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	Powerful and Poor lock horns over how to run UN by IPS / OneWorld / UN News   February 24, 2006   Washington"s Clout at U.N. Challenged, by Thalif Deen. (Inter Press Service)   United Nations: - Singling out the three major contributors to the budget, Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa told reporters Wednesday that "just because United States, Japan and Germany pay more than 50 percent of the budget does not mean they have 50 percent of the voice at the United Nations".   "This is not a private corporation or a Fortune 500 company," he said. "They don"t own class "A" stock and the rest of us own only common stock. We are all assessed according to our ability to pay," said Kumalo, speaking in his capacity as chairman of the Group of 77.   Kumalo challenged the argument that the United States and Japan should have "a larger voice" because they pay "more money".   Currently, the assessed contribution for the United States is 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget, for Japan 20 percent and for Germany 8.7 percent.   On Wednesday, the 15-member Security Council, presided over by U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, held a rare meeting on a U.N. audit report on peacekeeping operations.   Despite protests by the Group of 77 that procurement and management were not within the purview of the Security Council, Bolton went ahead with a meeting of the Council arguing that U.S. taxpayers had the right to know how its money was being spent by the world body.   Currently, the United States is also the largest single contributor to the U.N."s regular budget accounting for 22 percent of the budget, followed by Japan (19.6 percent) and Germany (9.8 percent).   Kumalo told the Security Council that the fundamental principle that underpins this collective effort is that the United Nations is an inter-governmental body where the voice of each and every member state must be heard and respected, regardless of the contributions made to the budget of the organisation.   "The fact that there may be a difference in the level of monetary contribution to the organisation does not imply any difference in the decision-making role of member states in the United Nations," he argued.   Kumalo said the audit report, which was produced by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), was requested by members of the Group of 77 and China. Therefore the insinuation that somehow developing countries may be tolerant of corruption, mismanagement and fraud is wrong, he added. Kumalo said the Group expects the secretary-general to take immediate action in cases of corruption, fraud or any wrongdoing within the Organisation.   Kumalo pointed out how the Security Council was criticised last year for failing in its oversight function over the administration of the 64 billion dollar, now-defunct oil-for-food programme in Iraq -- a programme that "was created, managed and overseen by the Security Council"..   February 24, 2006   Powerful and Poor lock horns over how to run UN, by Haider Rizvi. (OneWorld)   The United States is using the issue of United Nations reform to consolidate domination of the world body by wealthy and powerful countries at the expense of the majority, say two-thirds of the UN"s members.   Representatives of the mostly developing countries are pressing that charge because John Bolton, Washington"s ambassador to the UN, began rare Security Council hearings Wednesday on sexual abuse by soldiers assigned to UN peacekeeping missions and on alleged fraud in procurement contracts to supply those missions.   A 132-nation bloc of mostly developing countries and China accused Bolton of encroaching on the General Assembly"s mandate to oversee UN operations and financing.   In the first place, the UN audit report detailing the fraud was to be delivered to the General Assembly at the request of the 132-member Group of 77 (G-77), said the bloc"s chairman, South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo.   "We never interfere in their business but they have interfered in our business," Kumalo said of Bolton"s unusual move. Bolton holds the Security Council"s revolving presidency this month. The panel consists of 10 temporary member states and five permanent members--Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States--each with a veto over all decisions. The small body has enjoyed greater political clout than the General Assembly, where all 191 UN members are represented and none has a veto.   The majority of UN members have asserted that the assembly, as the more democratic forum and as the apex body under the UN Charter, should reign supreme. Officials from powerful nations--chiefly, most of the veto holders in the Security Council--have countered that the assembly"s large membership makes it unwieldy and ineffective.   For its part, the bureaucracy headed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has complained about micromanagement by the assembly.   Among wealthy states, the United States, Japan, and Germany have pushed for greater Security Council oversight of peacekeeping operations, which the panel authorizes.   "We create these missions. We write the resolutions that create these missions," Bolton said, adding that since Washington chipped in 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget, it had an obligation to let its taxpayers know how and where the money is spent and how well it is managed.   Kumalo rejected those arguments, saying they flew in the face of democratic norms and the UN Charter. "This is not a private corporation. "This is an intergovernmental body. Bigger spenders are not entitled to more votes, Kumalo said, as "we are all assessed [membership dues] according to our ability to pay. The troops on the front lines do not come from this body," he added, referring to the Security Council.   To be sure, Third World diplomats have been chagrined by Bolton"s move because they see it as stealing their thunder--after all, they said, they had requested the audit at the center of the ongoing Security Council hearings. But they also have noted that the Security Council created and supervised what turned out to be the UN"s most damaging corruption scandal: the now defunct, $64 billion oil-for-food program in Iraq.   Last week, Kumalo sent Bolton a letter saying the G-77 did not believe that the council was "the right forum" to discuss the audit report. In response, Bolton stated that "the Security Council is acting, and other bodies can act as well."   The turf war is part of a wider pattern of confrontation over numerous aspects of a major restructuring of the 60-year-old UN. Powerful and poor nations also are locked in negotiations over the formation of a proposed human rights council and over the role and distribution of jobs at the UN Secretariat, or central bureaucracy.   On the human rights council, U.S. and Western diplomats are pushing criteria that would prevent certain countries from obtaining membership but developing countries stand against this approach.   Both sides also have locked horns over whether the Secretariat should have more powers in managing the organization. Washington and other wealthy capitals want to strengthen the Secretary General"s authority but developing nations consider such initiatives as inconsistent with the organization"s charter, which states that the UN"s top official should be accountable to the General Assembly.   UN peacekeeping missions are ongoing in 17 countries and are staffed by about 80,000 soldiers, police, and civilian personnel, according to the UN. Peacekeeping accounts for about 85 percent of the UN"s worldwide spending on procurement and has more than quadrupled over the past decade.   The corruption probe so far has resulted in the suspension of eight UN staff members. Any criminal wrongdoing uncovered reportedly will be turned over to U.S. prosecutors. The UN last year introduced a "zero tolerance" policy to reinforce rules against sexual abuse. The world body has jurisdiction over civilian personnel on peacekeeping missions but cannot punish soldiers so instead, it sends them home and asks their governments to bring them to justice. Whether that happens depends on each government.   23 February 2006   Blueprint for new, more effective UN human rights body unveiled. (UN News)   Seeking to dramatically bolster the protection of human rights around the world, the President of the United Nations General Assembly today unveiled the draft blueprint for a new Human Rights Council with higher status and greater accountability than the much-criticized Human Rights Commission that meets yearly in Geneva.   “While we will build on the positive achievements and best practices of the Commission, some of the elements we are considering will make the Human Rights Council a truly new and different body – a fresh start,” Jan Eliasson of Sweden said in introducing the draft resolution for the body, which was called for by world leaders at the September 2005 summit in New York.   According to Mr. Eliasson, a major improvement of the proposed Council is the requirement that its members, elected individually by the Assembly, would be judged on their human rights records with the proviso that they can be suspended if they themselves commit gross and systematic violations.   “We were looking for something that would show muscle in cases of gross violations,” he said of this provision at a UN Headquarters press conference, after his introduction of the draft. He expressed hope that this provision, in particular, would be approved and used wisely by Assembly Members.   Mr. Eliasson also said that the new Council would have a higher standing as a subsidiary body of the General Assembly, wouldmeet year round as opposed to the six-week annual session of the Commission, and conduct a “universal, periodic review” of all States’ adherence to human rights norms, starting by scrutinizing its members.   In addition, Mr. Eliasson said that the latest text took heed of the violence over the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by including a preambular paragraph on the need for dialogue and understanding among civilizations, cultures and religions.   Praising the proposed body, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said: “Its ability to meet throughout the year, and when necessary for longer than the Commission has done, will allow the Council to sound the alarm and bring urgent human rights crises to the attention of the world community.”   At the same time, Mr. Annan said, “the Council will preserve the best features of the Commission, including the use of independent rapporteurs and the opportunity for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to play their essential role in the Organization’s human rights work.”   He stressed that the President’s text is the product of many months’ efforts to reach consensus, and that while no delegation will get everything it wants – indeed, Mr. Annan himself said he would have preferred States be elected by a two-thirds majority – the Council could be a basis for a more effective base for human rights protection.   A decision on the proposal could come as early as next week, according to Mr. Eliasson. Mr. Annan urged Member States to quickly approve the latest draft.   “But that will be only the first step in a process of change and renewal,” he cautioned. “No technical fix can make all the difference. Indeed, how different the Council is from the Commission will depend in large part on how committed Member States are to make it better, and how they act on that commitment in the weeks and months ahead,” he concluded.
	Cartoon Row draws from well of Discontent by Zvonimir Zelic, Simon Tisdall Open Democracy / The Guardian   28 - 2 - 2006   The US-Islamic World Forum: dialogues, democracies, dilemmas, by Zvonimir Zelic. (Open Democracy)   The growing tension in the middle east makes shared understanding between the United States and the Islamic world even more necessary. But at the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, Zvonimir Zelic finds few grounds for optimism.   The middle east is changing. Inept, autocratic secularism is on the run and strident, populist Islamism is on the rise. Across the region, long-disempowered constituencies are finding their voice and demanding an end to repression, occupation, corruption and nepotism. In two key nations, Palestine and Iraq, Islamists have taken power through the ballot-box. Shocked into action by 9/11 and swept along on a surge of neo-conservative conviction, the United States – for so long an unquestioning supporter of Arab authoritarianism – has suddenly and unexpectedly found itself in the paradoxical position of ideological ally to the prospective Islamist democrats.   Against this backdrop, the fourth US-Islamic World Forum convened on 18-20 February 2006 in the plush halls of Qatar''s Ritz Carlton hotel, a marble megalith standing curiously isolated from the enormous construction site that is downtown Doha. Participants in the event, which was organised by Washington''s influential Brookings Institution, came from a relatively broad geographical and professional spread, with American policy gurus and CEOs sharing floor-space with Pakistani Islamists, Palestinian civil-society activists and other prominent Muslim figures from Senegal to Indonesia. Appropriately, the forum''s professed premise was to serve both as "a convening body and a catalyst for positive action", with an emphasis on practicable action rather than dialogue for the sake of it.   The objective is without doubt a noble one: to work jointly on practical measures to reduce tension and mistrust through the medium of peaceful listening and dialogue, rather than violent invasion and occupation. The combination of Hamas''s election victory, the continued anger and hurt over the Danish cartoons, the deepening strife in Iraq and Afghanistan and the impending Iranian nuclear crisis meant that there was hardly a shortage of fuel for debate. With all these hot issues melting into each other through transnational networks of information and discontent, the mounting resentments between communities at all levels have been brought into sharp relief.   Open and honest debate is key to solving such issues. From the perspective of the United States, the policy of democracy-promotion in the middle east – albeit inconsistently applied – is the major new initiative designed to achieve this, overturning decades of ignoring Arab and Muslim public opinion. In that light, it was a little surprising that the theme of this year''s forum was "leaders effect change". After all, surely if anyone it is the region''s leaders who have consistently shown themselves to be resistant to popular demands for change. Furthermore, the idea that democracy might be a panacea that would assuage nationalist, Islamist or anti-American sentiments appears – at least in the short term – seriously mistaken. How the combination of democratic openings and Islamist popularity will affect the region, no one seems quite sure.   Perhaps, then, the theme was less an observation than a desperate call, an expression of American exasperation at the lack of internal change in many Arab states. Perhaps the carefully selected "leaders" were being urged to prove themselves to their respective constituencies back home as examples of intercultural tolerance or enlightened reform. Either way, it is a very long way from the polished ambience of elite Gulf hotels to the crowded streets of Cairo, Damascus or Tehran. Bridging this intra-regional gap between haves and have-nots is no less important an issue than bridging the perceived west-Islamic divide.   Dialogue on whose terms?   While such events are arranged with good intentions, the very notion of a US-Islamic World Forum raises three awkward concerns. First, since an estimated 7 million Americans are Muslim, and American culture – for better or worse – pervades deep into Islamic countries, the two worlds are not at all discrete, but in fact clearly overlap. For both "sides", the supposed dialogue is therefore to some extent a dialogue with oneself. This seems appropriate, since before preaching to others, those on each side might be well advised to look themselves in the eye and tackle their own shortcomings.   Naturally, this does not preclude the potential for a fruitful exchange of ideas. But (the second concern) the very terms of the debate can easily foreshorten or even obscure the variety of issues over which the nebulous idea of east-west relations casts its long shadow. Reduced to the categories of "Islam" and "the west", the dialogue risks drawing a misleading analogy between geographical and religious entities. If "the west" denotes not geography but a metaphysical value-system, this effectively implies a dichotomy between the latter as everything positive, progressive and enlightened, and Islam as negative, closed, even barbaric. Accordingly, the statements of Muslim leaders are often caught between the need to be defensively apologetic and the urge to be aggressively outspoken.   This raises the third concern, the danger of simplifying vast and complex realities into simple boxes. Which "Islamic world" are we talking to or about? To what extent is it internally coherent? Who are its spokespeople? Using the term "Islam" as a collective noun for all Muslims puts a highly diverse federation of peoples and cultures into a vague and often unhelpful basket, suggesting a misleading equivalence between the socio-economic and political development of countries as far removed as Algeria and Azerbaijan. Religious motivation is but one among many factors at stake: Islam is usually no more at fault for the errors of Muslims than Christianity can be blamed for the policies of George W Bush.   A missed opportunity   Into this treacherous terrain stepped the United States under-secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, the long-time Bush aide Karen Hughes. Hughes''s reputation in the Arab world has already been tarnished by the well-publicised disaster of her first diplomatic trip to the region, during which she was criticised for a lack of basic knowledge and condescending manner with Saudi women. Unfortunately, her speech here, replete with vacuous statements about democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan while both countries continue to battle fierce insurgencies, failed to redress the balance.   The difficulty with Hughes''s message to the Islamic world arose not so much through a lack of effort – she clearly believed every word she said, and even made the polite gesture of delivering one sentence in Arabic – as from naivety and inconsistent vision, compounded by an insistently preachy tone. The rather tired format of participants reading out prepared speeches is to some extent to blame for this, since it tends to produce a series of disconnected monologues rather than a genuine dialogue. Besides, Hughes''s task of putting a positive spin on current US middle-east policy is hardly an easy one.   But the gap between rhetoric and reality would be comic if it were not so tragic: as the under-secretary spoke of the "tears in my eyes" at the sight of voters'' purple-stained fingers in Iraq, a few hundred kilometres to the north that same country was sinking yet further into the most gruesome sectarian violence short of all-out civil war, with angry crowds marching through the streets shouting violent anti-American slogans. Was this merely a gulf in intercultural understanding, or was it sheer unwillingness to face reality?   Hughes''s focus on the supposed American democracy drive in the region was to be expected, especially after decades of unquestioning support for Arab autocrats. Conveniently, any democratic stirrings in the region were routinely attributed to American influence, effectively discounting the variety of local and regional factors. These range from arbitrary events such as the death of Yasser Arafat to the groundswell of grassroots support for Islamist parties, many of whom have already significantly moderated their ideals. But the vital question of how far true democracy is possible without real sovereignty remained unanswered. In any case, Hughes was certainly not slow to congratulate the Lebanese for expressing their own popular will in ending the Syrian occupation, apparently unaware of the deep irony of her words.   An honest appraisal of the middle east''s dignity deficit, and how best to solve it, would have been a far more convincing gesture of goodwill. Furthermore, at a forum aimed specifically at improving east-west relations, Hughes'' hypocritical accusations of the "destabilising" role of Iran and scant recognition of the Iraqi reality elicited a less than rapturous response.   Hughes is well able to distinguish between process and outcome – supporting the idea of elections does not always mean cheering on the winners. But despite the heady talk of freedom and democracy, she could not bring herself to mention Hamas by name. Instead she accepted that the Palestinian people had conducted "free, fair and open" elections, but cautioned that a peaceful outcome depended on the two-state solution, which in turn meant the need for all parties "to renounce violence and terror, to recognise Israel''s right to exist and to accept previous agreements and obligations, including the roadmap."   This may be so, but as a newly empowered and legitimised Hamas basks in its victory, such mantras cut little ice beyond the lavish lounges of Qatar''s state-of-the-art hospitality. Despite the talk, no progress has been made on the Palestinian issue since 9/11, while a motley band of roaming jihadis has capitalised on popular discontent across the region to evolve into an increasingly sophisticated, media-savvy transnational force that threatens to destroy the neoconservative vision of the Middle East.   The cartoon controversy has, of course, been a colossal gift to the jihadi ideologues who are vying for moderate public opinion, and only makes Karen Hughes''s job harder. But her somewhat moralistic stance on the relative absence of the cartoons in the American press ignored the inconvenient fact that some of the editors in question were under strict instructions not to do so, often in direct contrast to their wishes.   From the perspective of many Muslims, there is relatively little to distinguish between European suspicion and defamation of Islam and what is perceived – rightly or wrongly – as an outright American war on Muslim countries. As one attendee put it: "I''m willing to laugh at Osama to get my badge of respectability, but don''t expect me to make fun of the Prophet."   The real issues   Honest, open communication between American and Islamic leaders is a necessary endeavour in the post-9/11 era. But dialogue and diplomacy are not the main issues. Above all, the diverse peoples of the middle east need hope for the future. They need to have their integrity, their dignity and their democratic will respected. They need social and psychological reconstruction and political and economic development. They need to be allowed to address the key challenges of poverty, knowledge and equality on their own terms. Those who might consider blowing themselves up need at least one good reason to live.   In that sense, the perceived gulf in values between the United States and the Islamic world doesn''t really exist; the fact that Islamists want more democracy, not less, attests to that. As far as US influence is concerned, it is the vested interests, inconsistent policies and entrenched stereotypes that are the real problem. The Islamists are no longer at the gates, they are breaking through. The message from Muslim leaders at the US-Islamic World Forum was that constructive engagement is the only sensible option for external players who want to moderate the hardliners. As American policymakers make contingency plans for their middle-east vision, they would do well to remember the Arabic proverb: "Your friend is he who tells you the truth, not he who makes you sound truthful."   February 21, 2006   Cartoon Row draws from well of Discontent, by Simon Tisdall. (The Guardian)   The Danish cartoons row refuses to go away, reverberating with sound and fury at different levels across the Islamic world. That primarily reflects the deep affront felt by many Muslims. But it is clear that the uproar has deeper causes which westerners, struggling to fathom the rage sparked by Jyllands-Posten"s crude caricatures, and Muslims, fearing a growing clash of cultures, ignore at their peril.   Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, an influential spiritual leader and scholar, was not alone in characterising the controversy as integral to an ongoing, unifying pan-Islamic revolt against oppression. "The nation must rage in anger," he told Qatar television. "Whoever was angered and did not rage is a jackass. We are not a nation of jackasses for riding, but lions that roar."   From a less impassioned, secular standpoint, aspects of the row recalled Tom Wolfe"s The Bonfire of the Vanities. "It is scandalous - an horrific carnival of stupidity, hypocrisy and manipulated outrage celebrated with equal enthusiasm in the Muslim world and in "liberal" Europe," said journalist and author Neal Ascherson.   But it was also "a storm signal of worse to come", he warned on the openDemocracy website. Europeans had been left wondering whether compromise was possible with a minority"s religious dogmatism while "millions of peaceful Muslims ... are now inclined to listen more respectfully to those who tell them that the west and its leaders intend to exterminate Islam by slander and humiliation as preludes to war".   As the row has spread, more recent protests, sometimes turning into riots, have broadened the sense of confrontation while blurring its original focus. A protest in northern Nigeria morphed into lethal assaults on Christians. Militant Afghans tried to turn protests yesterday into an al-Qaida recruitment drive. In Pakistan, the evolving target of rallies is not Denmark (or the cartoonists on whose heads a $1m bounty has been placed) but the unelected president, Pervez Musharraf, and his US alliance.   In Beirut, the destruction of the Danish embassy was widely blamed on Syrian agents more interested in destabilising Lebanon than punishing blasphemy. Predictably, hardliners in Iran and the US have used the fracas to justify their mutual antipathy. Even remote Fiji has not escaped. This month a Sunday paper republished all 12 cartoons - not in the cause of free expression but reportedly in support of Methodist fundamentalists unsympathetic to Muslim Indo-Fijians.   And intimidation is taking a toll. A world away from Suva, a public debate organised by the International Affairs Society at the University of Bristol proceeded only in circumscribed format last week after the authorities got cold feet over security. Retaliatory threats against newspapers that published the cartoons have proliferated. On all sides, motives often appeared questionable.   Parallel controversies have kept the issue hot, ranging from the latest allegations of Iraqi prisoner abuse by British and US troops to attempted international ostracism of Hamas, Palestine"s new rulers. The attendant clamour has tended to drown out "mainstream" western Muslims, such as those who marched in London on February 11, and moderate Islamist voices. One such leader, Nasharudin Mat Isa of the Islamic party of Malaysia, condemned the caricatures - but confined criticism to "provocateurs" in "certain sections of the western world", rather than the west as a whole. By belatedly calling for calm yesterday, Iran reflected concern that lawless streets may threaten "lawful" authority.   Analysts such as Amr Hamzawy of the Carnegie Endowment think tank have suggested western opinion is failing to grasp the ramifications of a developing, pan-Islamic political intifada.   Rooted in poverty, poor education and lack of democracy, it is driven by Palestine, Iraq, oil politics, and the thoughtless demonisation of all Muslims in the post-9/11 "war on terror". It increasingly challenges established regimes. It has growing access to uncontrolled media - media that also publicised last year"s Qur"an desecration scandal. The revolt"s unifying banner is Islam. And more than ever before, Islam can freely talk to itself.   Among other things, that meant the west must learn to engage with opposition forces and end support for authoritarian governments, said David Mepham of the Institute for Public Policy Research in a new report, Changing States. "There is a critical need ... to draw attention to the very real diversity and popularity of Islamist groups [which] constitute the main bulk of the opposition to existing regimes.   "Those groups that renounce violence and commit to democratic politics should be potential recipients of practical support," he said. But engagement could not stop there. Formal talks between the US and Europe and the likes of Hamas and Hizbullah might be required - and unavoidable - if the extremists" grip was to be loosened and mutual repulsion rechannelled into collaborative reform.
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