Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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March 5-9, 2001 - Global Policy Forum - Email 'Listserv' News
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March 5-9, 2001Greetings from GPF !
Rites of Passage
Fighter jets from the United States and the United Kingdom bombed targets near Baghdad on Friday, February 16. Predictably, US President George Bush took his first military action against Saddam Hussein. Longtime observers recalled that President Bill Clinton also participated in this ritual, launching air strikes against Iraq within weeks of entering office.
Stung by widespread criticism, Foreign Minister Robin Cook wrote in the Daily Telegraph that the UK government was acting "to protect the people of Iraq." But Pentagon spokesmen soon admitted that most of the high-technology "smart" bombs did not reach their intended targets and that less than half of the radar sites attached had actually been hit. Instead, bombs were scattered over a wide area, with much greater chance of "collateral damage" - that is, harm to innocent civilians. According to defense specialist William Arkin, writing in the Washington Post, the attacks used cluster bombs that "have no real aimpoint and wound innocent civilians for years to come." Cluster bombs of the kind used in the attacks break up into 145 "bomblets" that in turn spray incendiary material and metal fragments over a zone of about 20,000 square feet.
At the UN, the US and the UK are increasingly isolated over Iraq policy and they face determined opposition within the Security Council. Now that the Dutch have departed from the Council, Norwegian ambassador Ole Peter Kolby has assumed the chairmanship of the "661 Committee" on Iraq Sanctions. According to press reports, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry will soon propose major changes in the sanctions, effectively lifting most of the general trade ban. At the same time, rumors abound of policy "reviews" in Washington and London and impending changes that will move away from general sanctions in favor of a more "targeted" approach. London is also said to favor an end to the Southern "no-fly" zone. US Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated his preference for a new approach, but conservatives in Washington, including hard-liners in the Bush administration, have vowed to fight for a more "robust" policy.
According to reliable estimates, annual expenses of the US air sorties to enforce the Southern no-fly zone amount to $1.4 billion, considerably more than the recently-reduced US assessment for the United Nations regular budget.
Some believe that with oil prices high, the Anglo-American oil corporations are keen to strike deals with the Iraqis for new prospecting and production in vast untapped fields. In most of the nineties, these companies were glad to keep Iraqi production off the depressed market, but today they favor a change in policy. Given the warm relations the companies enjoy with governments on both sides of the Atlantic, we can expect that the Republican conservatives will eventually give ground. Public sentiment will also play a role in the policy change, especially in the UK, where the Blair government faces upcoming general elections amid very strong anti-sanctions sentiment.
Valentine for Jonas Savimbi?
On Wednesday, February 14 (Valentine's Day), the Pentagon announced that a senior Defense Department official had met with a high-ranking member of UNITA, the Angola rebel group headed by Jonas Savimbi. The meeting appears to have been in violation of UN Security Council sanctions on UNITA, which prohibit diplomatic contacts of this kind. The meeting took place in January, during the week immediately following the inauguration of President George Bush, between Brend McConnell, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs and Jardo Muekalia, a Savimbi associate. Also present at the meeting were three other officials from the Pentagon's African affairs directorate. US sources insisted that it was "unofficial and informal" and that it took place over breakfast, outside of the Pentagon, and thus it did not violate the sanctions provisions. Karl Rove, a top Bush advisor, also apparently met with Muekalia before the inauguration.
High US officials have insisted that these contacts were held for the sole purpose of telling Savimbi to lay down his arms. Skeptics remember the long-standing clandestine support by Washington of Savimbi, lasting at least into the late 1990s. However, the highly-respected Angola Peace Monitor newsletter later insisted that Savimbi's support in Washington is not what it once was. His movement is greatly weakened militarily, the diamond industry is nervous about buying his remaining gems, and oil has come increasingly to the fore in Angola as the primary export commodity.
On February 22, the UN Security Council held a major discussion on Angola Sanctions. Ambassador Richard Ryan of Ireland, the new chairman of the Angola Sanctions Committee, said that the Council must show "determination" and must make more resources available to tighten the sanctions on Savimbi and cut off his capacity to continue the war. Canada is proposing that a permanent Secretariat office should be established to enforce sanctions and track sanctions-busters. This idea would be more appealing if sanctions always attracted broad support. But as long as sanctions such as those on Iraq and Afghanistan raise serious doubts, Canada's reform proposals will remain problematical.
Swiss Cheese
The Swiss banking system has been in the news. Marc Rich, the billionaire commodities trader recently pardoned by President Bill Clinton, escaped US tax evasion charges by fleeting to Switzerland and doing business there. US courts could not extradite him because tax evasion is not a criminal offense in the Alpine nation where bank secrecy is the holy grail of national policy. Rich's billions were welcome to Swiss bankers, who have grown very rich by turning a blind eye to questionable clients and flourishing in a system of regulation with rules like Swiss cheese.
A committee of the French National Assembly has released a fascinating report on Switzerland, with rich details on the banking and regulatory system. The committee has been looking into money laundering, tax evasion and "offshore" money centers for more than a year and it previously issued excellent reports on Liechtenstein and Monaco. The mini principalities are serious offenders, of course, but they are bit-players on the international banking scene when compared to Switzerland. Swiss banks are believed to hold deposits of more than a trillion dollars from foreign individuals and foreign private investment companies. Former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, who stole an estimated $3 billion from the Nigerian treasury, stashed several hundred million in Swiss accounts, much of which was recently discovered by Swiss authorities.
The gnomes of Zurich are not alone in the big-time game of money laundering, though. On March 9, the UK Financial Services Authority accused 23 UK banks of handling more than $1.3 billion of Abacha money. The FSA investigation followed a report by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission in September 2000 that exposed Britain's role as a conduit for hot Abacha funds. The Swiss report was sharply critical of Swiss banks role, but it also identified hundreds of millions in hot money that flowed through British banks. The Swiss have frozen $600 million in Abacha money and repatriated some to Nigeria, but the UK government has not acted -- an embarrassing and self-serving lapse from a government that has been playing a lead role in the OECD crackdown on smaller offshore tax havens.
Here are this week's links:
