Where Do UN Diplomats Hide During Politically-Sensitive Voting? – OpEd

The United Nations, created in 1945 following the devastation caused by World War II, was mandated with one central mission: the maintenance of international peace and security. The 79-year-old Organization and its affiliated bodies—including the 193-member General Assembly and the 15-member Security Council—take decisions mostly by open voting, and few, by secret ballot.

But the seriousness of the UN’s far-reaching mandate has been tempered by occasional moments of levity which have rocked the Glass House by the East River—with laughter. The UN is a rich source of anecdotes—both real and apocryphal—in which the General Assembly (UNGA), the UN’s highest policy-making body, takes center stage, along with the Security Council (UNSC) as a political sidekick.

When UN ambassadors and delegates congregate in the cavernous General Assembly hall at voting time, they have one of three options: either vote for, against, or abstain.

The most intriguing, however, is a fourth option: to be suddenly struck with an urge to rush to the toilet. The frantic attempt to leave your seat vacant—and consequently be counted as “absent”—takes place whenever the issue is politically-sensitive.

When delegates are unable to vote with their conscience—don’t want to incur the wrath of mostly Western aid donors or are taken unawares with no specific instructions from their capitals—they flee their seats.

The “toilet factor”

At a lunch for reporters in his town house bordering Park Avenue in Manhattan, (“this was once owned by Gucci, now it is Fulci”), Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci, an Italian envoy with a sharp sense of humor,described the fourth option as the “toilet factor” in UN voting.

And he jokingly suggested that the only way to resolve the problem is to install portable toilets in the back of the General Assembly hall so that delegates can still cast their votes while contemplating on their toilet seats. But for obvious reasons, there were no takers.

Regrettably, the voting habits at the UN were not recorded when the world body commemorated the “International Year of Sanitation” in 2008, highlighting the fact that roughly 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to toilets or basic sanitation. Not surprisingly, UN delegates were excluded from that collective head count because the Secretariat never ran out of toilets. But the joke lingered on.

In most instances, the various regional groups and coalitions—including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Group of 77, the Latin American and Caribbean States, the African Union (AU) and the Western European and Others (WEOG)—take decisions behind closed doors, ahead of formal voting. But even though the “herd mentality” continues in most UN voting, there are rare occasions of an unscheduled vote taking delegates by surprise.

In the 1970s and 80s, the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), founded in Belgrade in 1961, was one of the largest and most powerful political coalitions at the UN led by countries such as Yugoslavia, India, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Zambia, Cuba and Sri Lanka.

As a general rule, all 120 countries vote in unison on General Assembly resolutions rarely breaking ranks. A Sri Lankan ambassador once recounted a message transmitted from his Foreign Ministry in Colombo—primarily directed at newly-arrived delegates which read—“If you are faced with an unscheduled surprise vote, and do not have any instructions from the Foreign Ministry, look to the right to see how Yugoslavia is voting and look to the left to see how India is voting. If both ambassadors are seen bolting from their seats, just follow them to the toilet”.

NAM

But NAM was a political powerhouse in the 1970s and 80s. Still, when Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene (JRJ) inherited the chairmanship in February 1978, he was skeptical of NAM which was known to be politically independent, with no strong links to either of the world’s two superpowers at that time, namely the US and the Soviet Union, who were engaged in a longstanding and bitter Cold War.

In an interview with an American news reporter, JRJ downgraded the political myth about “non-alignment” when he infamously declared there were only two “non-aligned countries” in the world: the US and the Soviet Union. All other countries, he argued, were politically aligned either with the US or the Soviets. The quote was apparently off- the-record and not-for attribution, but the reporter couldn’t resist the temptation of running with it.

In September 1979, when JRJ handed over the chairmanship of NAM to Cuba at a summit meeting in Havana, the Western world and the mainstream media never accepted the fact that a strong pro-Soviet ally like Havana could ever be a “non-aligned” country.

As a result, right throughout Cuba’s chairmanship of NAM (1979-1983), the New York Times, perhaps as part of its editorial policy, never wavered describing NAM as a “so called Non-Aligned Movement” in every news story published in the paper. The “so called” label was dropped only when India took over the chairmanship of NAM in 1983.

When “non-alignment” was a political buzz word and NAM was in full swing, a UN diplomat once recounted the economic progress in Yugoslavia which had produced the Yugo, a small hatchback that arrived in United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

According to a report in the New York Times, the Yugo was said to be the first car from a Communist country to reach the American market. Equipped with front-wheel drive and a 55-horsepower engine, it sold at a base price of about $3,990, one of the cheapest in the market.

But when scores of cars kept breaking down in the streets of New York, the Yugo was dubbed “an unaligned car from a non-aligned country.” A political twist perhaps planted by the American automobile industry.

The only thing missing was a bumper sticker which should have read: “The parts falling off this car were made of the finest Yugoslav steel” (a parody of a quote once attributed to a motorist with his broken-down British-made car).

Meanwhile, long after the end of the Cold War, some of NAM’s political mandate remained valid, including nuclear disarmament, the right to self-determination, the protection of national sovereignty, and the elusive goal a Palestinian homeland.

Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, told a NAM summit meeting in Colombia in 1995: “At Bandung in 1955, the birth of non-alignment was an act of stunning, world-transfixing boldness. International politics were fundamentally and forever transformed.” As he pointed out, non-alignment derived its political force from a new principle: the principle of solidarity.

Divide and rule

But US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke (1999-2001) tried an old tactic to break that solidarity: divide and rule. In one of his farewell addresses to the African Group at the UN, Holbrooke said: “I respectfully ask the African countries to reconsider their association with the Non-Aligned Movement. The Non-Aligned Movement is not Africa’s friend at this point. Your goals and NAM’s are not synonymous.”

Holbrooke argued that Africa’s voice was weakened because of its association with NAM. “I have not seen a single issue in which NAM positions actually benefited the African Group.” The US envoy also said that NAM, the largest single political group at the United Nations, should either cease to exist as a separate caucus or merge with the Group of 77 (G-77) developing nations. The G-77, the largest single economic group at the United Nations, consists of 134 members—and most developing nations are members of both groups.

Holbrooke said that African nations “should consider distancing themselves from NAM”. “So that you can protect African interests and not allow yourself to be pushed by less than 10 radicalized States into positions that you don’t need.” Even after Holbrooke ceased to be the US ambassador, the US Mission to the UN decided to circulate his speech as a UN document of the General Assembly giving it official credence.

Counter attack

But NAM counter-attacked. By a coincidence the chair at that time was from Africa. So, it was left to the South African ambassador, in his capacity as chairman of NAM, to respond. Holbrooke’s proposal, he said, was an insult to the entire membership of the Movement. “This attempt by a non-NAM member to prescribe to the African members of the Movement is, at best uninformed, or at worst, misguided, misleading and constitutes an affront to NAM members as a whole.”

“The decision by the US Mission to publish the statement under the General Assembly agenda can only be seen as an attempt to question the legitimacy of NAM,” South African Ambassador Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo said. In a letter to NAM members, Kumalo said: “For our people, NAM will always be remembered for having stood steadfast in support of our struggle against apartheid whilst many outside NAM were either complacent or supportive of the racist regime of our past,” he declared.

In the US State Department Holbrooke was known for his passionate pursuit of the US political agenda and never taking no for an answer. When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, he would pursue her in and out of office until she provided him with an answer or concurred with his view.

In a rare achievement, he held the position ofAssistant Secretary of Statefor two different regions of the world (Asiafrom 1977-1981 andEuropefrom 1994-1996). Later, he was also the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan (2009–10) under the Obama administration.

Holbrooke: “I can’t relax”

When Holbrooke was rushed to the hospital with an aneurysm in his heart had burst, ripping a hole in his aorta, the physician at the hospital told him to relax. “I can’t relax”, he told the doctor, “I am in charge of Afghanistan and Pakistan”, two of the most politically-troubled countries in the region. Three days later he died.

At the memorial service for Holbrooke in Washington DC in January 2011, Clinton recounted an incident when she was visiting Pakistan and Holbrooke would chase her around seeking her approval for one of his proposals on Afghanistan. At one point, Clinton told him: “Richard, do you realize you are in a woman’s toilet in Pakistan”. And there was loud laughter during the sober memorial ceremony.

In Pakistan, Clinton was apparently warned, that despite millions of dollars in economic and military aid to Islamabad, there were some elements in the government secretly supporting anti-American militant groups.

She responded with a great quote: “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and only expect them to bite your neighbors.”

• When the UN’s four high-level summit meetings take place September 22-30, over 150 world leaders, including Presidents and Prime Ministers, are expected to address the gatherings. Besides the annual high-level General Debate, the focus will also be on the Summit of the Future, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Sea-Level Rise, and on Anti-microbial Resistance. But the annual General Assembly sessions also have a lighter side, as recounted in a book on the United Nations titled NO COMMENT — & DON’T QUOTE ME ON THAT,* which is peppered with scores of political anecdotes.  The above article is based on one of the chapters in the book—Editor IDN