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Al-Ahram Weekly 23 - 29 September 1999 Issue No. 448 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 23 - 29 September 1999 Issue No. 448
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Comment Focus Special Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters An intervention issue
By Hoda TawfikForeign Minister Amr Moussa is addressing the 54th UN General Assembly today, in a session dominated by a debate over the world organisation's right to ignore national boundaries in offering humanitarian assistance.
Moussa told Al-Ahram Weekly that "as we approach the third millennium, there has to be a new look to the future of developing nations and solutions must be sought to problems that may affect our world, and humanity as a whole."
Egypt's message to the Assembly, he said, is to identify in precise terms "the objectives that we, in the Arab world, deem most important."
Not to be ignored are the conflict between civilizations, sanctions against nations, weapons of mass destruction, problems of economic growth, environment, the information revolution, open markets and the roles of industrialised and developing nations, Moussa said.
Referring to the rights of Palestinians, Moussa said that countries -- an obvious allusion to Israel -- should respect and implement signed agreements. But he also affirmed that Middle East peace should be comprehensive, and be based on restoring occupied territories to the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.
Moussa was scheduled to meet yesterday with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Praising Egypt for its efforts to promote the 4 September Sharm Al-Sheikh agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on implementing the Wye River Memorandum, a senior US official said: "We think the Egyptians are going to continue to play an important role, especially in the permanent status talks."
The official added that one thing Albright planned to discuss with Moussa was how to ensure that neither Israel nor the Palestinians take "steps that could undermine or harm the environment for those talks and that they both be as flexible as possible..."
But the Middle East was not high on the Assembly's agenda. The debate was dominated by questions about the limits of state sovereignty and whether the UN has the right to overstep national boundaries in order to provide humanitarian assistance.
Several leaders who addressed the Assembly argued that national borders should not be an obstacle in the way of justifiable humanitarian intervention.
The Assembly resounded with arguments over the lessons the world should draw from this year's crises in Kosovo, East Timor and numerous African troublespots.
"If states bent on criminal behaviour know that frontiers are not an absolute defence, then they will not embark on such a course of action in expectation of sovereign impunity," said Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
But developing nations with recent memories of colonialism warned the West against interference in their affairs and complained of the selective nature of rich countries' compassion or political will to act to stop wars.
US President Bill Clinton insisted that just because the United States could not intervene in every humanitarian emergency did not mean it should act in none.
Annan argued that the international community can and should act with UN authority to halt "massive and systematic violations of human rights wherever they may take place."
Leaders of many nations, including France, Britain and Norway, largely agreed. But the question remained whether intervention would be applicable to all countries. And then, what about the Middle East and the Islamic world? Is intervention possible to protect the rights of Palestinians under occupation or to help expelled refugees?
These questions were on the agenda of Arab foreign ministers who held a meeting in New York on the fringe of the Assembly session.
The Arab League's UN representative, Hussein Hassouna, told the Weekly that the Arab ministers were urging the Assembly and Security Council to address Middle East problems objectively and not ignore the positions taken by the majority of UN member-states on Israeli occupation, Jerusalem, the rights of refugees, the right to Palestinian statehood and the dismantling of Jewish settlements.
The Arab position assumed significance because the US is acting to commit the Assembly to support what it calls a positive Israeli trend. "We think that the General Assembly should concentrate on passing a positive resolution in support of the positive environment in the peace process and direct negotiations," said David Welch, assistant secretary of state. He added that the Assembly should be "supportive."
