Annan's Blueprint For UN Reform Shows U.S. Pressure

by Thalif Deen

(IPS) UNITED NATIONS -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's blueprint to restructure the world body -- as spelled out in a landmark 62-page report released March 21 -- has received mixed reviews from diplomats, human rights activists and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

"Millions of people are dying because of conflict and poverty while rich countries are busy jostling for Security Council seats," says Nicola Reindorp, head of Oxfam's New York office.

She said the UN's 191 member states must come together later this year to specifically focus on the two real tasks before the international community, namely ending poverty and protecting innocent people caught in deadly conflicts.

A Southeast Asian diplomat told IPS that Annan "seems to be bending over backwards" to please the United States -- as evidenced in his call for a new council on human rights, a fund to promote democracy worldwide and his plans to rid the organization of "traditionalist" senior staffers by "buying out" their contracts.

"The hidden hand of the United States is missing," he said, "but the fingerprints are visible."

"Key aspects of the report reflect UN efforts to comply with U.S. pressures," says Phyllis Bennis, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, who has written extensively on the United Nations.

She told IPS there is obviously some focus on recent U.S. attacks on the United Nations for allegations of misconduct, including calls for a large-scale "buy-out" of UN staff.

In discussions of the need to settle on a definition of terrorism, Bennis said, Annan's report calls for abandoning even the discussion of "state terrorism," most often identified with military strikes by Israel and the United States, and other countries like Russia.

"Although the report refers to existing international law being sufficient for dealing with the actions of states, the reality is that those existing international treaties and UN resolutions have proved insufficient to hold Israel, the United States, or Russia accountable for their violations," said Bennis, author of "Calling the Shots: How the U.S. Dominates Today's World."

"The fact that the report begins with the self-imposed limitation to only deal with reforms that can be accomplished, reflects the unwillingness of the UN leadership to issue a wholesale call for the United Nations to reject the domination of the United States and to take sides with the 'second super-power' in challenging Washington's drive towards empire," she added.

Reindorp's fears about an over-emphasis on the expansion of the Security Council have been reinforced in the new report where Annan says: "Two years ago, I declared that in my view no reform of the United Nations would be complete without reform of the Security Council. That is still my belief."

But for the first time, Annan attempts to link development aid with the expansion of the Security Council.

He says that developed countries running for permanent seats in the Council, including Japan and Germany, should "achieve or make substantial progress" towards the internationally agreed level of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) for overseas development assistance (ODA).

This "should be considered an important criterion of contribution" in their efforts to gain permanent seats, he adds.

This year marks the 35th year since the UN General Assembly first affirmed the target of 0.7 of GNP as ODA. But so far, only five countries have met or surpassed the target: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

In the past two years, six other countries have committed themselves to specific timetables to achieving the target before 2015: Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Still, the remaining 11 of the world's 22 rich nations, including Japan and Germany, have failed to make any commitment to meet this target.

Although Annan does not say that this should be a condition for Security Council membership by rich nations, he argues that those participating in major UN decision-making should be those who contribute most to the United Nations financially, militarily and diplomatically.

Bennis argues that "setting the meeting of the 0.7 percent foreign assistance goal as a requirement for new Security Council members is appropriate -- but highlights the stark reality that only wealthy countries are likely to gain new permanent seats."

Annan says that new permanent members in the Council should include those who make significant contributions to UN assessed budgets, participate in mandated peace operations, contribute to voluntary activities of the United Nations in areas of security and development, and participate in diplomatic activities in support of UN objective and mandates.

The report backs a proposal made by a high-level panel on UN reform, which early this year called for two alternative models:

Model A provides for six new permanent seats, with no veto being created, and three new two-year term non-permanent seats, divided among Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe and the Americas.

Model B provides for no new permanent seats but creates a new category of eight four-year renewable-term seats and one new two-year non-permanent (and non-renewable) seat, divided among the four regional groups.

Currently, the Security Council has 10 rotating, two-year non-permanent seats and five veto-wielding, permanent seats held by the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

Responding to Annan's proposal, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said that despite the fact that Tokyo has fallen short of the 0.7 target, it is still "a major development aid donor shouldering close to one-fifth of the total volume of worldwide development assistance over the last 10 years."

"Japan will continue to make such a resolved effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and, to that end, will strive to increase the level of ODA," he added.

The eight MDGs include a 50 percent reduction in poverty and hunger; universal primary education; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; the promotion of gender equality; and the reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

A summit meeting of 189 world leaders in September 2000 pledged to meet all of these goals by the year 2015.

But their implementation has depended primarily on increased development aid by Western donors. A second summit meeting, scheduled to take place in New York in September this year, will review the progress made so far and set the world's development agenda for the next decade.

Annan complains that the world is "falling short" of what is needed to eradicate poverty and disease worldwide.

Oxfam's Reindorp said that Annan's report sets out "a bold agenda" to be endorsed by governments at the UN Millennium Plus Five Summit in New York in September 2005.

One of its key calls, she said, is for the international community to agree that it has a "responsibility to protect" civilians caught up in warfare, and, as a last resort, to use military force to do so.

Oxfam believes that by agreeing governments' responsibilities to protect civilians, and clear criteria for UN-authorized military intervention as a last resort, the international community could make significant strides towards ending the obscene levels of civilian suffering in today's conflict zones.

"Ultimately governments have the power and the responsibility to act to save lives," she said.

Oxfam strongly believes that ending poverty around the world is the only way to ensure collective global security and that rich and poor nations must seize the golden opportunity of this report and the Summit to change the lives of millions trapped in conflict and poverty, Reindorp added.