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UNITED NATIONS, Dec 13 (IPS) – Created in 1945 following the devastation brought on by World Conflict II, the United Nations was mandated with the duty of sustaining worldwide peace and safety as one among its main political missions.
However the seriousness of its far-reaching mandate has been tempered by occasional moments of levity which have rocked the “glass home by the east river” with laughter — as recounted in a newly-released e book on the United Nations titled “No Remark –and Don’t Quote me on That”.
Over time, the UN has remained a wealthy supply of anecdotes originating within the Basic Meeting, the Safety Council, and the UN’s watering gap, the delegate’s lounge.
One of many memorable anecdotes, recounted within the e book, is a confrontation that occurred within the Basic Meeting Corridor in October 1960 in the course of the top of the Chilly Conflict, when Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev eliminated his shoe and saved banging on his desk on a degree of order.
Because the shoe-banging continued, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, whose speech was being rudely interrupted, turned to the President of the Basic Meeting and remarked: “Mr. President, I’m ready for a translation”, as the whole Meeting erupted in laughter.
The 2 working languages of the United Nations have been primarily English and French, though there are 4 different official languages acknowledged by the world physique: Chinese language, Arabic, Spanish and Russian—with translations accessible in all six languages to delegates on their earphones.
A former Secretary-Basic Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, was fluent in three of the six languages: English, Arabic and French. Requested at a briefing with reporters about his fluency in languages, he jokingly mentioned his main language was Arabic “as a result of once I battle with my spouse, I battle in Arabic.”
A former US ambassador to the United Nations as soon as offered an amusingly light-hearted definition of diplomacy: 97 % alcohol, 2 % protocol and one % Geritol, a multi-vitamin drink most likely meant to energise negotiations.
However diplomacy on the UN is way more than socializing– whilst receptions and cocktail events happen on daily basis – till the COVID-19 pandemic introduced the world physique to a digital standstill briefly suspending the routinely heavy ingesting, largely duty-free liquor (and based on some diplomats,” the very best issues in life are largely duty-free.”)
When the annual election of the President of Basic Meeting resulted in an unprecedented 73:73 tie within the Seventies, the outgoing President determined to interrupt the impasse with the flip of a coin, as agreed to by the 2 candidates. However based on a joke circulating within the delegate’s lounge, the tossed coin apparently had two heads and no tail. Rigged elections on the UN?
Simply after a band of mercenaries tried to oust the federal government of the Maldives, a tiny island nation with no military, navy or air power again within the Eighties, I ignorantly requested a Maldivian diplomat in regards to the power of his nation’s standing military. “Standing military?”, the diplomat requested with mock shock, “We do not also have a sitting military.”
When the right-wing, hardline conservative John Bolton was US Ambassador to the UN (2005-2006), he notoriously remarked: “There isn’t any such factor because the United Nations. If the U.N. secretariat constructing in New York misplaced 10 tales, it would not make a little bit of distinction.” The punchline, nevertheless, got here from a New York Instances columnist who mentioned Bolton would do higher as an city planner than a US diplomat.
In the meantime, when Ambassadors and different lower-ranking diplomats arrive in New York, most of them expertise “tradition shock” being pressured to regulate to NY city living– together with meals, language and condo residing.
Within the Seventies, the New York Day by day Information recounted a narrative, extensively circulated within the UN delegate’s lounge, of a newly-arrived diplomat from a conflict-ridden nation who was posted to New York– thought-about a safe-haven– following demise threats in opposition to him by a insurgent group in his house nation. Just a few weeks after his arrival, he discovered a observe slipped underneath his Manhattan condo door with an ominous message: “The exterminator will probably be right here tomorrow.”
Panicked on the thought the insurgent group had prolonged its attain, he was about to hurry to the closest police precinct when he accosted the clerk on the reception desk within the foyer, who informed him: “Sir, the exterminator will probably be right here to not kill diplomats, however to exterminate roaches, mattress bugs and mice.” That was one of many first diplomatic classes in Manhattan condo residing.
In the meantime, Thalif Deen, creator of the e book, “No Remark – and Don’t Quote me on That”, who was lately interviewed by Thanos Dimadis, govt director of The Affiliation of Overseas Press Correspondents within the USA (AFPC-USA), recounts a few of the much more unforgettable moments each inside and out of doors the UN.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: You’re a veteran journalist who has coated UN affairs for many years. Might you share just a few of the teachings you have got realized through the years as a UN correspondent? And in relation to following and overlaying UN information, what has been essentially the most troublesome a part of your job?
A: The United Nations has lengthy been described as “the glass home by the east river.” However regrettably, the glass home is extra opaque than clear—significantly for information reporters.
The political reporting on the UN is basically targeted on navy conflicts, civil wars, genocide, human rights, peacekeeping, nuclear disarmament and struggle crimes—largely underlying its main mandate, specifically, sustaining worldwide peace and safety.
However at IPS, our protection was totally on the UN’s socio-economic agenda, lengthy uncared for by the principle stream media and worldwide wire companies. We aimed to fill that hole.
Maybe essentially the most troublesome a part of the job was that journalists, hardly ever if ever, have been capable of get any on-the-record feedback or reactions from ambassadors, diplomats and senior UN officers as a result of most of them comply with the recommendation given to Brits throughout struggle time censorship within the UK: “Be like Dad, Hold Mum”.
As Winston Churchill as soon as remarked: “Diplomacy Is the artwork of telling individuals “to go to hell’ in such a method they ask for instructions.” However as a common rule, most ambassadors and diplomats averted all feedback, significantly on politically delicate points, with the usual non-excuse: ”Sorry, we now have to get clearance from our capital”. However that “clearance” by no means got here.
Nonetheless, it was arduous to beat a response from a tight-lipped Asian diplomat who as soon as informed me: “No Remark” – “And Don’t Quote Me on That.”
And most senior UN officers, alternatively, by no means had even the fundamental courtesy or etiquette to reply to telephone calls or electronic mail messages—and even an acknowledgment. The traces of communications have been largely useless.
Once I complained to the media-savvy Shashi Tharoor, a former Beneath-Secretary-Basic for Public Data and a one-time journalist and prolific creator, he was express in his response when he mentioned that each UN official – “from an Beneath-Secretary-Basic to a window-washer”—has the suitable to specific an opinion in his or her space of experience. However that hardly ever or ever occurred.
A Brazilian diplomat as soon as gave me an unique inside story, however warned it was “not for attribution and strictly off the report”. However being accustomed to the New York Metropolis’s cultural scene, he added: “Off, Off, Off the report. Like Off, Off Broadway.”
Nonetheless, there have been uncommon cases of UN officers, largely former UN officers, who don’t have any qualms about offering on-the-record feedback. As I used to be doing a wrap-up of the historic, two-week lengthy Earth Summit in Rio in June 1992, I approached Dr Gamani Corea, a former Secretary-Basic of the UN Convention on Commerce and Growth (UNCTAD) and a member of the Sri Lanka delegation, for a ultimate touch upon the disappointing outcomes of the much-ballyhooed convention.
“We negotiated the scale of the zero”, he mentioned, with a tinge of sarcasm, as he held out his fingers to point zero. However that remark would come solely from an ex-UN official.
Q: What have been a few of the historic moments throughout your journalistic profession on the UN?
A: When the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevara, as soon as second-in-command to Cuban chief Fidel Castro, was on the United Nations to deal with the Basic Meeting periods again in 1964, the U.N. headquarters got here underneath assault – actually. The speech by the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.
The anti-Castro forces in the USA, backed by the Central Intelligence Company (CIA), had mounted an insidious marketing campaign to cease Che Guevara from talking. A 3.5-inch bazooka was fired on the 39-storeyed Secretariat constructing by the East River whereas a vociferous CIA-inspired anti-Castro, anti-Che Guevara demonstration was happening outdoors the U.N. constructing on New York’s First Avenue and forty second avenue.
However the rocket launcher – which was apparently not as subtle as immediately’s shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades – missed its goal, rattled home windows, and fell into the river about 200 yards from the constructing. One newspaper report described it as “one of many wildest episodes for the reason that United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.”
After his Meeting speech, Che Guevara was requested in regards to the assault geared toward him. “The explosion has given the entire thing extra taste,” he joked, as he chomped on his Cuban cigar.
When he was informed by a reporter that the New York Metropolis police had nabbed a lady, described as an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who had pulled out a looking knife and jumped over the UN wall, aspiring to kill him, Che Guevara mentioned: “It’s higher to be killed by a lady with a knife than by a person with a gun.”
A second historic second was the go to of Yasser Arafat, the chief of the Palestine Liberation Group (PLO). On his 1974 go to, he averted the a whole bunch of professional and anti-Arafat demonstrators outdoors the UN constructing by arriving in a helicopter which landed in the dark on the North Garden of the UN campus adjoining the East River.
Arafat was escorted by safety males into the UN constructing and to the Secretary-Basic’s thirty eighth flooring the place he spent the evening in a short lived bed room. However that bed room had not been used for years, and the colour of water was brown when the toilet’s faucet was opened. Mercifully, it was not an try by Israeli intelligence to poison the PLO chief.
There was additionally a legendary story of how Arafat, who was on an Israeli hit-list, by no means slept on the identical mattress on two consecutive nights. So, the probabilities are he by no means took that danger even contained in the UN constructing.
By the way, when anti-Arafat New York protesters on First Avenue shouted: “Arafat Go Dwelling”, his supporters responded that was exactly what he wished—a house for the Palestinians to go to.
When Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi visited the UN in September 2009, the London Guardian mentioned he “grabbed his quarter-hour of fame on the UN constructing in New York and ran with it. He ran with it so arduous he stretched it to an hour and 40 minutes, six instances longer than his allotted slot, to the dismay of UN organizers”.
By the way, based on one information report, there have been 112 completely different spellings of the Libyan chief’s title, each in English and Arabic, together with Muammar el-Qaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi, Muammar al-Gathafi, Muammar El Kadhafi, Moammar el Kazzafi, Moamer, El Qathafi, Mu’Ammar, Gadafi, and Moamar Gaddafi, amongst others.
The Wall Road Journal ran a cartoon making enjoyable of the a number of spellings, with a visiting reporter, on a one-on-one interview in Tripoli, telling the Libyan chief: ”My editor despatched me to search out out whether or not you’re actually Qaddafi, Khaddafi, Gadafi, Qathafi or Kadhafi?”
Q: As a UN correspondent, how has overlaying UN affairs modified your view of the UN and its position on a worldwide scale?
A: The UN’s greatest shortcoming is its failure to resolve a few of the longstanding political points, together with Palestine, and extra lately the navy conflicts and civil wars in Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ethiopia and Myanmar, amongst others.
In most of those conflicts, the 5 veto-wielding everlasting members (P-5) of the Safety Council, specifically the US, UK, France, China and Russia, are sharply divided and shield their allies– and their million-dollar arms markets as a result of the P-5 are the first arms suppliers to the combatants in a number of of those conflicts.
In the meantime, a brand new Chilly Conflict -– this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s strongest physique, whilst navy conflicts and civil wars are sweeping the world over. The rising criticism in opposition to the Safety Council is directed largely at its collective failures to resolve ongoing conflicts and political crises in a number of scorching spots.
The sharp divisions between China and Russia, on one aspect, and the Western powers on the opposite, are anticipated to proceed, triggering the query: Has the Safety Council outlived its usefulness or has it misplaced its political credibility: a query which additionally modified my views on the UN and its political effectiveness?
The 5 massive powers are more and more throwing their protecting arms round their allies, regardless of rising costs of struggle crimes, genocide and human rights violations in opposition to a few of these warring nations.
On the identical time, the Safety Council has come underneath heavy hearth for the misuse of its veto powers, held by the Large 5, whereas discussions on the reform of the Council have dragged on for over 20 years.
The underside line is that the P-5 wish to maintain onto the monopoly of the veto energy. A proposal for the enlargement of the everlasting members, from 5 to possibly ten, comes with a catch: if new everlasting members are appointed, they need to don’t have any veto powers.
The nations knocking on the Safety Council door for everlasting memberships embody India, Brazil, Japan and Germany. However the opposition to those candidacies have come from Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan and South Korea. So, the reform of the Safety Council stays deadlocked.
In the meantime, the UN’s successes are largely within the subject of humanitarian help, plus in improvement funding and environmental safety. Throughout September by way of November 2021, the UN and its NGO (non-governmental group) companions offered 7.2 million individuals in war-ravaged Afghanistan with meals help; reached greater than 880,000 individuals with main and secondary healthcare consultations; assisted virtually 199,000 drought-affected individuals by way of water trucking; and handled greater than 178,000 kids underneath 5 for acute malnutrition, based on the newest figures.
Thalif Deen, Senior Editor & Director, UN Bureau, Inter Press Service (IPS) information company, served twice with the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN Basic Meeting periods and is a Fulbright scholar with a Grasp’s Diploma (MSc) in Journalism from Columbia College.
The hyperlink to Amazon through the creator’s web site follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/
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