Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2004, pages 18-20

United Nations Report

Kofi Annan Speech on Rule of Law Pre-empts Bush, Israeli Addresses to U.N.

By Ian Williams

GEORGE W. BUSH came to the General Assembly on Sept. 21—and did not declare war on Syria, North Korea or Iran. He left that to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who epitomized chutzpah in his speech two days later!

President Bush’s speech declaring how rosy everything is in Iraq, and how legal and supportive of the United Nations, was belied by Kofi Annan’s strong speech, made just before Bush’s.

Taking a page from Washington’s book, the U.N. secretary-general launched a pre-emptive strike with a speech on the rule of law which undercut the line President Bush was trying to peddle. The polite and lukewarm applause that dutifully followed the latter’s well-crafted but utterly insincere speech was a far cry from the choreographed ecstasy of the Republican convention, but the tactics were the same.

In effect, the president tried to project internationally the image of “compassionate conservatism” that his moderate frontline speakers did at the convention.

While it may have worked at the RNC, however, Bush’s bundling of the invasion of Afghanistan and the war on Iraq under the rubric of terror no longer is believed even by a majority of Americans. While it is true, as Bush said, that Saddam Hussain had defied U.N. resolutions for many years, U.N. delegates are aware that at the time of the U.S. invasion, the Iraqi president was complying (albeit belatedly), and that he had let in the inspectors, who had found no weapons.

Indeed, days before Bush’s speech, the American Iraq Survey Group reported that, after 18 months of hard searching, they, too, had found no weapons of mass destruction. To add to American and British embarrassment, an aggressive BBC reporter the week before had badgered Kofi Annan into admitting that his normal formula for the Iraq invasion, “not in conformity with the U.N. Charter,” meant that it was, in fact, “illegal.”

Similarly, while Bush paid his annual lip service to the idea of a Palestinian site, and to the idea that the Israelis should actually fulfill their oft-repeated promises not to expand settlements, to dismantle the so-called illegal outposts, and stop making the Palestinians’ lives a living hell, most of his ire was directed at the Palestinian leadership—which, for all its faults, actually won election fair and square. More to the point, of course, the delegates knew that the American veto has been ready on every occasion to prevent any condemnation of Ariel Sharon when he ignores even American advice, let alone the road map or U.N. resolutions,

The unblushing Bush, however, was not really addressing the delegates who know all these things, but the moderate American voters out there who may be reassured that their president can stand up in front of an international audience and not get booed and heckled.

Israel’s Shalom came close to achieveing this, however, when he told the assembly “to shed its obsession with Israel.” He then went on vindicate this obsession, however, by saying that Iran has replaced Saddam Hussain as the main source of world terrorism and that the U.N. should thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions and deal with Syria’s occupation of Lebanon.

It sounded a little odd coming from the country with the biggest nuclear arsenal in the region which is occupying a large tract of Syria, not to mention Palestinian territories, in defiance of innumerable U.N. resolutions.

The news the same day that the U.S. was allowing Israel to use American aid money to buy smart bunker buster bombs of the type that could crack a nuclear reactor’s concrete shell was hardly reassuring for other delegates about the sanity of either party.

Symbolic of American dissonance with world concernswas Resolution 1559, which barely scraped through the Security Council with a text was as gnomic as an Anglo-Saxon riddle, to be interpreted by the parties in whatever way they chose.

It called for the removal of “all remaining foreign forces” from Lebanon, “the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias,” and expressed its support for “the extension of the control of the government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory,” and “a free and fair electoral process in Lebanon’s upcoming presidential election conducted according to Lebanese constitutional rules.”

The resolution was passed by the bare minimum of nine votes, in the gums of the opposition of six members who abstained, even though two of them, Russia or China, could have vetoed it. What they did do beforehand, however, was to strip the resolution of any specifics, such as any mention of Syria or Hezbollah by name, or even a specific reference to the event they were trying to avert—the extension of Emile Lahoud’s term of office.

In fact, if Syrian diplomacy were not an oxymoron, Damascus could have scuppered the resolution, but it did not even call a meeting of the Arab group to discuss it. It was left to the Russians and Chinese, therefore, to half-heartedly steal the Americans’ usual phrase and propose a more “balanced” resolution which would have condemned, for example, Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Had the Arab group used its influence with the non-aligned, it may well have succeeded in adding that language—which would have put the U.S., if not the French, in an embarrassing spot.

The resolution noted the “determination of Lebanon to ensure the withdrawal of all non-Lebanese forces from Lebanon,” which begs a lot of questions. Who, in this context, was Lebanon? The Lebanese government, whose Foreign Minister Mohamed Issa denounced the resolution as interference in its internal affairs and promptly defied it by passing the constitutional change extending Lahoud’s term? Or the Maronites, who originally invited the Syrians in to control the Palestinians? Or the bunch of Chalabi-like exiles in Washington and Paris hoping to return and take over?

The unusual partnership of Washington and Paris was enough to make people sit up, not least since they played it very close to their respective chests until the last moment. At least one motive on the French side clearly was to reach closure over their recent bad-tempered moments of Gallo-American relations. But while the Americans regard Hezbollah as terrorists, for example, the French do not.

On the French side, some Arab commentators suggest that the resolution was a backdoor attempt by Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri to dissuade the Syrians from going ahead with their plans. As a longtime friend and major contributor to Jacques Chirac’s election campaigns, a discrete call to Paris from him certainly could produce such results without needing to confront Damascus directly.

The lofty call from French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière that “by refraining from acting, the Council would have sanctioned interference in the internal affairs of another state,” would have been a little more convincingly coming from a government that did not have garrisons all over Africa, and had been known occasionally to whisper strong advice in Francophone ears there.

And in Paris, as in Washington, there is a strong Maronite-inclined lobby—although, to be fair, there are people of all faiths in Lebanon who would like to see the Syrians depart. But ambiguous and ambivalent as Resolution 1559 is—indeed, precisely because of that ambivalence—it could be the beginning of a slippery slide to consequences unintended, by the French at least.

The resolution does not invoke Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which, as any Israeli or American diplomat would have told you if it were Israel being warned in this way, means that it is non-binding. However, the U.S. churns out double standards as fast as it mints dimes nowadays, and it is perfectly capable of acting on a non-binding resolution against Syria while ignoring volumes of binding resolutions against Israel.

The French may well have helped their new chums set off on a road to Damascus, under cover of combating terrorism and implementing U.N. resolutions.

The resolution calls for the U.N. secretary-general to report back in 30 days. He will have no option but to report that the Lebanese parliament ignored 1559, that Hezbollah is still there, and so are the Syrians.

The usual suspects in Washington probably already have prepared their speeches and op-eds about the U.N.’s helplessness in the face of defiance by an undemocratic, terrorist-supporting Arab enemy of Israel and ally of Iran. Happily, these will coincide with the closing stages of a vicious American election campaign in which the so-called “War on Terror” is top of the agenda.

Of course, whoever is making the decisions in Syria will have to bear a lot of the blame for their obtuseness and lack of finesse, cracking whips instead of pulling strings in Lebanon. There is indeed a very good case for the Syrians to pull out, but until some other solution is agreed upon, one is almost forced to the conclusion that, as Winston Churchill once said about democracy, the Syrian garrison is the worst possible solution—except for all the others.

“SOME PROGRESS” IN SUDAN

Nor is Lebanon the only Arab state on a monthly repeating deadline. Sudan scraped by on report on the 30-day deadline given by the Security Council in its Resolution 1556 on Darfur, firstly because the U.N. representative, Jan Pronk, reported back that Khartoum had made “some progress,” including “improved security in some areas where internally displaced persons were concentrated, the lifting of restrictions on humanitarian access and the deployment of extra police.”

Late on the afternoon of Sept. 18, the Security Council passed Resolution 1564, which set up a commission to investigate human rights violations and allegations of genocide in Sudan, boosted the African Union monitoring presence in Darfur, and implied that sanctions would be considered if Khartoum did not cooperate.

This is the first time that the Genocide Convention of 1948 has actually been invoked by the Security Council. Ironically, previous American administrations have deliberately fought shy of using the “G” word precisely because it carries legal obligations for action.

The resolution is not sufficient, and it is too slow for the taste of anyone with a conscience, but compared with the long-drawn-out agonies of Cambodia, Bosnia or Rwanda, this is a lightning-speed reflex for the international community.

Washington and London succeeded in getting only 11 votes for 1564. Even at that, it took a lot of work, and the four abstentions were, as expected, Russia, China, Algeria and Pakistan. The latter two had domestic excuses: in the teeth of unremitting U.S. support for Ariel Sharon, supporting any American resolution about any Arab country is not the way to win hearts and minds of Muslim populations.

In fact China, with its dual concerns about sovereignty (usually spelled as either Taiwan or Tibet) and its growing oil operations in Sudan, had been threatening to veto the resolution. It was mollified by a toning down of the language on possible sanctions and by a plea from Kofi Annan—to whom they owed a favor because of his otherwise rationally inexplicable decision to ban a teleconference between U.N correspondents and President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan earlier in the week.

Supporters of the resolution, however, still had to cope with the diplomatic aftershocks of the Iraq invasion and indeed earlier actions. The American maintenance of sanctions on Iraq and Libya and, of course, the invasion of Iraq understandably has made many Council members very chary of endorsing any resolution that looks like a slippery slope to unilateral American action.

So while getting sanctions explicitly mentioned at all was a step forward for Washington and the Europeans, opponents negotiated out any hint of automaticity for them. In the famous language of the run up to the Iraq war, a “second resolution” will be needed.

That may now depend on the findings of the commission set up by the resolution. There is no doubt that massive crimes against humanity are being perpetrated in Sudan, and that tens of thousands of men, women and children are being slaughtered. So why does it matter if it is genocide?

In fact, killing the last 10 members of a tribe in the Rain Forest is indeed genocide. But killing millions of your political opponents is not—so long as you do not pick your victims on the basis of race or creed.

Some among the Europeans are almost embarrassed at supporting the Americans, but the support of France, Spain and Germany in particular has been essential to protect themovement to save the Dafurians against accusations that it is yet another American-led crusade against Arabs and Muslims.

While in no way condoning what they see as mass murder, many of the Europeans do not share the U.S. determination that what is happening in Sudan is genocide.

Washington’s insistence on the genocide issue comes from a complex mixture of motives—partly, indeed probably mostly, domestic politics in an an election year and also in international politics. A finding of genocide would establish a prima facie case for intervention in international law.

There is an element of genuine humanitarianism, which of course many people around the world will find difficult to believe. There are indeed human rights groups who truly are concerned and want action, about this and many other tragedies, and who are occasionally worried about the company that they keep on this occasion.

However, in American political terms, sadly, “genocide” can mean “killing people who have a lobby supporting them in Washington—and especially doing it on TV.”

So, in addition to the more impartial human rights organization, there are groups from evangelical Christians to pro-Israeli lobbyists, who are always happy to hit at an Arab state, especially one they see as persecuting Christians and opposing Israel. Sudan has been a favorite cause with many of these, who seem to conflate the Darfur war, which is actually pretty much between Muslims, with the conflict between the Christian rebels and Khartoum in the south.

This does not mean, of course, that the poor people of Darfur should be left to die just because they make a convenient political cudgel for people in Washington, or because Sudan can rope in the Arab League by pointing to American actions in Palestine and Iraq. One cannot begrudge those who are otherwise about to die in Darfur finding a protector in the most powerful state in the world.

While the genocide convention does allow for international action regardless of state sovereignty, the doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” already was controversial even before Bush and Blair began retrospectively abusing it to justify the attack on Iraq.

In fact, there is a perfectly good instrument available. The Security Council could order the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute what are clearly crimes against humanity. As we know, however, Washington has a problem with that, and did even before Iraq and Abu Ghraib. Sudan did sign the treaty, however, even if it has not ratified it.

But it would be a good test of whether the U.S. is as sincere as Kofi Annan about the rule of law, or whether he just means, “Do as I say, not do as I do,” when the American president addresses the nations of the world.

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations. His latest book is Deserter: George Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past.