|
DIPLOMATIC LICENSE
DIPLOMATIC LICENSE
Aired 09/19/03 - 21:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole Middle East is mourning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the trouble we gave you last year, we're probably going to do it again this year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No undue excitement, please.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: Well, what a difference a year makes. Not only have I just discovered I have gray hair, but it's time for another General Assembly Global Get Together, and there have been some world developments.
Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.
Take Iraq. The United States did. But now it seems to need the United Nations. Last year, President Bush came to the General Assembly preaching tough love.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions, but the purposes of the United States should not be doubted.
ROTH (voice-over): Despite the shared toast last September, the United States attacked Iraq, believing it had the required authorization from existing Security Council resolution.
In the run-up to this year's visit, President Bush has requested that the bickering among U.N. members stop and seems to have toned down some of the rhetoric.
BUSH: The question was, will we have a U.N. resolution by the time I get to New York. No, I don't think so. But it could be. We'll continue to work it, though, and the whole purpose of course is to make sure that the nation's will -- if they need a U.N. resolution, they'll have one in order to justify participation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: But can the divided Security Council agree on a new resolution, once which grants the United Nations and the Iraqis more power on a sped-up timetable?
One former U.S. ambassador at the U.N. says focus on just two of the Council nations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FMR. U.S. AMB. TO THE U.N.: That resolution is not about 15 countries or even five countries. It's about two. The United States and France. Whatever Colin Powell and Dominique de Villepin, who are not exactly in love with each other right now, decide is acceptable, the Germans will go along with, the Russians will go along with, the Chinese will go along with, and the other countries will either abstain or support.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: Is this true? Is Dick Holbrooke ever wrong? Let's find out. With two U.N. correspondents who will preview the upcoming event -- it's sold out, so don't bother flying in.
We welcome, from "The Washington Post," one of the most clued-in reporters in the hallways, Colum Lynch. And the bureau chief from Abu Dhabi Television Network, Talal Al-Haj. They've opened up a new office at the United Nations as interest grows there.
Colum, do you agree? Is it really going to come down to the United States and the French government?
COLUM LYNCH, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Yes, I mean, it will come down to if the U.S. and the French agree on a policy everybody will come along. I mean, they're sort of the two poles, but the problem is not so much getting a resolution. It's getting people to give money and getting people to send troops, and it's not at all clear that even if they do get a resolution and they reach some sort of agreement with the French and others, whether they're going to get that.
It's sort of interesting, the tone of the president's remarks earlier. Last year, he was demanding that the Security Council get in line. Now he's getting in line a little bit and asking for some help. Much more conciliatory tone of voice now from last year.
ROTH: What's the view in the Arab world, Talal? Are a lot of Muslim countries really going to send troops to help out and participate?
TALAL AL-HAJ, ABU DHABI TV NETWORK: I think so. I think many countries are waiting for the green light from the United Nations. They're waiting for a resolution to be passed, and they will contribute. Many countries -- Turkey, Pakistan, India -- which is not a Muslim country, but they are standing by to stand troops.
I think the main key issues are the timetable and also the role of the United Nations. The United States, I'm sure, are ready to give a more visible political role for the United Nations, but until they give them the leading role -- and I think also Russia and China, they would like to move fast on this track, but maybe not as fast as the French would like to.
ROTH: Yes, go ahead -- Colum.
LYNCH: Yes, I don't think they're going to get the troops and the money. I think they'll get -- probably, if they do get a resolution, they'll get some increase, but they've got another problem too, and that's that the secretary-general is saying, "I don't care if you get a resolution through the Council. If it doesn't make my people safer on the ground, if it doesn't give us a clearer, firmer mandate, I'm not going to increase the numbers. I'm not even going to appoint another successor to the fallen Special Representative Sergio de Mello."
AL-HAJ: Yes, the United Nations needs more security. You're right, Colum.
And, also, the French and the Germans and the Russians, they're not going to be sending anymore troops. They're maybe going to contribute money. Chancellor Schroeder has written "The New York Times" on Friday a letter saying that they're willing to contribute to the reconstruction, but I don't expect them to send any troops.
The troops will be coming maybe in the figures about 60,000 to 70,00, and if a resolution is passed, they will not be there in Iraq before Christmas anyway.
ROTH: What's going to happen when President Bush speaks inside the General Assembly? There's always that customary applause, but we all remember President Clinton got a standing ovation. He was delivering his speech at the same time the so-called Lewinsky tapes were playing, and they certainly wanted to send a message in the hall of support.
What's going to happen Tuesday morning in New York -- Colum.
LYNCH: Polite applause. I mean, he's not Fidel Castro. Every time Fidel Castro comes here, he gets overwhelming applause. American presidents, as you say -- Bill Clinton was very, very popular, very well- liked internationally, but this president isn't a pop star here.
AL-HAJ: I agree with you, Colum. I think he'll get polite applause and there'll be a lot of haggling and horse trading behind the scenes. The week is going to be very busy, to try to find out what they can do about a resolution that can be presented in the aftermath of the General Assembly meeting.
ROTH: What is the impact of what's happened in Iraq on the United Nations and how will this General Assembly debate change anything, if ever? Will there be just subtle undertones in the speeches? How will it be dealt with?
LYNCH: Well, if they get a resolution that really changes the nature of the relationship between the United Nations and Iraq, that will change things. I mean, if the United States is willing to give up power, sovereignty to Iraqi government, that will change things on the ground.
But the other side is that everybody here is kind of watching and waiting to see how events develop on the ground. If fighting is going on every day, if American GI's are being shot. Other countries are looking at that and saying, "We don't want to be sending body bags back to our own capitals, our own country."
So this is going to have a big influence on whether they ultimately send troops.
AL-HAJ: And I think it's not only here they're going to be watching. They're going to be watching in the Middle East very closely as well.
You know, the Iraqis leading five members of the interim council have met lately in Saladeen (ph) in northern Iraq, and they want to take over security arrangements through the militia. Now there's a fear, of course, we're going to have another warlords in Iraq, but they want to take over security. They don't think the Americans are doing a good job, and they want the Americans to go back to bases inside Iraq.
Now I wonder what the response of the Americans is going to be to this initiative from leading members of the Iraqi council.
ROTH: All right, guests, stay in position there. The bombing that we referred to, of the U.N. compound in Baghdad, will underscore the urgency of the Iraq debate at this General Assembly session.
Friday marked one month since a suicide bomber killed senior U.N. officials and Iraqi nationals with a pinpoint truck bomb assault.
Inside the General Assembly Hall, the U.N. honored those on Friday who were killed and injured. Family members participated in a candlelight ceremony and Secretary-General Annan addressed all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECY.-GEN.: Even for those of us who have experience in dealing with human loss and suffering on a large scale, this tragedy is different because it is our own.
When we learned the names of those we had lost on the 19th of August 2003, the very nature of the loss became suddenly and acutely personal. So many of us knew closely one or more of those who died. Even if we ourselves did not, we knew someone else who did. We felt as if we knew them all.
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NASSER AL-KIDWA, PALESTINIAN AMB. TO THE U.N.: In this building, if you just let things go, believe me, you'll be in very bad shape very soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: That's the Palestinian delegate at the United Nations explaining why he complained that he was not seated at the Security Council table during the vote that would have demanded that Israel not expel Yasser Arafat.
Council protocol normally places countries at the table when their issues are at stake.
Nasser Al-Kidwa was at the table both before and after the vote.
In the run-up to the veto in the Security Council, a bitter exchange between Israel and the Palestinians, a war of words to a higher degree not seen in recent years. Focal point: Yasser Arafat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN GILLERMAN, ISRAELI AMB. TO U.N.: The ruin that Mr. Arafat has left behind in Jordan, in Lebanon and on the West Bank testify that he has brought nothing but despair and devastation to his own people and to other people in the region. He is his own people's devil of death and greatest tragedy.
AL-KIDWA: They are taking the whole Middle East down the drain with them. Unless, of course, the Israeli people wakeup and decide otherwise, decide to kick them out, this bunch of hysterics, war criminals and crazy guys.
GILLERMAN: Yasser Arafat is a harbored, a perpetrator, an initiator and an executioner of terror. In fact, he's probably the world's most successful exporter of terror.
AL-KIDWA: That was frankly a trash. It wasn't a serious statement, and serious statements of course could contain some kind of disagreements, strong disagreements, but again, that was pure trash.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: The trash referred to by the Palestinian during the Israeli presentation in the Security Council, Nasser Al-Kidwa walking out because of the tone. First time as an envoy for him at the United Nations.
Our guest reporters haven't left us.
Talal, was that theatrics or did this debate tone appear nastier? What does it mean?
AL-HAJ: It was very nasty and the walkout of the Palestinian observer at the United Nations was a landmark for the Palestinians. It was really important for them to make their reporters (ph) heard and seen.
He also reminded the Israeli ambassador, Mr. Gillerman, that Sharon is a war criminal in their eyes and he reminded him of the 21st anniversary of Sabra and Shatila, where 1,350 Palestinians were killed, children and women.
ROTH: And Gillerman linked Arafat, calling him a professional terrorist, to groups that attacked on 9-11.
Colum, Dan Gillerman relatively new Israeli ambassador. He's definitely here with a firmer message than some of the more softer-speaking representatives we've had from Israeli, isn't he?
LYNCH: Yes, I mean, you get the sense that these guys, both of them, but Ambassador Gillerman, that these guys sort of kind of pratice their insults in front of the camera at home before they get in front of the microphone. I mean, they're very colorful and detailed and very sharp attacks on one another, and the sort of theatrics of this have become sort of a little bit more colorful than in the past.
AL-HAJ: I think Dr. Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer, has scored a goal against Gillerman. When a reporter asked Gillerman about the 21st anniversary of the of Sabra and Shatila, and he said this is a serious meeting, not worth of a response from Nasser Al-Kidwa, and Nasser Al-Kidwa walked up to the microphone right after him and said this is the type of mentality we deal with and that the death of 1,350 Palestinians massacred at the hands of the Lebanese fanatics (ph), under the eyes of the Israelis, is not important enough to discuss.
ROTH: Well, yes, Arafat, he also called a racist. He then didn't stop there. Three days later, he was able to get the General Assembly to take on this resolution yet again, this time with success, because vetoes don't count in the General Assembly.
Colum, what happened?
LYNCH: Well, essentially, I think that to a certain degree, I don't know, these guys are always scoring points against one another. I mean, it's part of the politics and the theatrics of this thing, but the Palestinians went initially for a relatively mild resolution, demanding that the Security Council order the Israelis not to expel or to harm Yasser Arafat.
There was some language sort of critical of suicide bombers and extrajudicial killings, but the Americans have said for some time that they will not accept any resolutions unless they explicitly criticize the role being played by some of the Palestinian extremists, like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and these groups, and so there was none of that.
(CROSSTALK)
AL-HAJ: Colum, they can't. The Arab nations, the Palestinians, cannot accept such a resolution. It's a very clear fact. If the Palestinians accepted the mention of Jihad and Islamiah, Hamas, the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades, and also called for the infrastructure to be dismantled and destroyed, and their eyes this is going to be a carte blanch to Israel and they won't.
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: Yes, but this is fine. But the thing is, the idea that you can sort of conduct a suicide bombing, kill 21 people and just the international community sits back and maybe says something bilaterally, but you know, you can't use the Security Council for this sort of thing. It just doesn't -- you know, it doesn't seem that balanced. It seems unfair that you sort of only focus on the Israelis, and.
AL-HAJ: There is no focus on the Israelis. It was a very balanced resolution. It was described as such even by European allies, until Americans put the pressure on them to abstain. Nobody even objected to the resolution, except the United States.
LYNCH: Right. I agree that it was a modest resolution, sort of on the standards of what's come before. However, I mean, the notion that resolutions only come before the Security Council at the initiative of the Palestinian side because.
AL-HAJ: Because they are on the receiving side, that's why.
LYNCH: Well, they're not on the receiving side. I mean, if you have a situation. I mean, the Security Council, the United Nations had been engaged in issues of international terrorism in a way that we haven't seen in the last two years.
(CROSSTALK)
AL-HAJ: The Palestinians condemned terrorism in that resolution, condemned it, but they can't give a blank check to Israel to do whatever they want in the name of anti-terrorism.
ROTH: All right, listen, I think these men have been practicing in front of the mirror. What I was hoping they would eventually say is that the General Assembly did vote on Friday and approve the resolution 133 for, against, 15 abstentions.
AL-HAJ: But it was not binding. It was not binding.
ROTH: And it was put a little bit more milder because there was language in there that did indeed mention attacks on Israel, right Colum?
LYNCH: It does. The Israelis afterwards, however, said that they preferred the resolution that was blocked in the Security Council to the one passed through the General Assembly, because in their view the way that the balance between dealing with extrajudicial killings, which were referred to, you know, Israeli targeted killings and suicide bombers, were more balanced in the Security Council resolution than in the G.A.
AL-HAJ: It's not balanced.
ROTH: All right, listen, I've got to stop there, or else I'm going to be made unbalanced by my producer. Talal Al-Haj, of Abu Dhabi Television, on the left, thank you very much. Colum Lynch, of "The Washington Post," on the right.
There's a new sheriff in town and he's at the Security Council trying to control things during the Middle East debate. We might have needed him here. He's not the sheriff of Nottingham Forest. He's actually from Swansi (ph). Emyr Jones Parry, the new United Kingdom ambassador, and this month's Security Council president.
The message from London, time is not on your country's side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMYR JONES PARRY, U.K. AMB. TO THE U.N.: I was just doing some mental arithmetic, and if the meeting started somewhere near time, the speakers have been averaging 5-1/2 minutes each. The Council did agree that it would be 3, so can I appeal to you, please, as I've got a gavel and a watch, I may, after 3-1/2, so you have been warned.
I said my little piece before lunch, and I said it when I assumed the chair, which was an earnest plea on behalf of the Council, and the Council having agreed that actually speeches would be limited to 3 minutes. I don't think it's necessarily the best use of time if we are going to have text read out at some length and subsequently the text circulated.
When I said 3 minutes, I meant 3 minutes. If subsequent to this intervention by the chair, if we have a prepared speech which goes on for more than 3 minutes, I'm going to gavel, and that's going to be it, and the text is going to be circulated.
So that means whoever is speaking, and it will be Jordan next, followed by Australia, could I appeal to you very formally that that's how I'm going to do it, out of respect for the Council and everyone else. Could we try and do it please in that way, which will be more interactive as well.
Thank you, particularly for the succinctness. You did save a minute. I've very grateful to you. Every minute counts.
The representative of Italy, followed by the representative of South Africa.
It is necessary to impose a guillotine (ph) and I work on the assumption that in two minutes one out to be able to get across three bold points. So three minutes is a bonus.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONALD REAGAN, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: Other thank Pink Floyd's album, that's one of the most famous public statements about a wall in history, in Berlin, but as seen on last week's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE, the cry of "Tear down this wall, Mr. Secretary- General," echoed through the corridors of the United Nations in New York.
Management and security had erected a wall which impeded access for the press corp. at the steps leading down to an important room which I will not name for security reasons.
This week, after some actual diplomacy between the two sides, the wall, as John Mellancamp once sang, came tumbling down. And no, millions of refugees did not suddenly pour over the railings.
There is another wall of sorts the United Nations has been involved in for 50 years. It's the wall of silence at the last Cold War frontier, the DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.
The United Nations command there administers the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War, but as DIPLOMATIC LICENSE on load correspondent Martin Savidge reports, looks can be deceiving.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CLANCY (voice-over): South Korean soldiers prepare for battle in the DMZ. It is a fight where the only weapon is a pair of eyes and the only thing shot is a glance.
(on camera): The DMZ stretches 150 miles, separating north and south, but nowhere else do the two sides come as close as they do here in P'anmunjom. Literally separated only by inches, 16 inches of concrete.
(voice-over): Soldiers who serve on the southern side are handpicked to be imposing. The minimum height for Americans is 6 feet. South Koreans must be at least 5 feet 8 inches, that's 2 inches taller than average in their country.
South Korean guards stand in a martial arts stance, their bodies only half exposed to the north, making them less of a target. Across the way, the North Korean soldiers are said to be the best fed in a nation that has suffered years of famine, but a number of them still look gaunt and drawn. They often stand sideways, facing each other.
MAJ. JOHN RING, JOINT SECURITY BATTALION: The reason for that is, if one of those soldiers decides he wants to defect, the other soldier's duty is to shoot that soldier and prevent him from defecting.
SAVIDGE: Tensions rise during official meetings on the DMZ as more guards come out. North Korean soldiers occupy a nearby building which American soldiers have called the Monkey House, referring to how the guards inside peek out.
U.S. officers suspect the building houses heavy weapons which are outlawed under DMZ rules.
Looking for possible violations of the armistice is a favorite pastime of both sides here. Cameras sprout almost everywhere, adding eyes that never blink.
The weather may change, but not the dangerous game.
American soldiers bring their own level of psychological warfare. Unlike the South Koreans, they prefer not to wear sunglasses to hide their eyes. They don't wear raincoats in the rain or winter coats in the snow, believing that projects weakness.
RING: It's almost a demonstration of your mental and physical toughness, always, out here.
SAVIDGE: Whether the American tactic earns North Korean respect isn't clear, but the U.S. soldiers believe they have earned something else.
RING: I'd say that they hate us. You can see it in their eyes when they look at us.
SAVIDGE: At P'anmunjom, if looks could kill, the body count on both sides would be high.
Martin Savidge, CNN, in the DMZ.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: It's what's on the other side of that wall of stares that still concerns the U.N. membership.
In Vienna, on Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency voted a resolution calling on Pyongyang in the north to open up again to review and to scrap its atomic weapons program.
And on that note, that's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE, for everybody watching from Rome to Reno. I'm Richard Roth, in New York. Thanks for watching.
END
TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
|
