The Kremlin Crosses out Candidates for United Nations SG Post 

April 10, 2006
Lankaeverything.com
Original Source: http://www.lankaeverything.com/vinews/education/20060410052601.php


Russian diplomats and secret servicemen started actively diffusing information that tars Latvian President's reputation, in order not to allow her appointment as the UN Secretary General. Another target of the Russian discrediting campaign in the former President of Poland 
Moscow elaborated and started realizing a secret plan of discrediting the Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, reliable sources told AIA. The Kremlin shows a growing discontent with regard of Washington's alleged intention to suggest Vike-Freiberga for the UN Secretary General at the end of this year. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia has a right to veto any inconvenient candidature for that position. The Russian administration, however, decided not to bring the case up to the necessity of using this right, caring of its image in the eyes of the other members of the UN General Assembly (it is enough to recall the negative attitude of the UN members to the regular usage of veto by the USA in what concerns the resolutions condemning Israel). The Kremlin has elaborated another scenario. According to a special plan which was approved at the highest level, the Russian official institutions having contact with foreigners, and first of all the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Intelligence Service, are now deploying a propaganda campaign aimed at slandering the Latvian President. 
The hallmark of this campaign is its confidentiality. Information about Vaira Vike-Freiberga's alleged neo-Nazi and revanchist views is being diffused through confidential contacts, without any reference to the official Russian sources. Most active in this sphere is the Russian Foreign Intelligence which since the Soviet times has the experience of the so-called active measures ? promotion of the relevant information trough those journalists who have connections with the Russians, in particular in the countries of the third world. 
Today the scene for such active measures are first of all the countries of Western Europe. Russia stakes on antagonism of certain political and social milieus in such countries as Germany, France, and Spain against the American global policy, and particularly against special relations between the USA and such East European countries as Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, or Bulgaria. Officials in the Kremlin assume that confidential conversations and newspaper articles about atrocities of the Latvian regime will be accepted in a positive manner in West European countries. And this, in its turn, will lead to a failure of the Latvian President's candidature in course of the next UN Secretary General election. Here it is worth mentioning that the same negative attitude is being shown by the Kremlin towards the former Polish President Aleksandr Kwasniewski. According to AIA sources, Kwasniewski also became the target of the so-called black P.R. coming from Moscow, and aiming at preventing his appointment as the UN Secretary General.
Elections of the next UN Secretary General are to be held in December 2006, when the present Secretary General Kofi Annan finishes his term in this office. Apart from Vike-Freiberga and Kwasniewski, the candidates for the UN SG post are the senior Adviser to the President of Sri Lanka Jayantha Dhanapala, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Pan Gi Mun, and the Vice Premier of Thailand Surakiart Sathirathai. Russia has already announced, through its representative in the UN Andrey Denisov, that it will support the candidate from the Asian continent. Most probably it will be the abovementioned Thai politician, whom Beijing openly favors. As for Vike-Freiberga's candidature, it is unacceptable for Moscow not just because of highly strained relations with Riga in such issues as the state border and the Russian minority in Latvia. The Kremlin was extremely negative concerning Vike-Freiberga's recent speech during the Davos World Economic Forum, when she announced the necessity to reduce the authorities of the five UN Security Council permanent members, and called to view a possibility of changing the composition of this body.