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May 21 - 25, 2001 - Global Policy Forum - Email 'Listserv' News
GPF List-Serv
May 21 - 25, 2001Greetings from Global Policy Forum!
News from the Security Council
Twelve of the fifteen Ambassadors in the Council spent this week in Africa. Ambassador Jean-David Levitte of France, who is leading this mission to the Great Lakes region, seems optimistic. "The mood is good," said Levitte during an interview. Major foreign participants in Congo's war are now committed to withdrawing and Congolese rebels are ready to disarm. Kabila’s cooperation has marginalized the rebel groups. For his part, the young president Kabila deplores the lack of commitment of the international community in terms of personnel and resources. The Congolese president urges an increase in troops for the peacekeeping mission and wants to hold a regional conference to resolve the ethnic tensions and violence in the Great Lakes region. In reaction to the worrying humanitarian situation, the Security Council decided to officially reopen the Congo River - which was the scene of the most intense fighting - to commercial traffic. The river is a vital access route for food shipment to the capital. But the situation remains difficult. The Congolese commission appointed by the government to investigate the assassination of the late Laurent Désiré Kabila released its conclusion. According to its conclusion, the assassination of Kabila “was not an isolated act”. It was “part of a plot to make a coup d’état” said Attorney General Kabinda Ngoy. The bodyguard was the triggerman acting for DRC enemies: Rwanda, Uganda, and Congolese rebels. Rwanda and Uganda have already denied this accusation. The Security Council mission is now in Burundi to help with a separate peace mission led by Nelson Mandela. Burundi is on the verge of civil war.
The US and the UK took advantage of the Security Council being away to circulate a new proposal on Iraq sanctions amongst the permanent members. France, Russia and China complain that the British proposal goes “too far, too fast”. Russia submitted an alternative to the British draft, proposing a temporary extension of the existing oil-for-food program, along with a few “incentives” for Baghdad, including the reduction of Iraq's compensation payments to victims of its 1990 invasion. For his part, Saddam Hussein announced he will reject the revised sanctions conditions proposed by the US anyway.
Sanctions against Liberia are tightening. Global Witness updated the report it submitted to the Security Council on Liberian timber, in the light of the new sanctions imposed against Charles Taylor. The UK-based organization urges the Council to include timber in the UN sanctions. Moving in the same direction, the Bush administration passed an Executive Order prohibiting the importation of all Liberian rough diamonds into the US. Since the Abudja meeting, the Sierra Leonean government and RUF leaders agreed to a ceasefire. RUF no longer sees UNAMSIL as backing the government, and thus has been cooperating with the UN in the disarmament process. The RUF may be “breathing its last” suggests the BBC. With many rebels disarmed, can the RUF become a political force?
International Justice
The International Tribunal for Rwanda is in trouble. After some prosecutors complained that their mandate was not extended and accused Carla Del Ponte of racism, a scandal exploded with the arrest of one of the most wanted men for the 1994 genocide. He was working at the Tribunal as an investigator for the defense when a witness recognized him.
We have updated our tables and graphs on the US proportion of the total amount owed to the UN. In April the proportion owed by the US to the Regular Budget inched up a percentage point to 52%, and the proportion owed to the Peacekeeping budget dropped a point to 58%, leaving the proportion owed on all arrears at 56%.
The World Health Organization (WHO) withdrew its proposal to lower the US share of the WHO’s budget after developing countries protested they could not make up the difference.
Social/Economic Policy (May 21-25) The third UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries was held last week in Brussels. The focus of the conference were the 49 countries in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean, that are the world's poorest. With a combined population of some 610 million people, they share less than one percent of the world's revenue, and most live on the equivalent of about $2 a day.
At the end of the conference, a 10-year "action plan" was adopted. The plan targets "reduction in extreme poverty..., growth and sustainable development..., expansion of domestic markets and employment generation." It includes measures aimed at large-scale debt relief for "high indebted poor countries"(HIPCs), reducing malnutrition, securing duty-free market access for LDC exports to world markets, and "building productive capacities to make globalization work for LDCs."
But critics said the measures and projects fell far short of what was needed to meet even basic development objectives, including the halving of poverty by 2015 agreed at the UN's millennium summit last year. The only pledges on aid last week came from countries that have already reached the 0.7% target - Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Luxembourg - which promised to raise aid spending to 1 per cent of GDP.
As for debt, Oxfam estimates that at least 13 LDCs will emerge from the highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) debt relief programme still with an unsustainable debt burden. David Earnshaw of Oxfam said the results of the conference “were very meager and disappointing," and that "(a)lmost everything announced last week was there before."
And now for this week's links:
