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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

This Week at the United Nations

Aired August 5, 2005 - 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)
RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: How does it feel to be at the U.N. after waiting for so many months?

JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMB. TO U.N.: I'm delighted to be here.

ROTH: He's here, and the furniture is still standing inside the Security Council. It's official, call him U.S. Ambassador John Bolton.

DIPLOMATIC LICENSE is next.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

John Bolton has been an outspoken critic of the United Nations, but this week he sure looked like a guy who loved the place.

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

Bolton is now officially the United States ambassador to the United Nations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(voice-over): Fresh from his presidential appointment, John Bolton received boos from some curious onlookers on the sidewalks of New York as he went straight to the U.S. mission to the United Nations. The next day, Bolton presented his ambassador credentials to the secretary-general.

For five months, no one could guarantee Bolton would ever get to the United Nations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ambassador, how has your first day been? How is your first day?

ROTH: Bolton met with Security Council ambassadors, some he has worked with before.

(on camera): He was rough with you in the past.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes. I'm sure also it will be in the future here, because we sometimes have different views, so we have to defend our interests, our positions.

ROTH (voice-over): There is more security around Bolton than for prior U.S. ambassadors, and more press.

CNN's camera was ordered away from reporters waiting for Bolton. A hug for former U.N. official James Jonah (ph) of Sierra Leone. No temper tantrum in week one, just a constant smile.

(on camera): How does it feel to be at the United Nations after so many months?

BOLTON: I'm delighted to be here.

ROTH (voice-over): By week's end, Bolton had made it to the Security Council, a tailor-made session, a strongly worded resolution condemning violence in Iraq.

BOLTON: I'm very pleased that the first participation in the Security Council comes on the day that the Council has unanimously passed this resolution condemning terrorism in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Bolton left the meeting when it ended and flew back to Washington where his marching orders come from.

I've assembled some of the finest among U.N. press row for their Bolton week one assessments. In the studio with me, James Bone of the "Times of London," at the United Nations, Colum Lynch of the "Washington Post," and back on the Westside of Manhattan, with me, Philippe Bolopion of Radio France Internationale.

James, for the United Nations, the United States and the press corps, was Bolton worth the wait?

JAMES BONE, "TIMES OF LONDON": Well, he deliberately kept his powder dry. I think we'll see him coming out swinging. But he did quote former Secretary of State George Shultz in saying that listening is a good way to get information, and he started off by listening.

ROTH: Colum, you can barely wipe the smile off Bolton's face this week.

COLUM LYNCH, "WASHINGTON POST": Yes, I know. It was terrible. I mean, we were expecting all sorts of fireworks, we wanted him to weigh in on Iran. He just wouldn't give us an inch. There was hardly anything to write on this week.

ROTH: Well, I didn't expect fireworks because I knew after the bashing on Capitol Hill and the personality analysis, that he was going to have to keep a low profile, at least at the beginning -- Philippe.

PHILIPPE BOLOPION, RADIO FRANCE INTERNATIONALE: But, you know, one day, one day he said that in the United Nations the United States was the sun and the other countries were the planets around it, and this week it was exactly that. All eyes were on him.

I know, for example, he went to the French mission. He was accompanied by two fierce-looking bodyguards. I don't know whether it is because he feels that the French mission is hostile territory. But, you know, he was eager to go there. Everybody I have talked to who has met him says he is right on the punch. He already knows exactly what he wants to talk about and he's ready to work.

BONE: That's the key thing about John Bolton, though. He used to be the assistant secretary of state for international affairs in the late '80s, early '90s. And he knows where the bodies are buried at the United Nations. And that's a very crucial thing about him. He's been around the United Nations for a long time.

ROTH: I mean, he's been pictured as some maniac and someone who --

BONE: One of his fellow diplomats described him as King Kong coming to tear the building down.

(CROSSTALK)

LYNCH: If you watched any of the Senate confirmation hearings, I mean, one of the things that he was able to do was just sort of run circles around the senators who were questioning him. It didn't do much good at the end of the day, but it sort of demonstrated his sort of ability to sort of handle the issues here.

BOLOPION: He plays nice for now, but the guy is known to have a bad temper and that's not the kind of thing you can control for a long time, so I don't think it's going to be very long before we see him chasing some rogue ambassadors through the corridors of the United Nations.

ROTH: I doubt that --

LYNCH: Wishful thinking.

(CROSSTALK)

BONE: The other thing I think is very important to understand about John Bolton is he actually, in the second Bush administration, was in line for a top job at the State Department. He didn't get it and he got this job more or less as a consolation prize, and the proof of that is that when his pet subject came before the Security Council, International Criminal Court, the United States did not cast a veto, as John Bolton personally no doubt would have done, and instead allowed the crisis in Darfur to be referred to the International Criminal Court. And that's something that John Bolton never would have done if it was his choice.

BOLOPION: Everybody says now he is sort of subdued. They sent him to New York so he wouldn't be in the policy-making, he's not going to be in the principals' meetings. But the first thing he did is double the space that is made available for him in the State Department. He said he was going to spend more time there than usually do the U.S. ambassadors.

So I think he's going to try at least to influence policy making in Washington.

BONE: Of course, it's a recess appointment, so he only serves until the next Congress comes in. So he's only got until basically the beginning of 2007.

But if you were to choose, 16 or 17 month, whatever it is, until then, you would choose these months. You've got the Oil For Food crisis playing out. You've got this big U.N. reform package being discussed. You've got a summit coming up in September. You have, above all, the choice of a new U.N. secretary-general, which is a bit like choosing a U.S. Supreme Court justice. The guy could last 10 years possibly, so that's a crucial thing. All of those things, he'll be very deeply involved in.

LYNCH: And icing on the cake, he gets Iran, looks like it might make its way to the Security Council for the first time. So that will be -- that's an issue that he has cared a lot about for years and has taken a very hard line on it, and he may find that he's in a position where he's actually going to receive some support from some of his European allies on that issue.

ROTH: So for Bolton it sounds like it was worth the wait.

BOLOPION: But now the buzz in the corridors is he is not that bad in the end. You know, he is smiling for everybody, shakes hands, like anybody in the Security Council, and all of that. But you can't forget that this is a slap in the face of most diplomats in the United Nations. He embodies everything, you know, that world diplomats hate about the United States. He is very forceful, he believes in the supremacy of the United States. And --

LYNCH: Yes, but Condoleezza Rice has placed very pragmatic career foreign policy professionals in all the top policy-making positions, and that's a way of kind of striking a balance between the conservative and the more moderate wings of the Republican Party, and he's going to have a very difficult time sort of undercutting positions taken in Washington. And that's going to be the real drama to watch play out over the next couple of months.

BOLOPION: So the fight is going to be more in the State Department than in the United Nations, perhaps.

ROTH: They've already said he's going to be tightly controlled and he wasn't kept on in the Washington circles. I mean, as part of the charm offensive, you have to see him ask Kofi Annan, the secretary-general, about his arm in a sling, which was from rotator cuff surgery. You know, how is the arm, and Annan says it's mending --

BOLOPION: (INAUDIBLE) by the way, you could see the two men facing each other and there was a (INAUDIBLE) which is Kofi Annan thinks it's very bad news but he's trying to put a good face on it, but still it was devastating news. When they learned it, they were all depressed around the secretary-general, and it is not a good thing for them. They are trying to make the most of it, but still is it bad news.

ROTH: The other interesting thing is that with only a limited amount of time left, conventional wisdom is that once you've been made a recess appointment in Washington, and basically there has been a snub to the Senate, because the Senate's permission has been overridden, really, you don't get another diplomatic post. You don't get diplomatic confirmation.

So he's got basically this 16 months or whatever it is --

ROTH: So you don't think there's a chance more Republicans get in the Senate, in the new elections --

BONE: Well, there would have to be quite a lot more Republicans, wouldn't there --

ROTH: Yes.

BONE: -- to be able to break the filibuster.

ROTH: Right.

BONE: So the question is, if he really only has 16, 17 months left of a diplomatic career, he's really going to be going hell for leather (ph).

ROTH: It's the first time such an appointment like this was made.

OK, let's move on to one of the issues James referred to, Oil For Food. On Monday we're going to have the next installment of Paul Volcker's independent inquiry into the Oil For Food humanitarian program and ensuing scandal. This one is going to, quote, "tighten up loose ends on Benon Sevan," the former director of the program.

Anybody jump in on what it's going to say.

LYNCH: Yes, well essentially, Benon Sevan sort of did a preemptive strike this week and released the negative findings against him through his lawyer, saying that essentially he's going to be accused of having received cash bribes from a couple of Egyptian businessmen. It's going to say that he hasn't been cooperating with the investigation.

His lawyer countered that he has been the subject of a sort of uncontrolled prosecutor who is not sort of providing him with due process and sort of lashing out at the chief investigator, Paul Volcker.

BONE: I mean, Colum, in your description there, although I don't query too much, you rather gloss over what I consider to be the main part of the story. When you say two Egyptian businessmen, these two Egyptian businessmen aren't just any two Egyptian businessmen. They are a cousin of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former U.N. secretary-general, and the brother- in-law of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former U.N. secretary-general.

My opinion about this story next week is that if the report comes out on Monday, as advertised, then I think the story will be the Boutros-Ghali family members and what was their role in this. And if the family was involved, how did it tie into what the former secretary-general was doing at the time.

BOLOPION: I must say, Richard, here in the past I have said this story is boring. It's getting interesting now because we getting into facts. We don't have them yet, but it looks like the investigators of the money trail, which we didn't have --

BONE: I'm glad we didn't have to rely on you to investigate the money, that's all.

ROTH: The French magistrate --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLOPION: Yet, actually I did a story on this one. But there is a U.S. prosecutor looking into it, so, you know, part of the big political storm, we have that mountain of news is finally giving birth to some hard facts that are getting interesting. It's small amounts of money we are hearing about for now, but it is very interesting. And if he is guilty, it's a real shame for him and for the United Nations.

BONE: And there is a great deal of fear at the United Nations on the 38th floor, where the secretary-general is, about not this report coming out on Monday but the next report, due at the end of the month or early September, which is likely to tackle the subject of the secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan.

ROTH: We've got to leave it there. Benon Sevan is in Cyprus. As always, declined interviews with us.

Thank you all very much. Here in the studio, James Bone, of the "Times of London," and Philippe Bolopion, of Radio France Internationale, and at the CNN U.N. office, hanging out there for us, Colum Lynch, of the "Washington Post." Good to see all of you on the program.

The Security Council, among other activities this week, lamented the death of John Garang, former rebel commander and then first vice-president of Sudan, the key man in the 21 years of Sudanese turmoil. State funeral for Garang Saturday, who died in a helicopter crash. Garang was using a presidential chopper also used that same day by Ugandan President Museveni, who told mourners it may be an accident, it may be something else.

Shortly after signing the peace agreement to end Africa's then longest running civil war, I looked ahead to the Darfur issue with the late John Garang.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH (on camera): Many have said the two crises are linked. You don't agree, you don't think that the north-south is linked to Darfur, right? Why is that?

JOHN GARANG, FMR. AFRICAN LEADER: They are linked in the sense that implementation of the south-north or comprehensive peace agreement, if we implement it, it would positively contribute towards solving the problem of Darfur. But if they are linked in a negative sense of let us freeze implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement that we have signed until we find a solution in Darfur, that's what I'm objecting to.

Again, using my Fort Benning experience, if you are a battalion commander and you are in battle, you have three companies. Your two companies, Alpha and Bravo, are engaged, and you have Charlie in reserve. Alpha is doing very badly, getting a bloody nose, and Bravo is doing very well and you are now confronted with where to send your reinforcements, you use Charlie to reinforce company Bravo, to reinforce success.

You don't reinforce failure. So I'm urging the international community to implement the comprehensive peace agreement so that it impacts on Darfur and brings about a comprehensive peace agreement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not under a delusion that after the adoption of this resolution terrorist attacks will be brought to an end in Iraq. Apropos, just recently one of your colleagues was killed in Iraq, an American journalist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador, following that Security Council vote against terrorism. The diplomat went on to say that media members should not help terrorists spread their views. Russia is furious with America's ABC network for running an interview with the leading Chechen independence fighter and is barring access for ABC in Russia.

The Russian deputy ambassador at the United Nations also mentioned the death this week of American journalist Steven Vincent in Iraq.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says 30 journalists have been killed at least so far this year throughout the world. The group is an independent non-profit organization seeking to protect press freedoms around the world.

The death of a journalist in Russia was a significant part of the Committee to Protect Journalists' annual dinner late last year. We recently passed the one-year anniversary of the death of "Forbes Russia" magazine editor Paul Klebnikov. Russia claims another Chechen leader was responsible though the United States wants more investigating by Moscow.

DIPLOMATIC LICENSE has your dinner ticket.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If this evening unfolds as it usually does, you will leave here feeling uplifted by the stories you are about to hear and the heroes you will meet tonight.

MARIA HINOJOSA, FMR. CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a part of the world where radio has been used to drive people apart, Alexis Sinduhije is using it to bring people together.

Like in neighboring Rwanda, Burundi is divided between ethnic Tutsis and Hutus. The two ethnic groups fought a devastating civil war that ended in 2001.

That's when Alexis founded a radio station and hired both Tutsis and Hutus, many of them ex-combatants, to work as reporters while challenging politicians to do better has earned the station some very powerful enemies. The station was shut down temporarily and a security guard was murdered.

ALEXIS SINDUHIJE, RADIO PUBLIQUE AFRICAINE: In Rwanda, radio was the genocide's largest machete. The idea of my station, African Public Radio, was the opposite, to use the power of words to build a nonviolent, fair and truly democratic society.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Svetlana Kalinkina believes in putting information in the hands of the people. That is a very radical and dangerous idea in Belarus.

As the editor of the popular "Business Daily" in Minsk, Kalinkina has published reports on corruption, human rights abuses and government malfeasance in a country where the press is almost entirely partisan.

SVETLANA KALINKINA, BELARUSIAN JOURNALIST: Today the president divides journalists into categories of honest and not honest, and those who do not always support him and especially those who do not support the actions of our authorities, they're automatically put in the not honest category.

WILLIAMS: Authorities have retaliated against Kalinkina's newspaper with a campaign of legal and bureaucratic harassment.

PAUL GIGOT, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Before he became a documentary filmmaker, Aun Qin (ph) was a poet who used allegory and metaphor to express his opposition to Burma's ruling junta.

Qin (ph) joined with Tom Tun (ph), who is also a documentary maker, to secretly record scenes of forced labor and poverty. They were arrested in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in jail. At each place setting at your tables this evening you'll find a petition calling for the release of tonight's award winners. They will be collected and forwarded to the Burmese government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On July 9, a Friday night, Paul Klebnikov left the offices of "Forbes Russia" in Moscow, of which he was the editor, and he was gunned down from a passing car. He died soon after. Paul was killed for trying to tell the truth about Russia, for trying to help the land of his Russian ancestors by writing about its dark underside, by exposing the corruption and collusion of gangster capitalism.

MUSA KLEBNIKOV, WIFE OF MURDERED JOURNALIST: Paul was deeply concerned that Russia today is not facing its moral and civil challenges. Being surrounded by criminality, greed and misuse of power has made people suffer from apathy and hopelessness. Paul wanted to help ordinary Russians find courage.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: The Klebnikov case is still open.

The petitions may have worked in another matter. About a month ago Myanmar released one of the two Burmese journalists highlighted in the dinner. Filmmaker Aun Qin (ph) was released, but Tom Tun (ph) has not been freed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: It's the only chance to gamble at the United Nations, the annual drawing conducted by lottery master Secretary-General Annan, to decide which country gets first-seat honors at the coming new General Assembly session in September. Thailand was the winner, so it gets the shortest walk to the stage. All gambling, of course, done inside private offices.

We use a jar like that to select which emails we read from viewers each week. DIPLOMATIC LICENSE received a lot of comment on our Srebrenica look back segment a few weeks ago, all of this as even the son of indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic thinks it may be time for his father to face justice.

Email letter one. "I just watched your program featuring the topics of terrorism and the commemoration of 10 years of Srebrenica. These parallel events emphasize the importance of respecting and implementing international agreements. Only this way can we prevent giving an excuse to someone to commit a new atrocity because of one committed 10 years ago."

That's from Ivan Miltic (ph).

Email number two. "I feel terrible every time I am thinking just about the word Srebrenica. I am a Bosnian who had to leave his home in central Bosnia. My mother, two sisters and me left our city with one suitcase. I am still traumatized of all what happened."

And that email is from Vienna.

Email number three. "As a member of the United States Army who deployed into Bosnia as a part of NATO's enforcement of the Dayton Peace Accord, I saw the failure of the United Nations at Srebrenica as the primary example of why the United States government must never allow U.S. armed forces to fall under the command of United Nations appointed military leaders in important force structures. I have no confidence that the United Nations will ever be more than a paper tiger. I am damn glad I was never asked to fight and possibly die wearing a blue hat." Joseph Quinn, lieutenant colonel, U.S. Army.

Of course, that email doesn't answer questions about why the U.S. government did not make the decision to act in a more aggressive policy to protect Srebrenica.

Email number four. "Small detachments of unarmed troops are an invitation for disaster. Even small detachments of well-armed troops could be successful." John McDougal.

And our next email. "Dear sir, firstly I want to congratulate the CNN team for a first good attempt to uncover the truth of Srebrenica; United Nations Security Council debacles; the issues, if how the governments of Britain, France, Spain, Israel tackle sectarian splittage and extremist political revenge, violence and terrorist activity."

Next Srebrenica-related email. "If news reports are to be believed, several thousand people were killed and/or moved and/or went missing from military action in these areas in the summer of 1995. Why don't you guys talk a little about the diplomatic deals that must have been struck to carry this out? It seems to me that if this is not an issue for DIPLOMATIC LICENSE, why is it exactly that you have a license to inform about?"

And that email is from Belgrade.

If you would like to comment on anything you heard on the program or on something you thought you heard outside your window while you were struggling to watch the program, feel free to email us at diplomatic.license@cnn.com. Once again, that's diplomatic.license@cnn.com.

And that's our program this week. I'm Richard Roth, in New York. The latest weather and news coming straight up. We'll be back next week.

END

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