Vicegeneralsekretær i FN siden marts, briten Mark Malloch Brown, kritiserede tirsdag i usædvanligt direkte vendinger kritiserede USA for at misbruge FN ved at “udnytte verdensorganisationen, når det er politisk opportunt, men forholde sig passivt over for FNs bidske indenrigspolitiske kritikere”, skriver Politiken fredag.
– Den fremherskende praksis med at forsøge at bruge FN nærmest i smug som et diplomatisk værktøj, samtidig med at man forsømmer at forsvare FN mod hjemlige kritikere er simpelt hen uholdbar. Man er nødt til at engagere sig for at bidrage til at gøre det her til en bedre organisation. Og man er nødt til at engagere sig, hvis jeg må være så fri, i sin egen hjemlige opinion for bedre at forklare, hvorfor FN er vigtig for amerikanske interesser, sagde Malloch Brown på en konference i New York.
USAs FN-ambassadør, John Bolton, er vred over kritikken og beskrev onsdag overfor generalsekretær Kofi Annan talen som den “værste fejltagelse begået af en topembedsmand i FN i 17 år”.
Da Annan lod Bolton forstå, at han var enig i alt, hvad hans næstkommanderende havde sagt, advarede Bolton offentligt om, at talen kan få enorme konsekvenser for FN og de reformer, Annan prøver at få igennem inden sin afgang.
– Selv om talens mål var USA, så frygter jeg, at det virkelige offer bliver FN selv, siger Bolton og antyder, at USA vil blive ved med at spænde ben for vedtagelsen af FN’s nye budget.
Det udløber med udgangen af juni, og eftersom USA betaler 22 procent af FNs udgifter, kan FN stå på randen af en akut økonomisk krise.
HER den udvidede version af Malloch Browns tale fra FNs nyhedstjeneste til benefice for vore læsere:
6 June 2006 – The UN Deputy Secretary-General today called for greater United States engagement with the UN, warning that Washington cannot “go it alone” in approaching diverse problems ranging from the threat of bird flu to the situation in violence-wracked Darfur, Sudan, while the world body needs its host country’s leadership to tackle these pressing challenges.
In an address on “Power and Superpower” delivered in New York, Mark Malloch Brown warned that “a moment of truth is coming” since the worlds challenges are growing but the UNs ability to respond is being weakened without US leadership.
He cited the issue of human rights, noting that former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had championed the issue. By contrast, “Today, when the human rights machinery was renewed with the formation of a Human Rights Council to replace the discredited Commission on Human Rights, and the US chose to stay on the sidelines, the loss was everybodys.”
Washington had called a vote on the proposal, and was joined by only three other countries in opposition, with 170 supporting the measure’s passage.
Mr. Malloch Brown praised those US officials who have supported the UN and played leadership roles, but noted that “in recent years, the enormously divisive issue of Iraq and the big stick of financial withholding have come to define an unhappy marriage.”
While the US is constructively engaged with the UN – on issues such as Lebanon, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and the Middle East, “that is not well known or understood, in part because much of the public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors” in the media.
– Exacerbating (forværre/skærpe) matters is the widely held perception, even among many US allies, that the US tends to hold on to maximalist positions when it could be finding middle ground, he added, citing the proposed renovation of the dilapidated UN Headquarters in New York.
– While an architectural landmark, the building falls dangerously short of city codes, lacks sprinklers, is filled with asbestos and is in most respects the most hazardous workplace in town. But the only government not fully supporting the project is the US, he noted.
The Deputy Secretary-General said that when the US does champion the “right issues like management reform,” Washington provokes more suspicion than support. He recalled how last December, largely at US insistence, instead of a normal two-year budget, Member States approved only six months worth of expenditure.
In the current climate, “even relatively modest proposals that in any other organization would be seen as uncontroversial, such as providing more authority and flexibility for the Secretary-General to shift posts and resources to organizational priorities without having to get direct approval from Member States, have been fiercely resisted by the G77, the main group of developing countries, on the grounds that this weakens accountability,” Mr. Malloch Brown noted, referring to the “Group of 77” caucus.
He cited the prevailing “perception among many otherwise quite moderate countries that anything the US supports must have a secret agenda aimed at either subordinating multilateral processes to Washingtons ends or weakening the institutions, and therefore, put crudely, should be opposed.”
Another factor in play is “a real, understandable hostility by the wider membership to the perception that the Security Council, in particular the five permanent members, is seeking a role in areas not formally within its remit, such as management issues or human rights.”
In addition, he cited “an equally understandable conviction that those five, veto-wielding permanent members who happen to be the victors in a war fought 60 years ago, cannot be seen as representative of todays world” even in financial terms.
The so-called G-4 of Security Council aspirants – Japan, India, Brazil and Germany – contribute twice as much as the P-4, the four permanent members excluding the US.
– The US – like every nation, strong and weak alike – is today beset by problems that defy national, inside-the-border solutions: climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, migration, the management of the global economy, the internationalization of drugs and crime, the spread of diseases such as HIV and avian flu, the Deputy Secretary-General said, adding:
– Security has gone global, and no country can afford to neglect the global institutions needed to manage it.
For the UN, it starts with politicians who will assert that Washington is going to engage with the world to tackle cross-border issues. This, he noted, will require “inside the tent diplomacy at the UN. No more take it or leave it, red-line demands thrown in without debate and engagement.”
To illustrate this point, he noted that President Bush wants to do more to respond to the situation in Darfur, and questioned the ability of the US to act on its own.
“What can the US do alone in the heart of Africa, in a region the size of France?” he asked, adding: “A place where the government in Khartoum is convinced the US wants to extend the hegemony it is thought to have asserted in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The US, he stressed, needs the UN as a multilateral means to address Sudans concerns.
– It needs the UN to secure a wide multicultural array of troop and humanitarian partners. It needs the UN to provide the international legitimacy that Iraq has again proved is an indispensable component to success on the ground, he stated.
The dependence, he added, is mutual: – The UN needs its first parent, the US, every bit as much if it is to deploy credibly (have en troværdig tilstedeværelse) in one of the worlds nastiest neighbourhoods.
