Turtle Bay Reform Is a Task for Sisyphus
By Benny Avni
February 5, 2007
The New York Sun
Original Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/47995
Over the weekend, I came across a reproachful letter that Britain's Foreign Office sent to a U.N. executive, Carolyn McAskie, who heads something called the Peacebuilding Support Office. As old television hosts used to say, there are 8 million reform stories in the naked Turtle Bay. This is one of them.
Secretary-General Ban must have realized by now that with so many constituents pushing in so many directions, the process known at the United Nations as reform is a Sisyphean exercise. I am told that early this week, Mr. Ban will instead announce several new top appointments — most significantly naming an American, Lynne Pascoe, to head the powerful Department of Political Affairs.
The original plan to announce top appointments like Mr. Pascoe's in a package, along with ideas to reorganize Turtle Bay, ran into a brick wall at the General Assembly, which has no power over appointments but can kill organizational proposals. One of Mr. Ban's reorganization ideas concerned the peace-building unit.
Mr. Ban's predecessor, Kofi Annan, proposed a radical plan to reorganize Turtle Bay back in 2005, hoping to dig himself out of the scandals plaguing his second term. The General Assembly blocked most of the plan, but one idea slipped through the cracks and was immediately hailed as a stellar success for U.N. reform.
Thus, a new U.N. bureaucracy was born. It was designed to pour money from the wealthy world to build peace in poor countries emerging from civil and regional wars. Critics like the American ambassador to the United Nations at the time, John Bolton, argued that the new unit's role was ill-defined and that its responsibilities overlapped with existing U.N. structures. Washington declined to finance the peace-building fund.
America's acting U.N. ambassador, Alejandro Wolff, is expected to grant a brief meeting to Ms. McAskie, a Canadian, this afternoon, but on most days, he sends junior officers to deal with peace-building issues under her purview.
Meanwhile, the Europeans who finance the peace-building efforts and support its good intentions are concerned that their money may disappear into a black hole, as the reproachful British letter shows.
After committing $60 million to the peace-building fund over three years, it is with regret that we find ourselves in the unfortunate position of having to write to you to express our concern about the consultation process inside the peace-building unit, a London foreign officer charged with conflict, humanitarian, and security issues, Juliette John, wrote to Ms. McAskie on January 23.
The first countries to benefit from peace-building funds are Sierra Leone and Burundi. Last December, Ms. McAskie promised each nation $25 million. Last week, the number was raised to $35 million. But according to Ms. John, the donors were not consulted on specific projects, some of which may both duplicate and even undermine other international efforts to help the two African countries.
Are peace-building funds used, for example, to finance the ruling party's campaign in the upcoming July elections in Sierra Leone? According to Ms. John, political risks carried by certain Sierra Leonean peace-building projects, could undermine rather than build peace.
Aware of the need for extensive scrutiny, Mr. Ban planned to place the peace-building support unit under the control of the political department. That was when Ms. MacAskie — a protégé of a socialist-internationalist Canadian oil tycoon, Maurice Strong — went to work. She told European and Third-World diplomats that peace-builders should not answer to some American neocon slated to head the political department.
Since anti-Americanism is an easy sell at Turtle Bay, Mr. Ban's initiative was blocked at the General Assembly. Mr. Pascoe — not actually a neocon — has tended his resignation as America's ambassador to Indonesia in anticipation of his U.N. appointment.
Back in the 1990s, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali consolidated and split departments almost at will. But that was then. To make changes now, a U.N chief must spend huge political capital at the General Assembly. But should he?
Structural reorganization is the academic's wet dream. In real life, appointing good, capable people to replace the entrenched and outdated elite currently running Turtle Bay is the only change needed. Whatever capital Mr. Ban still has should be spent on that effort.