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- Exclusive on how Canada would be first to shun Durban II

- Cash for Kim (Commentary)

- Comment profile on John Bolton

Exclusive

Canada to quit UN anti-racism summit

Talks shaping up as anti-West gathering: insider

By Steven Edwards

UNITED NATIONS - Canada is poised to become the first country to significantly distance itself from a major anti-racism conference the United Nations is planning for next year.

Maxime Bernier, the Foreign Minister, is expected to announce as early as today Canada is dropping out of planning for the Durban II Conference, which the UN is billing as a global follow-up to its 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.

Insiders say the government feels the new conference is shaping up to be like the anti-West and anti-Israel free-for-all that critics said the initial gathering quickly turned into.

But the move is bound to spark accusations Ottawa is not serious about combatting racism around the world.

The Conservative government is expected to counter any criticism by stating Canada remains committed to anti-racism principles. But it will also argue planning for Durban II veers from those principles, making Canada's participation impossible.

"At the moment, much of the planning for the conference suggests it will focus little on denouncing racism wherever it occurs, and a lot on advancing some countries' agendas against Israel and the West," said one insider familiar with the new policy.

"The government feels that taking a stand against the gathering will do more in the long run for combatting racism than joining in."

Arab-and Muslim-led verbal attacks on Israel at the 2001 conference were so dominant the United States and Israel walked out in protest.

Canada, then under a Liberal administration, stayed, but its senior delegate told the assembly it did so "only … to … decry the attempts … to de-legitimize the State of Israel and to dishonour the history and suffering of the Jewish people."

The 2001 conference also saw Nigeria and Zimbabwe lead African countries in a demand Western powers apologize for the slave trade, and pay huge reparations

The UN routinely launches "review" conferences of big meetings, and member states decided late in 2006 there should be a follow-up to Durban I. But hopes in the West this one might be different were soon dashed.

The UN gave planning oversight to its Human Rights Council, which since its launch less than two years ago has targeted Israel in 14 of its 15 resolutions charging human rights violations.

States sitting on the council then placed Iran, which has called for Israel's destruction, on an executive planning committee. Libya is the chair.

Beyond Israel, some Arab and Muslim countries additionally seek the 2009 agenda to focus on what they call Islamophobia. While that could mean a legitimate study of discrimination against Muslims, UN skeptics say it is actually code to characterize Western anti-terrorism efforts as a plot to subjugate Islam.

"Make no mistake, Durban II is on track to be even worse than Durban I," said Anne Bayefsky, a Canadian academic who edits the New York-based monitoring Web site EyeontheUN.org.

"Canada, if it drops out, would be exhibiting moral clarity and courage after making the mistake at Durban I of staying despite serious reservations."

Canada was among 41 countries that last month opposed allocating US$6.8-million in UN funding to help pay for preparatory meetings for Durban II. The measure carried in the 192-member General Assembly.

Wed Jan 23 2008

© 2008 Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved.

Is UN aid feeding Kim Jong-Il?

By Steven Edwards at the United Nations

Less than a week after U.S. claims became public that United Nations development spending in North Korea may be going not to the Stalinist state's impoverished people but directly to the dictatorial regime of Kim Jong-Il, the world body under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has reacted on several fronts.

That is remarkable speed compared to the months of foot dragging that went on under Ban's predecessor, Kofi Annan, after allegations surfaced about corruption in the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq.

While the eventual oil-for-food probe uncovered a multi-billion dollar scandal, an audit of the UN Development Program's activities in North Korea will scrutinize far smaller cash transfers.

But given that Kim's regime has already tested a nuclear device, any level of funds reaching his coffers is potentially more threatening.

There's also the matter of Ban's recent request for the U.S. Congress to amend legislation capping U.S. funding of the UN's worldwide peacekeeping operations at 25% of the total, instead of the 27% the UN would like -- the difference between US$150-million and US$200-million a year.

So when it emerged on Jan. 19 that U.S. and UN letters and documents leaked to The Wall Street Journal suggested tens of millions of dollars in hard currency could have been diverted from UNDP programs in North Korea to the North Korean government, Ban quickly ordered a probe into all the activities of UN funds and programs around the world.

Over the following days, the United States and Japan led a group of five countries -- among them Canada -- that pressed for an urgent meeting of the 36- country UNDP board of directors to consider further measures.

They have unanimously decided not to approve new projects in North Korea until the external audit addresses the allegations UNDP cash has gone to the Kim regime.

They also agreed the UNDP would begin using only local currency -- the Korean won-- when paying suppliers. Finally, UNDP would hire no more staff recruited by Pyongyang.

Given the duplicity of the North Korean government over the past decades in its nuclear standoff with the international community, the latter two measures seem long overdue.

Aid agencies, however, have long argued the only way to prevent "leakage" of money destined for humanitarian crises in countries with unsavoury governments is to give no aid in the first place.

In the wake of the latest allegations concerning North Korea, that's exactly what Japan feels should be done, while the United States says it's leaning in that direction.

Canada says the measures agreed to by the board are just right for now.

"We… welcome the prompt actions by UNDP to prepare a 'package' which enables all concerned to address the needs of the North Korean people by maintaining an active UNDP presence in [North Korea]," John McNee, Canada's ambassador to the UN, told the gathering on Thursday. "In addition, we recognize that UNDP senior management is taking important steps to strengthen monitoring and audit mechanisms as requested by the Secretary-General. Canada entirely supports these steps."

The North Korean government representative called the U.S. allegations "distorted and fabricated," and some say Washington is merely trying to find another way to put pressure on Pyongyang as meetings take place aimed at reconvening the six-party talks on the North's nuclear ambitions.

There are those in the UNDP, meanwhile, who suggest Washington is just trying to get back at the agency, whose former director, Mark Malloch Brown, had a very public falling out last year with John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the UN.

Ironically, one of the things Mr. Bolton criticized about the UN is its tendency to be too trusting of some of the world's most vile regimes -- a charge the allegations regarding the UNDP in North Korea would bear out, if they prove to be true.

However, even U.S. officials are not alleging corruption is involved -- at least not yet. UNDP officials say the whole matter is a storm in a teacup. "There is going to be an audit, and it will find what all audits find -- that there are a few irregularities. But unless there is something that we don't know about, it is going to be a damp squib," said one.

UNDP spending on about 16 agricultural, energy and other development projects in North Korea has totalled about US$3- million a year for the past decade -- which represents less than 3% of the country's aid receipts. A tiny portion of that amount comes from Canada's annual US$50-million contribution to the worldwide UNDP budget. Ottawa also gives in other ways, last year sending about US$1.5-million to the World Food Program to provide emergency relief for North Korea.

Sat Jan 27 2007
© 2007 Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved.

Illustration:
• Black & White Photo

Sheriff John Bolton aims to lay down the law at the UN

Bush nominee has no tolerance for despotic regimes

By Steven Edwards 

At the United Nations

With his grizzled looks and droopy moustache, John Bolton looks like a Wild West sheriff trying to bring law and order to a place that's never known it.

So what better candidate could President George W. Bush nominate as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations?

The tell-it-like-it-is envoy will bring a badly needed dose of reality to the world body, where despotic or less than democratic regimes run 103 of the 190 governments with seats alongside Canada in the General Assembly.

Yet the internationalist left reacted to Mr. Bolton's nomination Monday with alarm. He's the "Armageddon nominee," says a senior official with the World Federalist Association, which believes in ever-enhanced UN powers over state sovereignty.

The official was recalling comments by former U.S. senator Jesse Helms, who described Mr. Bolton as "the kind of man" he'd like at his side in the Bible's predicted final battle between good and evil.

Although the WFA meant it as an insult, it's actually a credential to those who believe the UN should redefine what passes for international legitimacy.

If approved by the U.S. Senate, Mr. Bolton is expected to try to shake up business as usual at the UN by making it more responsive to fundamental democratic values.

For the internationalists, this is equivalent to destroying the institution itself. Yet those who define multilateralism as countries working together for the common good of people, rather than their governments, welcome Mr. Bolton's iconoclastic approach. Consider some of his statements cited by internationalists as evidence he is a diplomatic disaster:

- His 1994 remark that if the "UN [secretariat] building in New York lost 10 storeys, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." This was the same year the world body failed to halt the genocidal slaughter of up to 800,000 Rwandans.

- In 2003, when undersecretary of state for arms control, he described North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a "tyrannical dictator" and said living under his rule was a "hellish nightmare."

Who today is speaking out in such explicit terms for the millions of North Koreans who are starving while Kim's regime boasts of having developed nuclear weapons?

Business as usual at the UN largely means achieving "consensus," which the internationalist camp values above all other forms of agreement. But the dearth of freely elected governments in the UN means such an approach comes at the cost of pandering to despots.

This has not stopped even countries such as Canada from extolling the praises of consensus, instead of standing up for values that are just and balanced. A prime example is its voting on recurring resolutions about Israel.

All these criticize Israel while failing to place any responsibility for the Israeli-Arab conflict on Palestinians or the Arab countries. They are passed because of the Arab- and Muslim-led majorities in the General Assembly.

Last fall, Canada tacitly admitted its voting on the resolutions had been wrong when Allan Rock, its new UN ambassador, indicated Ottawa would change course on some of them.

But analysis by B'nai B'rith Canada, a pro-Israel lobby group, showed Ottawa still fell far short of achieving "balance" by applying its new "Three D" test -- does the resolution Demonize Israel; does it represent a Double standard, one for Israel, another for Arab countries; and does it Delegitimize Israel's very existence.

The test found that 12 of 19 resolutions contained at least two 3D indicators. Canada supported 10 of them.

What will annoy Mr. Bolton's opponents most is that he embodies the Bush administration's growing confidence that toppling Saddam Hussein was right.

He supported launching the Iraq war, which many now argue was a catalyst, if not the cause, of the region's current tentative steps toward democracy.

Skeptics say peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians are possible only because of the death of Yasser Arafat, while moves toward Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon follows Lebanese outrage at suspected Syrian involvement in the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Like Ronald Reagan, Mr. Bush is accused at best of initiating winds of change despite himself. But is it just coincidence that resolute presidents are in office when the pages of history start to turn? Sending Mr. Bolton to the United Nations is a simple example of Mr. Bush's resolve.

Wed Mar 9 2005
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