Nabil Elaraby* reflects on his tenure in New York as Egypt's ambassador to the UN In August 1991, when I began my assignment in New York, it was the beginning of what might be called the post-Cold War era. A general feeling of high expectations prevailed in all the discussions and conversations had at the UN. It was exciting to be part of forthcoming changes of the ground rules in international relations. The effect of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and consequently the end of the Cold War was, rightly, expected to have wide-ranging repercussions on the UN and the world at large. Many political analysts went as far as advancing the view that a new century had dawned on mankind. Some commentators considered that in a political if not in a temporal sense, the 20th century had begun in 1914 with WWI and ended in 1990 with the end of the Cold War. Earlier in 1991 there had been UN military action to dislodge Iraq and liberate Kuwait. From an international relations angle, this would necessarily lead to changes in the politics of the Middle East. From a UN angle, on the other hand, repercussions ensued. After its long period of hibernation, confining its responses to half-measures, and sometimes even benign neglect, Kuwait was a wake-up call for the Security Council. The Council, in my eyes, had finally demonstrated that it could stand up to face and reverse an illegal use of force, defend a victim, and apply sanctions on the aggressor. For someone like me, who has spent a lifetime closely studying the UN and who in 1967 was sitting in the Security Council hoping that UN Charter provisions would be respected and applied while witnessing the very opposite, it was a welcome development. However, it soon became apparent that the Security Council exercised its vast powers in a selective way. The liberation of Kuwait was, no doubt, a classic case of naked aggression. But other flagrant cases of aggression and genocide, like Rwanda and Bosnia, never received the same attention. The Security Council's responsibilities extend to all walks of life in our contemporary world. It holds the mantle of legitimacy for common efforts in peace and security. It is the enforcement agency for the international community. The Council's shortcomings in many areas, such as Palestine, are a matter of record. Several accusations, rightly or wrongly, had been levelled against the Council and there was a consensus that the Council was neither predictable nor credible, leading to a loud cry of double standards. In 1996, Egypt was elected to serve for two years as a non- permanent member in the Security Council, and it soon became obvious to me that the Council was in dire need of reform. Throughout my years as ambassador to the UN, the Palestine problem was paramount. Even following the 1993 Oslo Accords, various aspects of Israeli measures required urgent consideration. Two other Arab issues, as well as Bosnia, dominated the scene. The application of sanctions on Iraq and Libya consumed considerable time and effort and were a constant cause of confrontation with the US. Another reflection on my time as permanent representative was that my arrival also coincided with the secretary-general position candidacy of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was then the deputy prime minister of Egypt. There were five other African candidates whose names had been proposed by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), but the prominent candidates were Boutros-Ghali himself, General Okansajevo, the present president of Nigeria, and the finance minister of Zimbabwe. Throughout September and October of 1991 there were a lot of manoeuvres inside the African group for support of one of the three main candidates. Nigeria had an edge, being chair of the OAU. A ministerial meeting of African states was held in New York where an attempt was made to choose one single member. I noticed a clear attempt by Nigeria to get an endorsement of the Nigerian candidate who was a former president. What alarmed me was that one North African ambassador, a foreign minister, was moving in that direction. It was a tough meeting. The foreign minister of Egypt was not present and it was left to me to find a solution so that the candidacy of Boutros-Ghali would not founder. I decided to avoid entering into polemics and confined myself to presenting a legal obstacle. I asked for the floor and said basically that I would not present any proposals; however, that as a lawyer I had to point out to the distinguished ministers that the selection of the six candidates had been endorsed by the heads of states when they had met in Abuja in July 1991. I told them that we were meeting in a ministerial gathering that cannot overrule a summit decision. Luckily one or two delegates supported this point of view, and Nigeria, had to give up its attempt. The African group decided to continue to present a list of six names. In retrospect, I must say that it soon became clear that the adage, "All is fair in love and war" has to be followed. There was a war in the African group, and after many, many consultations with members of the Security Council, I had to resort to a minor verbal form of dirty tricks which, inter alia, included emphasising that candidate "x" is an army officer, and who wants a secretary-general to be a military officer, and candidate "y" is a well-known Marxist. I think to a great extent, these arguments held sway with Western powers. Moreover, some innocuous promises were made by one African ambassador to secure his vote. I urged Cairo to keep in close contact with and even pressure, if I can emphasise it that way, the three member states of the Security Council. At one point in mid-November, I had indications that only the US and the UK were still hesitant in supporting Boutros-Ghali. During that period I was working very closely with the French permanent representative and his deputy, who is now the permanent representative in New York, and after several meetings we reached the conclusion that if Boutros-Ghali was not elected, no other African would be elected, and we used this argument with African countries and others. The then British ambassador, Lord Hanny, told me in confidence that his government would support Boutros-Ghali. The election was held and Boutros-Ghali was elected by 11 votes with no opposition. I still maintain that the US abstained. I cannot describe the joy that I, and my colleagues, the members of the permanent mission who had worked very hard to reach this result, felt. As a final reflection, I was also, unfortunately, to be a part of his failure to be re-elected. While I was serving as president of the Council in June 1996, the US announced its opposition to the re- election of Boutros-Ghali. Around 18 or 19 June, Madeleine Albright, who maintained cordial personal relations with me, asked to see me urgently. I received her in the office of the president of the Council, and she said that she wanted to explain why the US government had reached its decision to oppose Boutros-Ghali. She gave the following reasons: first, that he had promised, when elected in 1991, to only serve one term; second, that he was not a good administrator; third, that he was not committed to reform; fourth, that he was too old to change; fifth, that he travelled a lot. My response was that none of the reasons she gave was serious enough and I inquired specifically if his position the previous April when he published the report on Qana was the reason and she reassured me that the decision was taken in March 1996, one month before Qana, even though it was announced in June, while she was on the West Coast, and that she had nothing to do with the date of the announcement, that it had been a White House decision. I did respond to all the points that she raised; in particular the one on reform, by making it clear that the members of the UN are divided on reform. The developing countries have a position, the Europeans have a position, and the US has a position of its own, so it is normal that reform will not go smoothly. As for travelling extensively, I told her that this argument would have applied to the 1950s, but not to the 1990s when there were modern means of communication available to the secretary-general. As for the question of age, I told her that President Reagan was the same age when re-elected to office in 1984, and the magnitude of the responsibility of the President of the United States cannot be compared to that of secretary- general of the United Nations. At the end of our long discussion I told her that notwithstanding the US position, the Egyptian government would continue to support re-election and that these were my instructions. The secretary-general was of the view that in the final analysis the US would support him and that the decision to oppose was taken for domestic reasons in light of attacks by Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole, and that once Clinton was re-elected, the opposition would be dropped. This he repeated to me in many, many conversations. My reply was always that once the US government took a decision, and announced that decision, it would not go back on it. Soon it became clear that someone had to introduce a resolution in the Security Council to start the election process. All of a sudden, on a Sunday evening, the secretary-general asked me to come to his residence, where, to my surprise, I found some ten ambassadors, all members of the Security Council. It was proposed by one African ambassador that we should all together submit a resolution for re-election of Boutros-Ghali and that the weight of the large group should convince the US to refrain from vetoing the resolution. Although I had my misgivings about this approach, and my inner feeling was that the US would go ahead and veto, I had no alternative but to say that Egypt would support and co-sponsor the resolution. The meeting ended by their requesting I draft a resolution and seek co- sponsorship. Ten member states co-sponsored, including the Non-Aligned Group, China, Russia, Germany and Italy, and when it was put to the ballot, it received 14 votes, including the UK's. However, the US exercised its veto. Following the vote I did raise a point of order that nowhere in the Charter or the Rules of Procedure did it say that re-election of a secretary-general could be vetoed. The British ambassador retorted that this was the practice in the Security Council. A few days later an election process started informally. According to practice in the Security Council, a vote would take place in a formal meeting in a process called "straw voting". Kofi Annan was at the top of the list and he attained, after several straw votes, 12 votes, although there was one negative vote from a permanent member that everyone knew to be France. The two others opposed were Egypt and Guinea-Bissau. Madeleine Albright exerted a lot of pressure on member states and on Egypt, but Egypt stayed the course, though I must admit that after a few ballots it became obvious that we could not get Boutros elected and that continuing our position would only antagonise Mr Annan. I conveyed my view to Cairo and after a series of long consultations with Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, I received instructions to drop the opposition to Annan. What I did not know at that time was that the French had struck a deal with Annan to drop their opposition in exchange for having the post of undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, the post held at that time by Kofi himself. France still holds that post until now. In my first meeting with the new secretary-general, following his election, he went out of his way to show me that he held no grudge against the position taken by Egypt, and as proof of his good intentions he offered Fayza Abul- Naga, who was at the time the special assistant to Boutros-Ghali, the possibility to continue in the same position. She later declined and chose to go back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, later to succeed me as ambassador to Geneva, and then to become a cabinet minister. * The writer was permanent representative of Egypt to the United Nations from 1991-1999.
