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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired November 4, 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)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because the news coming from the ground are pessimistic, unfortunately.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't do American sporting analogies, like slam dunk. I do dead bats and hits the six, if you'll excuse me, although I now know what a scrimmage is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: This weekend there is high concern at the United Nations that two countries may be ready to go to war.

Now that I have your attention, welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

The two U.N. member countries are Ethiopia and Eritrea, and, yes, they did fight each other for two-and-a-half years starting in 1998. Oh, there is a history. Eritrea fought a 30-year guerilla war before gaining independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

All of that didn't settle differences. Ethiopia refused to accept an independent commission's decision handing over control of the town of Badmi (ph) to Eritrea. There is a U.N. peacekeeping mission patrolling the 621 mile border.

But last month Eritrea banned U.N. helicopter flights in its airspace, and now the United Nations says both countries are moving troops and military assets closer to the border buffer zone.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's essential at this stage that in this very fragile moment that no -- neither Ethiopia nor Eritrea make any movement that could be misunderstood by the other side and could lead to a very dangerous situation.

SEAN MCCORMACK, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We would call on both sides to adhere to the agreement that they reached which resolved their long-standing conflict.

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ROTH: The Security Council asked both countries for maximum restraint and to drop any threat to use force. The U.N. secretary-general said he would go to the area if necessary in a bid to break the deadlock.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: Obviously in the discussions sometimes it's pointed out that there's no controversy over 85 percent of the border and that all the controversy is over the 15 percent. Except that 15 percent is 100 percent of the problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: We have 100 percent of the dispute on our program. Ethiopia and Eritrea, together in one place, our CNN Washington studios. Really two of the studios.

We welcome Eritrea's Ambassador to the United States Girma Asmerom, and Ethiopia's U.S. Envoy Kassahun Ayele.

Welcome to you both.

First question to both of you, starting with Eritrea, is there going to be another war?

KASSAHUN AYELE, ETHIOPIAN AMBASSADOR: It depends --

GIRMA ASMEROM, ERITREAN AMBASSADOR: Well, before --

ROTH: Little bit different answers there. Ambassador Girma of Eritrea, go ahead, take that on.

ASMEROM: Before I answer any of the questions, I would like to make - - I would like to say for the record that I'm not here to debate the issue with the Ethiopian ambassador. But I feel strongly that the public deserves to know the facts and the truths, so I'm willing to answer any question that comes from Richard.

ROTH: What's the fact?

ASMEROM: The fact is basically straight. It's a black and white issue. Ethiopia has rejected the arbitration decision, which was final and binding, unanimous. It was a decision that was agreed by both parties.

Second, in violation of this agreement also Ethiopia has literally physically today occupied militarily sovereign Eritrean territory.

Third, the United Nations, which is a guarantor, and the international community, which is also a guarantor and witness, has not even invoked its own decisions, its own resolutions, because it clearly says a party which refuse to implement this final and binding decision would pay the price, the consequences, and it has not done.

ROTH: Let's get a chance for the Ethiopian ambassador. Ambassador Kassahun, what are the facts?

AYELE: Thank you, sir. I also wish to put the record straight.

First of all, in your opening statement, you have said something that Ambassador Girma has just repeated, and that is that Ethiopia refuses to accept, Ethiopia rejected the decision.

Well, time and again Ethiopia has made its position very clear. The decision is accepted in principal and this does not mean to bring about any conditionality or to take back the decision onto the drawing board. It means an assurance of a comprehensive peace between the two countries, and that is all about --

ROTH: You want to discuss the border issue further, though.

AYELE: Yes, sir.

ROTH: But this independent commission said the town belongs to Eritrea.

AYELE: That's right. As you may know, I think I have to go a little bit backward and how the war started. The war was started by the provocation of Eritrea by sending its troops and occupying a territory that was administered by Ethiopia until then.

And then after a two year serious war, our troops recovered what was invaded by Eritrea.

ROTH: But why can't the two countries --

AYELE: And with this upper ground, Ethiopia was still willing to resolve the problem peacefully and based on international law, and having signed the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) agreement, the decision was given by the commission and the decision was accepted by Ethiopia based on its own promise to do away with certain abnormalities on the ground --

ROTH: Ambassador Girma?

ASMEROM: Yes, Richard.

ROTH: Okay, let's let Eritrea respond.

ASMEROM: Yes, Mr. --

AYELE: I haven't finished, sir.

ROTH: Well, it's a short program. I know that there is a very lengthy border and a very lengthy statement, but we've got to move on.

ASMEROM: I don't want to dwell on this issue and bore your audience, because this is an issue where our lawyers --

ROTH: Are you willing to go to war over Badmi (ph) then? Is that what it's going to come down to?

ASMEROM: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that's why I said this is not a forum for discussing what happened. Let's move forward, just fight it. That's what arbitration means.

ROTH: I think there was once a famous ambassador who once said can't we all get along. What's it going to take for you to make peace?

ASMEROM: Simple and straight.

AYELE: That's right.

ASMEROM: It's a black and white issue. Border, the poorest of the poorest. The international community has a moral and legal obligation to implement its own resolutions. Our Ethiopian brothers, they should adhere to this principal, the rule of law, and then implement -- it's a black and white issues. The demarcation directives are in place. The demarcation processes are in place. There is no controversy, no nothing, because the case has been argued and it's a finished case, final and binding. I think it's very mechanical, which takes only three months. I think we'll move forward.

ROTH: Ambassador Kassahun, what's the impact of demonstrations, riots in some of the cities in Ethiopia, human rights groups complaining about what is happening. What is the impact of the internal problems now inside the country on the dispute with Eritrea? Is that fueling it?

AYELE: No. I think you're out of the topic we're going to discuss or --

ROTH: Well, this is still part of what is happening in the news.

AYELE: No, it has no part in this subject.

What Ethiopia is trying to do is to reinforce and to expand the emerging democracies that it has been building over the last 14 years, and this is a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that we have had in May this year, in May 2005.

And following that, there were problems, after the election. Up to the election, everything was perfect, but then because of the position taken by one of the major opposition parties, uncalled for and undesirable situations have occurred. But at any rate, Ethiopia still is much openly trying to handle this problem.

ROTH: Ambassador Girma, go ahead.

ASMEROM: I think I'll leave judgment to the people of Ethiopia, but I should emphasize, underline, the regime in Ethiopia has stolen the vote of the people of Ethiopia and it's even hammering and drumming the war drum just to divert attention. So basically I think they're interconnected, and I think that's why the international community should move fast and demarcate the border, at least one major stumbling block in the region will be departed and peace might prevail.

AYELE: I'm sorry, sir, I have to interfere here. Eritrea has no moral ground to tell us how democracy is exercised and to comment on our democracy.

ASMEROM: We don't kill people. We don't slaughter people.

AYELE: Never had any election. Never had any constitution. Never had any multi-party system. And we may learn a few things from Eritrea --

ASMEROM: We don't steal people's votes.

AYELE: -- but not about democracy.

ASMEROM: We don't kill, we don't murder people in the streets.

(CROSSTALK)

ASMEROM: You cannot steal a camel and hide in the bushes. I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

AYELE: Have you seen the State Department's statement two days ago in which the State Department has understood the whole situation and has --

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: Ambassador Girma of Eritrea, why is your country for weeks now banning United Nations helicopter flights policing the border? Are you provoking this incident?

ASMEROM: I think it's a very good question. I'm glad you raised that question. I think instead of the international community holding the bull by its horn, they are trying to hold the bull by its tail.

This is a side issue, because the main issue is the border issue. The commission has been kicked out of the border by Ethiopia for the last two years. They are not there. So I think the people should concentrate on tackling the major issue. The commission is a major issue. These are temporary, these are temporary situations, but we should not be discussing --

ROTH: Final word, Ambassador Kassahun of Ethiopia, very briefly.

AYELE: Yes, sir, listen. As I have said, we are -- we are only interested in an exhaustive and lasting peace and we are --

ROTH: Why are you both moving troops closer to the border? Do you have any answer to that?

AYELE: Let me just talk, sir. I will answer, sir.

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: Ambassador Kassahun, okay, Eritrea, hold on, Ethiopia, you're turn, briefly.

AYELE: It's my turn. It's my turn, sir.

As I said, we have not rejected the peace -- the decision. We have accepted it in principal because what people don't know is that a lasting peace can never be insured with only demarcating the border. There are a host of other issues that need to be taken care of, and that's why Ethiopia came up with an exhaustive peace plan.

ROTH: Is the Security Council unduly worried? It does look like something --

(CROSSTALK)

ASMEROM: Mr. Ambassador, with due respect, I think I should be the one --

AYELE: No, no, I have not finished. I have not finished.

Do you know that, sir, in September --

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: I know. Briefly, Ethiopia, then the final word from Eritrea. Go ahead.

ASMEROM: Okay, good.

AYELE: The Security Council in September has accepted Ethiopia's approach to dialogue and to a peaceful resolution, and the United Nations has not changed that position. That's why I think ambassador Girma is accusing and writing and calling names to the secretary-general by his government.

ROTH: Yes, it was a rather strange letter from your government to Kofi Annan saying he was out of touch, really, and that the United Nations, in Eritrea's view, there was no humanitarian basis for the United Nations legitimacy.

Final word, Eritrea's ambassador.

ASMEROM: Thank you, sir.

In the first place, it is prime minister (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who insulted the international community and the commission by saying it's in terminal crisis.

Second, I think the Ethiopian army has been there physically in Eritrea the last six months. There is a U.N. Security Council resolution which urges Ethiopia to move its troops back, but they are moving from our side. We are adhering to the rule of law.

ROTH: Okay. We're going to have both of you gentleman back in a couple of weeks. We have to move along. We don't know exactly what's happening near to border area, but we do deeply appreciate the appearances here by Ambassador Girma of Eritrea and Ambassador Kassahun of Ethiopia. We thank them for coming in and frankly discussing this. Thank you both, gentlemen.

AYELE: Thank you.

ASMEROM: Thank you.

ROTH: The Security Council is placing its short-term hopes on one of its own. Japan's Ambassador Kenzo Oshima (ph), who will break away from a planned Africa Security Council trip and go to the area of Ethiopia and Eritrea. He's not worried about his own safety.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a former United Nations emergency relief coordinator, and in that capacity I traveled to many places of conflict situations and where some bullets might be flying, so I should feel that nothing should deter me from traveling to any spot anywhere in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH (voice-over): Follow the message. DIPLOMATIC LICENSE shows you what official United Nations television cameras will not. This was during the big Security Council meeting pressuring Syria last Monday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received a note from a fellow minister, an ally. Of course, we remember President Bush's famous note at the September summit telling Rice he had to go to the bathroom. The content of this note appeared to be different.

On the other end, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who earlier described the atmosphere inside the United Nations.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: There are always rumors flying around this place. It's a kind of rumor factory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Rumors, gossip, documents, all part of covering the United Nations and the factory.

With me, two members according to their credentials, of the U.N. press corps, who would never pass on a rumor. From the "Times of London," James Bone. And from the "New York Sun" and Israeli radio, Benny Avni.

Syria on Friday called for anyone with information about the killing of foreign Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri to come forward, this after the Security Council voted 15 to nothing to tell Syria to cooperate with the U.N.-backed investigation of the assassination or face further action.

Russia and China got stronger language removed before agreeing to vote yes.

James, what is the impact of this resolution?

JAMES BONE, "TIMES OF LONDON": Well, this is really the Security Council making Syria an offer it can refuse. Indeed, must refuse, because Bashar Assad, the Syrian president, is considered to be the second or third most powerful person in the country, and the people likely to be named by the United Nations investigator as being implicated in the death of Mr. Hariri in Lebanon are the first and second most powerful people. And Bashar Assad is supposed to hand them over? It's not going to happen.

ROTH: You're referring to brother and brother-in-law -- Benny.

BENNY AVNI, "NEW YORK SUN": Yeah, as a short cut, who probably is the one who has to sign the papers in order to get anyone out of the country, and he's the main suspect, and he's the brother-in-law, of course, married to the sister who is one of the most powerful persons in Syria to begin with. And James's metaphor obviously is the right metaphor here since we're talking about a regime that conducts itself pretty much like a family mafia.

ROTH: Detlev Mehlis, the prosecutor, in effect he's back in Syria talking to people. Syria, according to this resolution, has to make everyone available for witnesses and interviews, and they say they're going to do that. What are we going to see when Mehlis writes his final report, if it is in final, in mid-December?

AVNI: Well, that depends a lot on how much Kofi Annan edits it again.

BONE: Of course, you remember last time, Richard, we got the report as edited, and we got -- because of a word processing error, we got the edits, and the names of these people, like the brother and brother-in-law of President Assad, had been edited out minutes after Mr. Mehlis met Kofi Annan, raising a lot of questions.

ROTH: I mean, Mehlis says he didn't -- he wants to presume innocence. That's why they were not in the report. And Syria denies the allegations.

AVNI: Well, he says that, but, of course, the best thing about it was the timing of when the edit was done, which was exactly at the time that Mehlis was in Kofi Annan's office.

ROTH: Well, another Syrian squeeze, a report by Special Envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, which says arms and personnel from Syria are still going into Lebanon despite a Security Council resolution last year.

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TERJE ROED-LARSEN, U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY TO SYRIA: The government of Syria is stating that these arms are smuggled illegally across the border and that the border is very difficult to control. However, it remains apparently a joint opinion on both sides of the border that there has been significantly increased flow of arms.

FAYSSAL MEKDAD, SYRIAN AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Syria will not allow this, did not allow this, and this is not in the interest of neither Syria nor Lebanon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: This is all the follow up of a resolution which said all foreign forces, hint Syria, and militias have to get out of Lebanon -- Benny.

AVNI: Yes, but the problem is that Syria continues to flow -- the flow of arms into Lebanon, into Palestinian camps, into Hezbollah, and that's the way it continues to control the country, through its proxies in the Palestinian camps and through Hezbollah.

BONE: And, actually, Terje Roed-Larsen is pulling his punches a little bit, because the report -- and this one Kofi Annan was allowed to edit because it was his report, said simply that there were increasing arms flows and flows of personnel from Syria into the Palestinian camps, but didn't say who was doing it, who was responsible for those flows.

I think the strategy is here by Terje Roed-Larsen to try and let the Lebanese government, now emboldened by the withdrawal of the Syrian forces, to try and address the problem itself before it becomes a crisis in the Security Council. But the Americans do want a resolution demanding that Syria cut off those arms flows.

AVNI: Well, there was one hint at who was doing the flowing, and that was that the Lebanese said that there is a flow and the Syrians said we never heard of it, as we heard here.

ROTH: Moving along here in our discussion of U.N. issues, you would think that the United Nations, founded because of World War II, would have a special day remembering the Holocaust, but until this past week no such date had been established. The General Assembly approved January 27 this week as the day.

Benny, what happened?

AVNI: Well, 60 years later the United Nations has finally discovered that the Nazis were the bad guys in World War II. Of course, most of them knew it. Even as late as this week there were some people who were making -- hedging their bets a little bit, saying that, you know, that there are other Holocausts and this is not the only one, why should we have this specific date for that one.

And to me the most amazing thing about this was that, you know, the Holocaust was basically one leader of a nation decided to wipe off -- the Jews off the map. And this week when another leader of another nation decided to wipe off the Jews off the map, Kofi Annan's first instinct was let's go visit that guy.

ROTH: Well, I think that trip was planned before the statement by the Iranian president.

AVNI: It was announced that day. It was announced that day, a day after the president --

BONE: Actually, Richard, the back story of that whole Iran trip is that the Americans have been trying to push Kofi Annan to go to the Middle East because they wanted him to go to Iraq. And Iran was a kind of one part of the trip that's going to take place, with the Americans hoping that there will be a stop off in Iraq.

AVNI: Well, what he's hoping to achieve, I assume, is a return of the Iranians into the E3 negotiation table, and that would be catastrophic, of course, because all the Iranians want to do is to negotiate while continuing to work on their atomic bombs.

ROTH: Well, the trip is off for now. For now.

BONE: And, actually, John Bolton, the American ambassador, gave a speech this week in which he said that comment by the Iranian president showed that there was (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

AVNI: Yes, that is -- there is certainly a parallel here between those two events and I would just reiterate that it would be funny if the first Holocaust, the first instinct that Kofi Annan would have would be go visit Hitler.

ROTH: All right, thank you, both, Benny Avni, of the "New York Sun" and Israeli radio, and James Bone, of the "Times of London," thank you as always.

Well, Benny and James and all other United Nations reporters remember the colorful former Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov. He has moved up the chain to be the foreign minister, but a return visit for the Syria meeting last Monday reminded everybody of Lavrov's willingness to mix it up with the inquiring minds on the other side of the barricade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: You want to address me in my capacity as a former ambassador. Ask your colleagues how I was answering such questions when I was ambassador. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have promised to myself that I will keep on working hard, I will keep my dream alive until I am gray as the honorable secretary-general.

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ROTH: There is something about this younger generation. A guest at a Business United Nations Development seminar featuring Prince Charles, gave Kofi Annan the royal treatment.

Oil For Food and other management missteps probably turned Kofi Annan's hair even more gray. More announcements of reform, though, at the United Nations this week. There is a new whistle-blowing policy coming soon. United Nations staff surveys show employees fear retaliation if they report misconduct.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER BURNHAM, U.N. UNDERSECY.-GEN. FOR MGMT.: If there is fraud and abuse, we want you to come forward, and if there are certain things that make you uncomfortable, then we're going to have other solutions to that to encourage you and to empower you to come forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: There will also be new financial disclosure rules requiring staff report gifts of more than $250 rather than the old pre-scandal days when $10,000 was the limit.

That is DIPLOMATIC LICENSE: I'm Richard Roth in New York, thanks for watching.

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