'A sense of achievement'

A year after taking office as Arab League secretary-general, Amr Moussa says that his sense of achievement is incomplete Dina Ezzat revisits 12 months of work
It was exactly one year ago to the day that Amr Moussa, Egypt's former foreign minister, assumed his new role as Arab League secretary-general. Moussa's arrival at the headquarters of the secretariat of the Arab League in downtown Cairo was proceeded with a clear demonstration of frustration by the general public and intellectuals alike, who thought that Moussa, as a seasoned foreign minister, would be wasted on the stewardship of the league. His many admirers feared that Moussa would be transformed from the Arab world's most vocal foreign minister to a figurehead who epitomises Arab weakness. Some went as far as to argue that Moussa would be "frozen" in the Arab League. Others, however, believed that Moussa was exactly the person to give the Arab League a new lease on life.
A year later, such pessimism seems to have been unjustified. Moussa's unexpected departure from Egypt's Foreign Ministry is still lamented by many Egyptians. A Canadian parliamentarian who recently visited the Arab League said to Moussa, "a taxi driver told me that his seven-year-old daughter was in tears when you left the foreign ministry."
Nostalgia over Moussa's years as foreign minister aside, his leadership at the league is now also a topic of considerable public discussion -- and even controversy. Some people believe that he has brought life to the previously moribund organisation, while others are concerned that the league is sapping Moussa's dynamism.
The ongoing public debate about Moussa's career began a few years ago. Some predicted that he would rise swiftly through the ranks of the Egyptian state, while others expected him to find his way to the Arab League. The topic, however, is one that Moussa is loathe to comment on.
Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly at his office this week, Moussa says that his nomination as Egypt's candidate for secretary- general was "a responsibility that I was honoured to undertake." The Arab League secretary-general, however, is not interested in revisiting the circumstances that took him from Egypt's Foreign Ministry to the Arab League. Instead, he prefers to talk about the organisation's achievements and the things he hopes to do towards serving the "common Arab interest." After all, he says, "That's what I am here for."
During the past year, Moussa has received considerable praise as well as criticism. High on the list of the secretary- general's acknowledged achievements is the internal reorganisation of the league. Work is now divided among commissioners, envoys and spokesmen and meetings of high-level officials have been regularised. Efforts are going ahead to upgrade the league's image and its voice is being heard to an unprecedented degree in Western quarters.
The secretary-general's vocal support for the right of Palestinians to resist military occupation won kudos throughout the Arab world. Moussa was also praised for daring to object to the way Arab-Americans and Arab-Europeans were treated in the wake of 11 September and for opposing US foreign policy's focus on combating terrorism to the virtual exclusion of other matters of international concern.
However, it was Moussa's venturing into the thorniest of all Arab issues, the state of relations between Iraq and Kuwait, that won the secretary-general the most accolades in the Arab world. And the secretary-general took decisive action on that front with his visit to Baghdad at a time when the White House's explicit talk about military strikes against Iraq was not met with any vocal opposition from key Arab capitals.
One source of criticism directed at the secretary-general was the limited support extended by the Arab League to Palestinian civilians -- particularly during the past few weeks when the Palestinians were suffering operation Defensive Shield.
Much of the criticism directed at Moussa's performance as a secretary-general, however, is associated with the Arab foreign ministers' meetings that were held in the wake of big events. These get-togethers, note critics, produced results far short of the demands of an angry Arab public. But Moussa faces the difficult task of trying to forge a consensus among 22 Arab countries. It is this challenge in particular that some predict will ultimately wear down Moussa.
The harshest criticism that Moussa was subjected to came from the Kuwaiti press in the wake of his visit to Baghdad in January of this year. The journalists' ire was raised when it became clear that Moussa had secured Iraqi commitments for a greater degree of flexibility than Baghdad had shown in the past on a wide range of controversial issues. Kuwaiti journalists were further angered when the secretary-general's efforts culminated in the resumption of a dialogue between Iraq and the UN on the return of international weapons inspectors. Moussa's efforts to encourage Iraq to release a Kuwaiti citizen, who had mistakenly crossed into Iraq in March, were, however, hailed in the Kuwaiti press. But the Iraqi initiative, announced by Moussa earlier this month, to return documents seized from the Kuwaiti National Archives during the Iraqi invasion in 1990 was not well received by the Kuwaiti media.
Moussa takes the praise and the criticism in stride. "I have a sense of achievement, although it is not complete." The secretary-general is reticent on the matter of assessments of his visit to Baghdad and the outcomes of that trip, saying only, "This is an important file. It is something that had to be dealt with."
In the meantime, working to build Arab solidarity is Moussa's major focus. "The Arab world is faced with so many negative developments and so many challenges," Moussa says in reference to operation Defensive Shield and to the decision adopted on Sunday by the Likud central committee to oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state. "This is a decision by an extremist rightist group; we have to deal with these matters in a coordinated way," the secretary-general adds.
And there has been some notable progress in Arab coordination. The obvious example is the support offered by all Arab countries, even those that insist on maintaining diplomatic or economic ties with Israel, to the Palestinian Intifada and Palestinians' right to resist the Israeli military occupation. Another example is the clear Arab stance against subjecting Iraq to an American military strike as part of the international war against terrorism. The opposition expressed recently by all the key Arab capitals against holding an international conference on peace in the Middle East in accordance with the Israeli parameters is another instance of what Moussa calls "Arab common ground."
Moussa also feels that the Arab League has been successful in getting its voice heard on key international issues. "In the wake of 11 September, it seemed that the entire agenda of international foreign policy was going to be focused on fighting international terrorism only. The league insisted that this agenda is simply incompatible with the interests of the Arab world which wanted a dialogue of civilisations and the Arab-Israeli conflict to be addressed as well."
In this regard, the Arabs' voice seems to have been heard -- to an extent. While launching his war against Afghanistan, the US president also tabled a vision for a settlement of the Middle East conflict that is based on the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. And, in its last communiqué on the situation in the Middle East, "the quartet" -- the US, the UN, the European Union and Russia -- formally expressed interest in working with the Arab League to deal with the situation in the Middle East.
Nonetheless, Moussa concedes that there are some areas in which achievements have been insufficient. The Arab reaction to the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people during the past few weeks should have been more effective. The role of the Arab League in promoting closer economic cooperation among its member states, the secretary general says, also needs much work. "This is at the top of my priorities for next year," he says.
Other plans for the year ahead include continued modernisation of the performance of the Arab League, the activation of the role of league commissioners for media affairs, initiating a cultural dialogue and forging ties with civil society. Also on the agenda is the augmentation of the social and cultural roles that the Arab League timidly took up during the past 12 months. But most important of all, it will focus on increasing the league's already considerable political momentum.
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