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Posted on 01/07/2005 9:52:27 PM PST by Pikamax
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A tragedy that could make - or break - the troubled UN
Simon Tisdall Saturday January 8, 2005 The Guardian
George Bush took his time before responding in person to the tsunami disaster. When he finally faced the press on December 29, his comments proved provocative. Speaking at his holiday ranch in Crawford, Texas, the US president raised his initial aid offer from $15m (£8.2m) to $35m (£19.3m). Then he announced that America was taking charge. "We've established a regional core group with India, Japan and Australia to help coordinate relief efforts," Mr Bush said. Meanwhile, the US military was on the way.
Mr Bush made no mention of the central coordinating role of the United Nations. Nor did he offer direct assistance to the several UN agencies that were already tackling the disaster.
Instead, when asked about an assertion by Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, that western aid contributions were generally "stingy", Mr Bush testily dismissed him as "misguided and ill-informed".
Mr Bush subsequently changed his tune as the enormous scale of the disaster unfolded - and as subtler political calculations came into play.
US aid has increased tenfold, to $350m. And the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, admitted this week that Washington has belatedly glimpsed a strategic opportunity that has little to do with UN efforts.
The tsunami presented a chance to promote "American values", he said, and thus repair the US image tarnished by Iraq and Palestine, especially in Muslim countries such as Indonesia.
An American helicopter pilot delivering aid in Aceh, William Whitsitt, put it more succinctly: "I'd much rather be doing this than fighting a war."
US squabbles with the UN over who is in charge are off the agenda, for now at least. All the same, the impression of US ambivalence bordering on hostility to the UN's leadership role has not been entirely dispelled since Mr Bush's clumsy performance. At issue are long-standing, fundamental tensions between the world's only superpower and the pre-eminent global political organisation.
The Bush administration craves the legitimacy that only the UN can confer on its policies in places such as Iraq. On the other hand, it resents attempts by other countries, acting through the UN, to place restraints on its exercise of power.
Since the cold war ended, the UN has become the principal battleground where states' practical and ideological differences over the application of international law, multilateralist versus unilateralist solutions, and the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive force are fought out.
Yet it is often the UN as an institution that is blamed when things fall apart.
In reality, there is little the secretary general, Kofi Annan, can do about such tensions except try to maintain UN impartiality.
But as his no-nonsense approach at this week's Jakarta aid summit showed, he understands that a strong performance on the tsunami is imperative if the UN is not to sink under the weight of these and other debilitating problems. Mr Annan bluntly told donor countries that they must honour their commitments and not divert funds from other aid projects.
Mr Bush has been forced to disband his "core group" and acknowledge the UN's overall control.
And the secretary general at last offered the kind of inspirational, unifying leadership that the UN's supporters had been waiting to hear. "The past 11 days have been among the darkest in our life time," he said. "But they have also allowed us to see a new kind of light. We have seen the world coming together ... We have seen a response based not on our differences but on what unites us."
Mr Annan knows this must go well. For long before the giant waves struck, the UN's many other difficulties were piling up like wreckage on a beach.
Chief among them is the ongoing investigation by Paul Volcker, a former US federal reserve chairman, into corruption allegations arising from the UN's pre-war oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
This has become a big issue in the US, although not elsewhere. Mr Annan has so far brushed aside calls for his resignation. But analysts say the Bush administration could yet demand his head if the Volcker report proves critical.
Mr Annan has not been forgiven by neo-conservatives for denouncing the Iraq war as "illegal". They somehow blame him for the security council's refusal to endorse it. The UN atomic agency's handling of Iran and the international criminal court, whose jurisdiction the US rejects, are other sources of friction.
More broadly, Mr Annan faces problems with peacekeeping operations from Kosovo to Congo to Haiti, prospective failure in Darfur, an unwieldy bureaucracy and, as always, a shortage of funds.
And then there is the complex issue of post-Iraq UN reform following the recent recommendations of an independent high-level panel.
"The disaster has underlined the indispensability of the UN," Lord Hannay, a former British ambassador and panel member, said yesterday. "Everybody expects and wants the UN to play the coordinating role. But it can't do it on its own, it doesn't have the resources itself. It's the big countries that have the aircraft carriers. So it can't be a question of either/or.
"We must get away from the idea of a hierarchy of threats. We need an effective UN for a wide range of issues - peace and security (where the panel's reform recommendations come in), environmental threats, poverty, pandemic diseases and natural disasters like the tsunami."
Mr Annan had for a time become the target of a "voracious lynch mob" demanding his resignation, Lord Hannay said. But the secretary general's performance in Jakarta had been "calm, composed and caring - vintage Kofi".
Mr Annan launched a reshuffle of his top advisers this week in an admission that things have to change. "The report offers the UN a unique opportunity to refashion and renew our institutions," he said.
Not all American opinion is critical, within or without the Bush administration, although the incoming secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, appears less well-disposed than Mr Powell.
The former US ambassador Richard Holbrooke recently offered some friendly, private advice to Mr Annan, counselling him that he "must improve relations with Washington ... and accountability inside the UN".
Meanwhile, speaking before the tsunami disaster, Senator Patrick Leahy said the US should admit it needs the UN. "With all its imperfections, having the UN is a lot better than not having [it] ... You always have people who take shots at the UN, some of it legitimate. But I think we ought to take a deep breath ... We need them in Sudan, we need them throughout parts of Africa, we need them in a lot of peacekeeping areas," Mr Leahy said.
And not all the criticisms, or the diverging political agendas, are American. Some British newspapers have been quick to use the tsunami to ride a favourite hobbyhorse, bashing the UN in much the same way they bash the EU.
In this very British search for somebody to blame, the UN has been variously accused of irrelevance, inefficiency and tardiness. As the less glamorous, long-term slog of rehabilitation and reconstruction gets under way, Mr Annan knows that the UN faces a critical test which if it fails, amid all its other troubles, could help render the organisation redundant.
Yet given the proactive, high-profile performance to date of the UNHCR, Unicef, the World Food Programme, and the World Health Organisation, diplomats suggest that is an unlikely outcome.
While admitting that enormous obstacles remained, Mr Egeland, the chief relief coordinator, was bullish this week about the UN's prospects of ultimate success.
"I wish we could have had this in the many other emergencies we faced in the year past," he said. The estimated worldwide death toll of 30,000 children each day from preventable causes amounted to "a tsunami every week".
All the same, he suggested, the disaster could prove a watershed for global poverty reduction, for increased development aid - and for the UN itself.
"I think that it is now amply proven that if anybody can coordinate the world's generosity, it's the United Nations or nobody."
Can't fix what's already broken. IMO
Naaah, no bias there.
Pardon me while I get the Pepto Bismol.
Who the heck is the author atttempting to kid?
http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/
snip
This Embassy has been running 24/7 since the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. Along with my colleagues, I've spent the past several days dealing non-stop with various aspects of the relief effort in this tsunami-affected country. That work, unfortunately, has brought ever-increasing contact with the growing UN presence in this capital; in fact, we've found that to avoid running into the UN, we must go out to where the quake and tsunami actually hit. As we come up on two weeks since the disaster struck, the UN is still not to be seen where it counts -- except when holding well-staged press events. Ah, yes, but the luxury hotels are full of UN assessment teams and visiting big shots from New York, Geneva, and Vienna. The city sees a steady procession of UN Mercedes sedans and top-of-the-line SUV's -- a fully decked out Toyota Landcruiser is the UN vehicle of choice; it doesn't seem that concerns about "global warming" and preserving your tax dollars run too deep among the UNocrats.
"vintage Kofi"? Hide the silverware!!
I wish people would stop posting this cr*p from the Grauniad. They and the BBC and the Financial Times are so predictably anti-american that their articles are boring.
What a barf inducer!
All Kofi is interested in is making sure that he can strut his profile in front of any relief efforts that actually get accomplished. He isn't even done having his high-visibility meetings yet while the US and their alliance are getting it done with direction from the Indonesian government.
I won't say the U.N. is worthless, because it has proven itself to be worse than worthless.
I wish people would stop posting this cr*p from the Grauniad. They and the BBC and the Financial Times are so predictably anti-american that their articles are boring.
This is true:
For long before the giant waves struck, the UN's many other difficulties were piling up like wreckage on a beach.
No, it needs to be posted....helps us prepare our responses....
Yessiree! A carte blanche to the UN to steal as much as they can from some of the biggest donations ever recorded!!! I'm certain that Kofi is beaming (and scheming!)
That's a BIG ditto!!!
I disagree with both of you....how can we fight them if we don't know what they are saying?
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Howzzat again - "Forced"?
I just hope Bush's calculations include the UN augering in on this (as others have suggested). It would be worth the price of their failure, if it meant that they went down in a death spiral so we would no longer have the UN conspiring to deprive us of our rights and force us into global Socialism.
Stupidity runs rampant within the liberal media.
Freedom of the press without responsiblity for honesty and integrity will one day be disasterous to a free country.
Senator Patrick Leahy said the US should admit it needs the UN. "With all its imperfections, having the UN is a lot better than not having [it]
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What in the World does the US need the UN for, to Rip us off undermine our Constitutional Republic with their World Government. Mr. Leahy should consider being an American and not sucking up to the European Socialist.
If he and his Socialist Comrades continue to errode our Constitutional Republic he may need to consider changing his residence >>> Permanently.
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