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Confidential communication block un criticism { May 1 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62718-2003Apr30.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62718-2003Apr30.html
U.S. Blocking Criticism at U.N.
Officials Fear Debate Provides Platform for Policy Foes
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 1, 2003; Page A20
UNITED NATIONS, April 30 -- The Bush administration has stepped up efforts at the United Nations to stifle criticism of U.S. policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and other foreign countries, according to confidential U.S. diplomatic communications and senior U.N. diplomats.
At the height of the conflict in Iraq, the administration successfully blocked debate in the U.N. General Assembly on an Arab-sponsored resolution criticizing the war. Earlier this month, it sought to restrict discussion of human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is currently trying to derail an initiative by the president of the General Assembly to establish a forum to openly debate current foreign policy issues.
The administration's effort reflects concern among some U.S. officials that the United Nations may emerge as a major platform for dissent against U.S. foreign policy at a time when the United States is expanding its global military reach to prosecute a war on terrorism. The administration's campaign has included public rebukes of senior U.N. officials, including Secretary General Kofi Annan, who criticize American policies.
U.S. officials say there is no orchestrated campaign to censor debate at the United Nations.
They say they are simply vigorously defending U.S. policy and seeking to head off attempts by U.N. officials who, they say, have abused their offices to pursue an anti-American line at the United Nations.
"I don't see a pattern yet," said an administration official who follows the United Nations who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But certainly some countries would like to do anything they can to make life more difficult for us when we engage militarily, or even diplomatically, in the world."
The administration's efforts to contain dissent from U.S. policy at the United Nations follows a period in which the United States sought to repair nearly a decade of strained relations with the world body.
The administration has agreed to pay the U.S. debt to the United Nations and announced its intention to rejoin the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization this fall.
At a news conference last Thursday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Kevin E. Moley, accused Annan of making "egregious misstatements" regarding the administration's case for military action against Iraq.
Moley, joined by Jeane Kirkpatrick, a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Reagan administration, organized the news conference to respond to an assertion by Annan that the United States launched its war "without specific authorization" from the Security Council.
The administration has also challenged U.N. General Assembly President Jan Kavan, a Czech politician who co-sponsored a resolution in the Czech parliament that opposed a war against Iraq without Security Council approval.
The administration warned in a confidential note to several foreign capitals that a proposal by Kavan to establish U.N. panels to debate political issues would degenerate into a "politically divisive" talk shop that would "infringe upon" the Security Council's exclusive right to deal with threats to global peace and security.
The United States fears that the panels would provide Washington's critics with an opportunity to steer discussion to U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, diplomats said.
"This represents a backdoor amendment to the U.N. Charter," according to a copy of the previously undisclosed U.S. diplomatic note. "We feel it would be better to drop this idea altogether, rather than modifying the text of the resolution."
Kavan said he met Friday with a U.S. delegation headed by Sichan Siv, the U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, to allay Washington's concerns.
He said he assured Siv that the General Assembly would not be able to conduct debates on general themes, such as the Iraq crisis, that are not already on the chamber's agenda. He told him that the United States still would have the power to block panel discussions on themes it deemed inappropriate.
The debate in April at the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission in Geneva has prompted some of the most strenuous efforts by the administration to limit scrutiny of U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to human rights advocates. The administration "almost single-handedly quashed a resolution" that would have called for an international commission of inquiry into human rights abuses in Afghanistan over the past 25 years, said Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch.
"The U.S. does not want to risk that the warlords they support would be implicated," he said. "They essentially took the view that anything in a resolution that was bad news about Afghanistan should come out because the implication is, if there are ongoing abuses, the intervention has not been successful."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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