U.N. Warms To Ban's Reorganization
Benny Avni
February 16, 2007
New York Sun
Original Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/48826

Resistance to Secretary-General Ban's U.N. reorganization proposal is weakening at the U.N. General Assembly, key opposition figures say, leading top U.N. aides to believe they have turned a corner in confronting a rebellion among member states.
In a letter yesterday to the president of the General Assembly, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, Mr. Ban laid out his most detailed proposal to date for how he intends to divide the burgeoning Department of Peacekeeping Operations into an operational arm and a support unit.
The proposal has led in recent weeks to what some diplomats have described as a mutiny at the General Assembly against Mr. Ban's new administration. Now aides say Mr. Ban seems to have quelled the opposition.
My consultation has led to a greater favorable understanding of my reform proposals among member states, Mr. Ban told reporters yesterday. I am quite confident that I will be able to have broader consensus support when the General Assembly officially takes up the proposal on Friday.
With an increased demand for international missions and an expected growth of up to 40% next year, peacekeeping has become the flagship of the United Nations's global activities.
Veterans at the peacekeeping department, known as DPKO, said initially that the proposed departmental division could weaken the chain of command and confuse troop commanders on the ground. But a top DPKO official, who requested anonymity before briefing reporters yesterday, said the new, more detailed proposal — created with the help of the department itself — will now strengthen the unity of command. The official also said the new support unit will give peacekeepers more control over such issues as procurement of goods for troops. The proposed split now has a good chance, the Egyptian ambassador to the United Nations, Maged Abdelaziz, told The New York Sun. The General Assembly could approve the budget involved in the reorganization soon, he added.
If DPKO says it can be done, and if the secretary-general wants it, who am I to oppose it? the South African ambassador to the United Nations, Dumisani Kumalo, told the Sun. We are not here to micromanage.
Critics of a group of countries at the General Assembly that has opposed the DPKO split — as well as many other proposed changes from Mr. Ban and his predecessor, Kofi Annan — have long accused the group of micromanaging the United Nations and rendering any change impossible.
The General Assembly opposition also has been seen as part of a larger U.N. struggle between rich countries, which seek more power for the secretary-general to manage the organization, and poorer countries, which want the General Assembly to exert more control.
The struggle over the DPKO is not a matter of north and south, the Indian ambassador to the United Nations, Nirupam Sen, said, using a regional term for rich and poor.
Mr. Sen has emerged as a leading voice among the skeptics of the proposed DPKO split. India contributes 9,500 peacekeepers to the department and is among the top three contributors of troops along with Pakistan and Bangladesh, and it wants to ensure that the chain of command will not be harmed if the department is divided, he said.
But though Mr. Sen insisted that the General Assembly's peacekeeping committee needs to study Mr. Ban's detailed report further before approving it, the ambassador said it could be accepted. If such a report had come earlier, he said, It would have saved a lot of time.