from the organization himself. Most recently he served as assistant to James Baker on the failed Western Sahara mission.
For years, Bolton had argued that the U.S. should get out of the United Nations. At the same time, however, Bolton served as a consultant to Taiwan advising the government how it could get into the UN, according to The Nation. Although Bolton may have flexible principles, like many of Bush's hard right entourage he has a rigid line in grudges and he soon developed a major one against Bustani.
Having Bolton in charge of disarmament is like letting a pyromaniac have the run of a fireworks factory as his recent hardnose attitude to nuclear limitation talks with Russia, and staunch advocacy of the "Star Wars," Strategic Defense Initiative suggests.
Bustani first started running into problems when he resisted American efforts to dictate the nationality of the OPCW inspectors assigned to investigate American facilities. What's more, he had opposed a U.S. law allowing the president to block unannounced inspections in the United States and banning OPCW inspectors from removing samples of its chemicals.
Diplomats suggest that Bustani's biggest "crime" was trying to persuade Iraq to sign the convention, which could mean that OPCW inspectors would inspect Iraqi facilities. The hawks in the administration resented these "ill-considered initiatives." If Iraq would sign the convention and allow UN inspectors, it would deprive Washington of a quasi-legal justification for military action against Baghdad.
Earlier this year the U.S. asked Brazil to recall him, but the Brazilian government pointed out that Bustani was not a Brazilian appointee but rather was elected unanimously by the entire OPCW. Then Bolton, personally, asked Bustani to resign. After he refused, the U.S. then attempted to have the OPCW Executive Council sack him. Failing that, Washington called for a special session of member states to fire him, threatening that the U.S. would not pay its dues if he were reappointed.
Faced with losing an effective and popular disarmament agency, a majority of states succumbed to this blackmail. This acquiescence to Washington was in stark contrast to the willingness of so many countries to defy the U.S. by ratifying the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court only two weeks before.
In the end, it seems most members of the OPCW, with varying degrees of pragmatism and reluctance, decided that the survival of one of the most successful disarmament organizations was more important than the fate of its director. However, they set an ominous example and possibly gave the hawks in Washington a strong scent of blood to follow.
As Bustani presciently told the kangaroo court, "By dismissing me an international precedent will have been established whereby any duly elected head of any international organization would at any point during his or her tenure remain vulnerable to the whims of one or a few major contributors. They would be in a position to remove any Director-General, or Secretary-General, from office at any point in time."
