Ban Ki-moon on Kenya, Chad, and the Safety of UN Staff Worldwide

What follows are selections from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's press stakeout this morning:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, I have just briefed the Security Council on the serious developments in Africa. Over the past month, I have been deeply engaged in the evolving situation in Kenya. As I warned at the African Union summit last week, ethnic clashes threaten to escalate out of control. During my visit, I told Kenya's leaders, President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, that they bear a particular political responsibility for the future of Kenya. I stressed to all the Kenyan leaders the need to stop the unacceptable violence and killings and to resolve their differences through dialogue and the democratic process. I also appealed to all the political leaders to think beyond their individual interests or party lines, and to look to the future of Kenya as one country . . .

Turning to the situation in Chad, I am alarmed by the deteriorating security situation in the capital, N'Djamena, and elsewhere. We can no longer guarantee the safety and security of UN staff in Chad and we have evacuated, with the help of the French Government, most of the personnel into neighboring countries, in Cameroon and Gabon. However, a small number of personnel from MINURCAT in N'Djamena, and some other UN agencies, some essential members, are still remaining. We will take necessary measures in close cooperation with the French Government when it is necessary. The United Nations will do its utmost to help resolve the crisis . . .

I urged the Council to act swiftly to help bring this terrible crisis to an end . . . We need our forces in the theater of operations as soon as possible. UNAMID still lacks required aviation and ground transportation—chiefly helicopters. Additional troops will not make up for this shortfall. Countries that called for intervention in Darfur are under a special obligation to deliver on their promises . . .

Before concluding, let me say a few words about the security and safety of United Nations staff and premises. Recent events in Kenya, Chad, Darfur and Algeria serve only to underscore this matter's urgency.

I am therefore setting up, as I already announced in Geneva two weeks ago, an Independent Panel on Safety and Security of UN Personnel and Premises. The panel will be chaired by Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, who possesses vast experience and knowledge of UN operations.

I will also be engaging with Member States in the coming weeks and months to strengthen the security and safety support they are providing to UN staff posted in their countries. Thank you very much.

The French in Chad as Rebels Overrun Ndjamena

Sunday nights at the United Nations Security Council aren't known for four-hour blowout negotiating sessions. Violence in central Africa, however, summoned the fair arbiters of 21st century international peace and security to the horseshoed table yesterday. The region faces nightmarish mahem.

France conquered Chad in 1920, relinquished control in 1960, and yesterday French military swept in to evacuate Westerners as rebels overran the capital city of Ndjamena. Reports now are unclear; it seems as if Chadian president Idriss Déby has fought them off, though, according to the Associated Press, in the city "casualties were believed to be high." After taking fire, the US embassy now stands evacuated and abandoned.

Bloodshed in Ndjamena threatens to bring a bloody cauldron of fighting and murder to a boil. Three different Chadian rebel groups have banded together. As recently as 2006, rebels attempted to topple Déby's government in Ndjamena; since, Deby has gone against the country's constitution and taken a third term as president. Now, the banded rebels, which swear allegiances to distinct clans, charge Deby with corruption and stacking his parliament with his own Zagawa clan. (Zagawas make up less than three percent of Chad's population.)
 
Eastern Chad today houses hundreds of thousands of displaced Darfuris on its border, a remote region that has for years been home to varying forms of unrest. A force of more than 20,000 UN peacekeepers had been scheduled to land in Darfur by the end of 2007, but that didn't happen. Officials have since said that deploying a force by the end of 2008 would be a goal, and more importantly, any effort to calm the situation in Chad first depends on the pacification of Darfur. On Friday Reuters reported that Chad wrote to the Council, "Faced with the aggression orchestrated and strongly supported by Sudan, the Chadian government intends to use its legitimate right of defense by all means at its disposal, including pursing the aggressors into Sudanese territory."

In effect, the border between the two countries is entirely imagined. Roads are dirt, crossings are controlled by rebel groups, not state-paid customs and border control officials. That said, the more this border widens, the more a severe conflict could not only spread but also challenge the sovereignty of Ndjamena and Khartoum, and as it all goes down, put into question the postcolonial borders of both nations.

The wildcard is France. In the past, Paris has come to Chad's rescue, in the strange custom of a former kidnapper protecting out of obligation. Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly-married French president, this time instead offered President Déby a ride out of town. The Chadian president refused. French officials have said that Sudan is backing the Chadian rebels.

The Council released a statement this morning support the government in Ndjamena. Interpretations were being made as to what kind of support the statement authorizes, but French military support could soon be on the table.

UPDATE: France appears to have stepped on on Déby's behalf, and violence in the capital has quieted.

Quiet Diplomat, Big Microphone

Asked about Ban Ki-moon’s first year as Secretary General, a United Nations staffer recently quipped, “If you want to know what he’s thinking, you’re going to have to go ask the penguins.” Of all the jokes flying around the UN these days, many lobbed by the new Korean head honcho himself, the penguin poke was quite telling. The staffer facetiously referred to Ban’s November trip to Antarctica, billed as the first by a UN Secretary General (a most dubious achievement), to grandstand on what has become his signature cause: global warming. But the crack goes to the heart of the muffled enigma that surrounds Ban: in private he may prevail, but in public he’s painful.

Just before taking office, at the UN Correspondent’s Association dinner, Ban (pronounced Bahn) introduced himself, “My name is Ban. Not James Bond. I am not code-named 007, but I will take office in ’07,” and then proceeded to break into an ill-rehearsed take on a Christmas classic jingle, “Ban Ki-moon is Coming to Town.” A year later, same event, since being called “wooden” by the New York Times’ Warren Hoge, he went at it again. This time, he recited his rewritten version of, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” in which Ban is driving a sleigh and he’s, “now off to Bali, climate change I must fight // Or else Christmas next will be even less white.”

But twelve months into Ban’s tenure, is the joke on us? Ban had kept a considerably low profile throughout the cryptic selection process. The Times invited the candidates to make their case on the paper’s Op-Ed page. Ban didn’t bother. The candidate’s talk at the Council on Foreign Relations left some in the crowd wondering how he’d been nominated. Washington and Beijing, however, embraced the career Korean diplomat, and as permanent members of the Security Council, engineered his successful appointment. When Ban took office, the press called him “faceless,” and reported the mood of the staff as glum. Many believe that Ban’s lack of an agenda and hush-hush demeanor actually propelled him as a top-pick.

Powerful states may be able to install a faceless jester, but once he’s in office, the issues, to put it lightly, are a matter of life and death.

“Ban moved Bashir a little more than a centimeter,” said Jeffrey Laurenti, senior advisor to the UN Foundation and Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation, referring to Ban’s closed-door diplomacy with Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, about the ongoing crisis in the western Darfur region of the country. For his most serious negotiations, Ban sends aides out of the room and talks privately. Laurenti was kind, “Give him a B-plus on Darfur.”

That grade may be revised, however, because of Ban’s lacking public performance. The issue? Helicopters. Strangely, suddenly not a single country can spare even a one for the humanitarian mission. Not the U.S., not the U.K., neither France, nor Germany. Back-room brokering may be Ban’s default setting, but that doesn’t get the whole job done. Even woodenly, Ban ought to be shaming these rich and powerful governments, loudly. Ban needs to find his voice, and fast.

“He’s certainly no Kofi Annan,” a thirty-year veteran said off the record. Annan, the former UN Secretary General, employed a commandeering public voice with both his heavy baritone and the weight of his words, often to the consternation of the U.S. Ban, however, takes criticisms personally and interrupts points by describing himself: often as an optimist, or, by regularly asserting, “I am a harmonizer.” Meanwhile, neighboring Darfur, severe human suffering is spiraling toward hell in Chad, Congo, Rwanda, and Somalia, all of which cry out for a moral voice to speak directly into the microphone on the world stage.

As an organization, though, the UN faces a new and unnerving threat. Since the 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad that killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the spate of murders that killed scores of humanitarian workers in Darfur in 2006, and the recent attack on UN buildings in Algiers that killed 17, the UN has become a target. The sky-blue flag no longer flies with the authority, legitimacy, and impartiality it once did. And to this, there is no simple solution.

UN staffers joke about penguins, but gags aside, they are rightly scared and feel acutely vulnerable. First, Ban ought to ensure that UN security policies are first-rate and fully observed at facilities throughout the world. Second, and just as important, he needs to restore that moral voice to the UN—the one that makes the blue flag a sign of good and the blue helmet a sign of peace. He was given the job to shut up, but if he doesn’t speak up, everybody loses.

Dancing Sudanese Women for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon

New York Times UN correspondent Warren Hoge files a report from Juba in southern Sudan where Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon arrived today to a "raucous welcome." He'd come to ensure the lasting peace where, for more than 20 years, Christians had battled the Arab capital of the country, Khartoum.

10,000 UN peacekeepers are currently on the ground there, and Hoge reads into Ban's straightforward statement, "As you know well, this remains an essential--and fragile--cornerstone of peace across the whole of Sudan," a reference to a possible solution in Darfur, the region northwest of Juba where millions have been displaced and hundreds of thousands slaughtered. Genocide continues today.

Ban stepped off the plane and found himself faced with a crowd of dancing women and men in warrior headdresses.

It's clear that Ban is doing a bit of diplomatic dancing, warming up to Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and while he couldn't get Bashir to announce a full-on cease-fire (Bashir claimed security concerns), instead he'll work to "bring about" a cease-fire.

During the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York later this month, Ban will corral regional leaders for a "high-level meeting."

Talking abounds while reports trickle out about open conflict in the refugee camps.

60,000 Iraqis Are Now Fleeing Their Homes Every Month

On the heels of a New York Times report about an Iraqi Red Crescent Organization assessment that the number of internally displaced Iraqis has doubled since February, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has announced that the humanitarian situation is worsening, and displacements are "soaring."

According to the UN, 60,000 people a month are now fleeing their homes. A total of 2 million are scattered within the country. More than 1.4 million more now live in Syria. Neighboring countries are feeling the strain on their infrastructure and schools. Refugees are also flooding into Europe, Jordan and Iran.

“Displacement is rising as Iraqis are finding it harder to get access to social services inside Iraq and many Iraqis are choosing to leave ethnically mixed areas before they are forced to do so," said UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis in a statement. "Some Iraqis who stayed in the country until the end of the school year recently started leaving the country with their families.”

United Nations Installs David Shearer as Iraq Envoy, A Way Forward in Baghdad?

Following up on the United Nations' expanded role in Iraq (see earlier Inquirer report), UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed New Zealander David Shearer as his deputy envoy to the torn nation. Shearer relieves Jean-Marie Fakhouri who was a Deputy Special Representative working on humanitarian, reconstruction and development. Shearer takes on that load, and additionally, he will serve as the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator.

Shearer had been working in Jerusalem and Lebanon for the last three years and has also led humanitarian operations in Albania, Rwanda and Liberia. In Lebanon, while he had to deal with Hezbollah, as to how he conducted his operations, he said, "We are trying  to work as much as we can through local government, particularly the municipalities, which are very close to the people. On occasion, we have worked with particularly effective local non-governmental organizations. We find the better way to reach the people is by working with the established authorities."

Only, in Shearer's new role in Iraq, anything resembling an established authority is fleeting. How will the UN move forward in Baghdad?

In a BBC report that compiles the mixed feelings over the UN's role, they report that, "The number of staff will only increase from 65 to 95 - a small but very symbolic step for the world body." While the US has been urging an increased UN role, but the obvious criticism surfaces quickly: George II's administration harps with a hollow voice after it shunned the international organization during the 2003 invasion.

Meanwhile, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the UN that helped to engineer the expanded UN role and, himself being a radical departure from his predecessor John Bolton, is shaping the discussion by highlighting the internationalism of the endeavor. Khalilzad's words from the BBC: "We in the international community have had our differences in regards to Iraq, but despite these differences I believe we all share our vision for Iraq's future."

Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Johanna Mendelson Forman assesses the US's embracing of the UN as a possible sea change of US foreign policy: "It sends a signal to the world that the US is ready to engage and work with friends and allies – and also with its adversaries – to find a way to manage the crisis in Iraq and the region. The unanimous vote demonstrated a consensus by UN member states that only through a diplomatic engagement would the security that Iraqis long for be realized. It also underscored the skills of Khalilzad to bring back the members of the council to a point where they were willing to revisit a UN role. Is multilateralism making a comeback?"

Shocking that the US would reach out to the UN not only at a moment in a disastrous war, but also as the humanitarian crisis in Iraq grows to be one of the foremost on the planet? Perhaps this speaks directly to the heart of the matter.

Recently, just-retired British Permanent Representative to the UN Emyr Jones Parry suggested that the UN will bring a much-needed "impartial presence," responsible for what might conveniently be called the three R's: reconciliation, regional involvement and refugees.

It seems he's most certainly right, only, no matter if the staff were amped from 65 to 95 or to 950, does the mix of conflict, disaster and will for war between the Tigris and Euphrates today lend itself to even the finest political instrumentation of the UN?

United Nations Updates Mandate on Iraq, Expands Role

In the sordid history of 21st century Iraq, August 19, 2003 sticks out as a chilling turning point. The US had invaded five months earlier and since holed up their governing operation inside a secluded Green Zone on a bend in the Tigris river. Looting, unrest, and a general sense of chaos had overtaken the city, despite the rosy assurances US officials.

The UN, however, set up headquarters out among the population at the Canal Hotel, the mission led by one of the world's most respected diplomats, the Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello.

When the massive truck bomb exploded outside the hotel, under his window, it killed him and 21 others including staff from countries all over the world: Egypt, UK, Italy, France, US, Iraq, Philippines, Iran, Canada, Jordan and Spain.

In a sense, that day, any internationalism left for a post-Saddam Iraq, after the US's snub of the UN and its battle with France and Germany about the invasion, went up in smoke. Since, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has moved on, replaced by Ban Ki-Moon. New leaders rule France and Germany. Iraq has fallen through the hands of malfeasance into a nightmarish civil war.

Now, almost exactly four years later, the Security Council has unanimously approved an update to its mandate, UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), broadening the UN's role in the broken country. Despite the worrying security situation, Ban is in favor.

There are currently about 50 UN staff working in the Green Zone. That number is expected to increase, and while the mission had been working on elections issues and monitoring human rights, in an expanded role, the UN will now try to promote reconciliation between warring Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds.

The thinking is that the impartiality of the UN will engender its hand at the negotiating table. Yet, without a table to sit at, that's tough to imagine, regardless if the organization may be the best qualified in the world for such a challenge.

More importantly, considering the UN's fresh wounds from Baghdad, even if Ban asks his top people to go, would they?

(Image of the Canal Hotel bombing.)

We're the US, Wait, There's a Whole World Out There

You would be hard pressed to find someone to argue that US standing in the world hasn't faltered in the last four years. That big lie--remember, the one about WMD in Iraq?--weighs heavy on the reputation of a nation that once saved the French from Hitler. So, watching the delicate-tongued bigups attempt to sum up the US's stature in the world is often like watching an oscillating fan at close range. Surely there will be no surprises, the earth won't shake under your feet, and if you're lucky, your hair might get blown around a bit.

Former National Security Adviser to Presidents Ford and George I Brent Scowcroft takes his shot on the International Herald Tribune opinion page. Again, much of it is the ho-hum "we're not going anywhere" blather. Take his zinger, for instance: "The world is not susceptible to U.S. domination - but without U.S. leadership not much can be achieved."

Other points in his essay make exactly the opposite case. Democratically elected governments in Latin America and the Middle East espouse vitriol against a US that has carried out tragic policies in their regions for decades. "The United States must also come to terms with its own post-Cold War euphoria," Scowcroft writes. He points out that US foes have changed, yet, the US military arsenal looks much like the international diplomatic order: outdated.

"The major multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations, were crafted in a different era. Today's UN is grappling with two contradictory principles: how to reconcile the sovereign independence of the nation-state with the 'responsibility to protect.'" he writes, and he couldn't be more spot-on.

Yet, how much has the US itself rendered the UN out of fashion? Quite a bit, actually. Perhaps, then, it would be interesting to ask Mr. Scowcroft what he actually does see as a new legislative body in the international order? In so many words, he concedes that the US's tutelage has dwindled, if it hasn't come to a point where it is outright resented and done without. So, then, what would be a new internationalism for the US, and what are the first 30 steps its going to take for George II's kingdom to get there?

(Image from Greg Robbins' flickr.)