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GPF List-Serve
April 5 - 12, 1999
Greetings from GPF,
Most of our postings this week address the continuing war in Kosovo. The "fog of war" is especially dense in the intellectual realm, but we have found a number of comments that bring daylight to the issue. We draw your attention in particular to Ingvar Carlson's and Shridath Ramphal's important critical statement on NATO's breach of international law. Ingvar Carlson was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1986-1991 and 1994-1996 and Shridath Ramphal was Secretary-General of the Commonwealth 1975-1990. Currently they serve as Co-Chairmen of The Commission on Global Governance.
Another important contribution is provided by Diana Johnstone in an article entitled "Seeing Yugoslavia Through a Dark Glass: Politics, Media And the Ideology of Globalization." This article, like several others we have posted this week, dates from well before the start of the bombing -- an indication that the crisis has deep, structural roots. Also worth highlighting are Thomas Valasek's "NATO: Last Resort, Not a Panacea" and Nicholas Arons' "Call for End of US Bombing and for Creative Resistance to Genocide."
These and other commentaries can be found on GPF's page on the Kosovo Crisis
GPF's Executive Director, Jim Paul, has appeared on both Fox Television Network News and ZDF German Television, where he gave his views on NATO's action and its implications for the UN. Last Saturday, Jim was interviewed in Fox Television's midtown New York studio as part of round-the-clock programming covering the crisis. The ZDF German Television crew taped the interview a few days earlier in GPF's office.
On Monday, April 5th, the NGO Working Group on the Security Council met with Counselor Chen Xu of China and two other colleagues on the Council team at the Chinese Mission. Among the topics discussed were the Secretary-General's report to the Security Council on the dramatic escalation in refugees since the beginning of the NATO air strikes. China, Russia and Namibia have been the Council members most opposed to the NATO action. But nations around the world have expressed their opposition, fearing that the NATO precedent can be taken by other powers, in other circumstances. The Rio Group of 14 Latin American countries, for example, issued a statement critical of the strikes a few days ago. As time goes on, we shall post information about additional expressions of opposition, and additional thoughts on where this leaves the United Nations.
The Kosovo Crisis is closely related to the project of Washington to "expand" the strategic doctrine of NATO, to allow for NATO action in a wide variety of circumstances and in any world theater. This is an extremely dangerous proposal, which will further erode the UN. One of the most thoughtful critical initiatives on the question of NATO expansion has been taken by Jeff Laurenti, Vice President of the United Nations Association-USA. There are several good documents on UNA's work that are posted at the UNA web site, to which we have provided a link.
The issue of NGO access to the UN has heated up quite dramatically in recent days. A group of NGOs met with Assistant Secretary General Gillian Sorensen on March 31st. Also present at the meeting was UN Security Chief Michael McCann and other Secretariat officials. The NGOs were told that restrictive new policies were about to be put in place and we were asked to come up with rules to administer special passes that would be used to limit NGO access to the second floor of the conference building. Though Chief McCann argued that security reasons required the new rules, he did not provide any concrete examples of why NGOs pose a security threat. On Friday, April 9th, many of those present at the meeting sent a letter to Ms. Sorensen expressing deep disagreement with the proposals and our sense that they are contrary to Secretary General Annan's oft-stated view that NGOs are "indispensable partners" of the United Nations. GPF was closely involved in this process.
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