Clinton backs reform of UN peacekeeping role

Ewen MacAskill in New York

Wednesday September 6, 2000

The Guardian

President Bill Clinton will give his backing today to a proposal to reform the UN’s peacekeeping activities after their disastrous failures in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Sierra Leone.

In the opening speech of the three-day UN millennium summit he will tell the leaders of more than 150 countries that the US endorses the establishment of a permanent peacekeeping high command to replace the present show, ad hoc arrangement.

But wrangling over who will meet the peacekeeping bill continued behind the scenes. The changes will run into millions of pounds and the US is desperately trying to reduce its share of peacekeeping costs.

The US endorsement virtually guarantees acceptance of the peacekeeping reforms, published last month, drawn up by a UN panel headed by Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister.

In Srebrenica, the UN was humiliated when its peacekeepers stood by while more than 7,000 men and boys were massacred by Serbs. A more catastrophic failure occurred in Rwanda, where up to a million were massacred.

In Sierra Leone this year, 500 UN peacekeepers were taken hostage by a rebel force.

As well as a permanent high command, the reform includes giving peacekeepers clearer-cut mandates and “robust” rules of engagement. Such changes might have helped in the Balkans, where UN peacekeepers found themselves unable to intervene because they did not have a mandate.

But the UN reforms are in danger of being overshadowed by a series of meetings Mr Clinton is holding on the sidelines to try to revive the Middle East peace talks. Today he will have separate meetings with the Palestinian authority president, Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak.

Sporadic demonstrations were hold on the eve of the summit. Four Iranians were arrested for throwing yellow paint and another for disorderly conduct outside the hotel of the Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami.

The city has given permits for 91 demonstrations during the summit, but there has been no sign of a repeat of the protests by anti-globalization activists which caused mayhem in Seattle last year and in Washington earlier this year.

Many of the leaders of the trade unions and environmental groups involved in those clashes have laid down their banners and teargas masks for the weekend are talking to representatives of big business and government at an alternative conference being staged in the city.

More than 1,000 representatives from round the world gathered at the New York Hilton, about a mile from the UN headquarters, yesterday for the opening of the State of the World Forum.

It is a diverse gathering, bringing together politicians, academics, soldiers, New Age spiritualists, representatives of multinational companies, as well as the trade unions leaders and the environmental lobby.

Jim Garrison, its organizer, said the Seattle protests had been beneficial in bursting the euphoria about globalization.

Mr Garrison, 49, an American academic and veteran campaigner against the nuclear arms race, said the forum was about channeling the protests which had been useful in focusing attention on the problems of globalization.

He added: “We have to move from protest to engagement.”

The opening day of the forum brought together figures such as John Sweeny, president of the AFL-CIO trade union organization, George Soros, the financier, and Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president.

Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister, who will speak at the UN millennium summit, made the trip across Manhattan to address the alternative forum.

Other leaders scheduled to attend include Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa, and Olusegun Obsanjo, the Nigerian president.

Mr Garrison said globalization was ruthless, and questions such as the unequal distribution of wealth and the impact on the environment had to be discussed. He added that talks did not mean that future protests were ruled out.

North Korea announced yesterday that it had pulled out of the UN summit after a confrontation between its delegation and US security officials while they were passing though Frankfurt airport.

The deputy foreign minister, Choe Su-hon, said the delegation decided to return home after “rude and provocative” treatment by US security staff, whom he accused of strip-searching members of the presidential entourage.