22 December 1999
Transcript: Holbrooke Press Briefing at the U.S. Mission to the UN
(A review of his first four months at the United Nations) (7470) U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard C. Holbrooke is telling reporters at the UN that when he serves as President of the UN Security Council during the month of January 2000, he will put highest priority on Africa. At his yearend briefing for the press December 20, four months after becoming U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Holbrooke said, "We're not turning away from Bosnia. Kosovo is a very, very complicated situation that bears continual attention. But Africa is the area right now which has the greatest capacity to explode and the greatest need for our attention and that's why we will make January the month of Africa." Asked by reporters what the reaction has been of other members of the Security Council to his emphasis on Africa, Holbrooke said, "the French have been extraordinarily supportive." Also supportive, he said, have been China, Britain, Canada, and the UN Secretary General himself, Kofi Annan. "But the really important thing," Holbrooke said, "is the African states themselves." "We've been in lengthy contact with many of our colleagues on and off the Security Council, and all of them have been very supportive while maintaining their own national positions. So we're encouraged," the U.S. Ambassador said. On the subject of Kofi Annan, Holbrooke said, "My own personal view is that the Secretary General's mandate, his authority, his role ought to be enhanced." Saying he was speaking "as a general proposition," Holbrooke said the role and influence of the UN Secretary General over the agencies of the UN "ought to be increased. "Throughout our trips to East Timor, to the Balkans and Africa," he said, "we saw endless examples of what I thought was inadequate coordination between the specialized agencies" of the United Nations. Following is the US/UN transcript: (begin transcript) Transcript of Press Briefing by the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, on December 20, 1999 at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Ambassador Holbrooke: I'm very honored that all of you have turned out for what is our first full-blown press conference in New York since I was confirmed in this job at the end of August. I'm sure you're going to want to ask about Iraq but that is really not the purpose of this press conference. It is to review what we have accomplished in the first four months -- to be more precise, the first fifteen weeks -- since the new team started arriving here and what we hope to do in the coming months. I would divide our first four months here into two parts: UN reform and policy issues. Let me start with UN reform. It was our judgement from the beginning that if we didn't get the Helms-Biden bill passed, the next year here in New York would have been very unpleasant and America's influence -- not only in the United Nations, but in all sorts of important issues -- would have been severely eroded. Therefore, as all of you know, I spent the bulk of the last four months as much in Washington as anywhere else, saw over 100 members of Congress, primarily in the House of Representatives one-on-one, and made the case as best as I could, in conjunction with President Clinton and Secretary Albright, that the United Nations is an indispensable part of American foreign policy. And in the final analysis, despite its imperfections, despite its bureaucratic failures, despite the undeniable problems which I will return to in a minute, it was important to get this behind us. I'm very pleased that the final result was as you know. And I want to stress why we got the $926 million approved by the Congress. In a nutshell, it was because President Clinton told the Congressional leadership that he would not let Congress go home until this issue was among the final ones that had to be resolved. That is to say, it was not going to drop off the radar screen at the last minute as had happened in the past. This determination combined with intense lobbying efforts had their effect. In addition, we were voted back on the ACABQ, unanimously as it turned out, or virtually unanimously. And that was an important component of the process because it demonstrated to the Congress that the United Nations members states wanted the United States to remain engaged. What lies ahead of us in the management reform area therefore is a very substantial task. We must fulfill the remaining Helms-Biden benchmarks, or conditions or circumstances -- use whatever word you wish -- in order to get the remaining money. One hundred million dollars of the $926 million was turned over to the United Nations last week in a routine transaction which we felt did not justify any kind of big ceremony or celebration because $826 million remains obligated but not dispensed. And the reason for that is that we're going to have to meet these other benchmarks. You know what they are. The two most important, because they're the most tangible, are to reduce the assessment of the United States from 25 to 22 percent and to get a zero nominal growth budget. And we will work our way through all of them. In this process I'm delighted that we have a very strong, strengthened American team. Peter Burleigh did a magnificent job here as Charge and as Deputy Perm Rep and it concluded in a most symbolic and specific fashion with him in the chair at the United Nations Security Council last Friday to cast the vote on the Iraq resolution on which he had worked so hard. He now awaits confirmation, which I hope will be soon for the important job of American Ambassador to the Philippines. And coming up to New York as our new Deputy Permanent Representative, whom all of you already know, is Jim Cunningham, my associate from the European Bureau and formerly the Deputy Political Counselor here in New York and Deputy Chief of Mission in Rome. He is one of the very few people in the U.S. government with multilateral experience at both NATO and the UN. Don Hays, the new Ambassador for Management and Reform, also worked with me in the European Bureau and in the Embassy in Bonn and is off to a very strong start. Is Don here? Guess not. Don's off somewhere twisting somebody's arm, I suspect. And his deputy Suzanne Nossel. So that, coupled with the rest of the team that you already know -- Mary Ellen Glynn, Paul Aronsohn, Derek Chollet and the other people on our team, Betty King and Nancy Soderberg -- provides us with a very strong base. The new year is going to be a year in which our top sustained priority will remain reform as we committed ourselves to during the confirmation hearings in July. Let me turn now to the policy issues while stressing always that American influence in the United Nations on any specific issue is directly related, if intangibly, to our ability to pay our obligations. Now the UN is a vast and complicated place, as I continually learn. And in the limited amount of time available to us, a very strict prioritization is going to be necessary. If we had more time, I would spend a lot more time on some of the specialized agencies and some of the issues which are in the long run more important than peacekeeping but in the short run are much harder to influence, I'm talking here about the inadequate coordination between the specialized agencies and with the Secretariat, the rather odd relationship between the Secretariat and the Security Council, the over-bureaucratization of the process, and above all, a kind of a general sense in the UN that process is what this place is all about when in fact the original intention of the founding fathers of the UN -- I regret to say there were no founding mothers -- was something quite different. And I will be addressing that continually during the next year. That is to say, we have to get ourselves focused on outcomes. And that's again where management and substance merge. And the obvious case in point is Africa. We have already said that Africa will be our focus during the United States presidency of the Security Council in January. We are going to do a lot on that and I will return to it in a minute. But let me stress that in addition to arrears and the ACABQ and the management issues, and reorganizing the Mission, we were able to make trips in the last 15 weeks to all three major peacekeeping areas in the world; the Balkans where I went to Kosovo and to Bosnia and to Brussels to talk to the people at NATO; and Indonesia and East Timor where we had an excellent visit and West Timor where we had an excellent visit with the Indonesians and with the multinational force, and we have been working very closely ever since to support that effort as we have from day one to support the efforts of Bernard Kouchner and Jacques Klein. So we have three excellent UN representatives: Bernard Kouchner in Kosovo, Jacques Klein in Sarajevo and Sergio Vieira de Mello in Dili, East Timor. And the third trip, of course, the longest and most complicated, was the trip to Africa. In the middle of that trip we made a speech in Pretoria in which I said that we would make January -- our last Security Council presidency in this administration, my first, the first in the Millennium -- the month of Africa. And I want to just tell you that our plans for that are developing rapidly but are not yet at a point where I can be overly-specific. However we will definitely hold open Security Council meetings on Burundi, another on the Democratic Republic of Congo, another on Angola, and another on Sierra Leone. We will have additional discussions, perhaps in closed forum, on other African-related issues. And in addition, we will hold a Security Council meeting on the question of AIDS in Africa, particularly southern Africa. Some people wondered why the Security Council would discuss a health issue. This is unprecedented. There has never been a Security Council meeting on a health issue. The reason is simple: in Africa, as anyone of you who has been there knows -- in southern African countries like Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and other countries, Uganda -- AIDS is far more than a health issue. It is jeopardizing the advances that these countries have made in the countries which have progressed, and it jeopardizes their economic and security situation. So we are going to make that clear by dramatizing it and that will probably be -- although the schedule is still being worked out -- that will probably be early in the month. Our focus on Congo will probably be in the latter part of the month and Angola will probably be January 19. But don't hold me to those dates -- we're still working on that. So that is the focus -- reform and peacekeeping. Peacekeeping is not -- and again I stress -- the only thing the UN does, but it is the most urgent and highest task that the UN was originally founded for, and all these regions -- the Balkans, East Timor, and Africa -- demand its attention. But right now the most urgent attention must be on conflict prevention and conflict resolution in Africa. East Timor is in surprisingly good shape right now although we remain extremely concerned about the refugees who are still being held hostage, in effect, and terrorized in the West Timorese camps. We have a cable in from the Embassy in Jakarta this morning on that problem, and it is still unresolved. There are about 75,000 refugees -- way down from when we were there about three weeks ago -- but it's still too high. Bosnia continues to make slow progress -- not as much as we want but certainly progress. Today's new from Banja Luka that the SFOR troops have captured a very high-ranking war criminal is evidence enough that we are not finished with the problems of Bosnia. We're not turning away from Bosnia. Kosovo is a very, very complicated situation that bears continual attention. But Africa is the area right now which has the greatest capacity to explode and the greatest need for our attention and that's why we will make January the month of Africa. I'll be happy to take your questions. (Inaudible question) Ambassador Holbrooke: Could everyone hear the question? Why am I concentrating on Africa at this time? Everyone has talked about Africa. The U.S. has been criticized and so on. In my confirmation hearings, I stated that Africa would be one of my three top priorities. So there is nothing new about it. But the opportunity to use January with all the symbolism -- our last Security Council presidency of this administration, the first of the Millennium -- to focus on it was just too obvious. This trip -- although I lived in North Africa for two years and I've always been interested in the issues -- this was my first deep personal involvement in the area. And it just demands attention. You know, during almost every speech I've ever made on Bosnia and Kosovo for the last four years somebody has gotten up in the audience and said, "Okay why did you do Bosnia and Kosovo but not Rwanda?" It's a very fair question. President Clinton addressed it in his dramatic apology when he visited Kigali. The UN addressed it very dramatically last week in that courageous and candid report -- one of the most remarkable pieces of self-criticism any institution has ever issued, even blunter and more brutal than the Srebrenica report in my view. And so the answer is because the problems are there, and it would be irresponsible for any policy makers to turn away from them. Erol Avdovik (Nova Bosna): Bosnia, let's go back to Bosnia. You just mentioned the arrest in Banja Luka. Mr. Ambassador, will you share your thoughts regarding why so-called big fishes are still at large? Ambassador Holbrooke: I will not share with you my thoughts on why they're at large. I find it very, very difficult. I've long taken the view that they must be brought to justice. My views on this are very well known. I wrote them in my book. My position is very clear. I'm glad that this man was picked up this morning. And I feel that it is absolutely imperative that the rest be brought to just. Richard? Richard Roth (CNN): Will the U.S. try to win Iraq's approval of the resolution and who does the U.S. favor for leading this new arms inspection unit that is being created? Ambassador Holbrooke: On the second, Richard, on the second question, the Secretary General will choose. I've been in communication with him on this, I'm not going to announce an American candidate. That wouldn't make sense. I think the qualities we're looking for are self-evident: vigorous readiness to implement in a very strong-willed manner the new sanctions regime. Celia de Lavarene (Radio France International): You said that you will focus on peacekeeping. Could you be more specific because normally when the Security Council wants to spend on peacekeeping it takes so long. Ambassador Holbrooke: Yes, I know that. I've been very troubled about that. And it's one of the reasons I've been very critical of the United Nations in regard to the Balkans. I hope that the international community - after all, the UN is a collection of its member states as you all know better than anyone - I hope that people are taking to heart the lessons of these two reports. We have a situation in Burundi that could explode, a mediator Nelson Mandela - who is probably the greatest moral authority on earth today and I hope that will produce results. We have a situation in Congo which is even more complicated than Bosnia but very similar in the sense that you have internal factions with external support, all sorts of internal by-play and the war continuing. In Angola, the war has been going on for 35 years and I don't think people can just sit back and say, "Well, it's always going to be that way" when the country is resource rich and the people are in the most desperate shape. Yet, I take your point, of course, the UN has been slow. But it isn't the question of speed that concerns me; it's the question of doing it right. In fact, some of the African nations have shown some frustration with us lately claiming we're the ones who are slowing down the peacekeeping request for Congo. As I told President Mugabe, there was some justification in that comment in the sense that we were slowing it down until we get it right. Right now the DPKO office has not yet told us exactly the size and configuration and costs of what they want to do in Congo. The U.S. pays 25% of the bill, so we have to know. We can't send a notification up to Congress which has a blank check. Right now the Lusaka signatories have not yet carried out some of their own commitments. We are very encouraged by the fact that the OAU has offered former Botswana President Masire the job of facilitator. We hope he will accept it. That will be a major step forward in the Lusaka process. Those two things - more precision from DPKO, the appointment of a facilitator - will remove two of the main reasons we delayed supporting it. We had a loud argument about this even in our own Mission in Washington and with our friends on the Security Council and in SADC and the OAU. I would submit to you that our delay up to now was appropriate in order to get these two things done. But this delay should not be compared to the failure to act in Rwanda or Bosnia. This is a different kind of situation. But your basic point is one that troubles me deeply. The UN has gone through two and a half cycles already in its post-Cold War history. In the immediate post-Cold War period, it got involved in Somalia with disastrous results, and in Bosnia, in a way where they did not have the mandate or the resources to stop the war. It was the worst thing I've ever seen. I went there as you know as a private citizen, twice, at my own expense and found it incomprehensible. And that almost killed the UN. And it took it down and that's why the Secretary General was replaced. That's the main reason that the Secretary General at the time did not get his second term. Now in the second phase, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, East Timor - there is a new willingness to give it a better effort, and the Administration is supporting that. Congo will be perhaps the most difficult test, leaving Kosovo in a special category because the troops are not UN; they are NATO, but the civilian administration is UN. But the future of the UN will be heavily determined by it getting it right in Central Africa in the coming cycle. It's going to be a formidable challenge. I don't want to leave any of you with the impression that simply learning the lessons of Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia is sufficient, because Congo presents a unique set of circumstances starting with its extraordinary size compared to the other areas. And there is the complexity of the problem and the fact that there are no roads in the country and also the previous history of the UN in the Congo, which is not a happy one. Barbara Bourst (Boston Globe) - Mr. Ambassador, what kind of support does the U.S. have from other members of the Security Council for the Africa - (inaudible). Notably, what is the response of France - (inaudible.) Ambassador Holbrooke: Did everyone hear the question? What is the response of the other members of the Security Council on Africa and our emphasis on Africa and specifically France? The French have been extraordinarily supportive. If we had had time, we would have gone through Paris. I have spent a great deal of time with Ambassador Dejammet. If you read his comments compared to mine our two open sessions last week on Africa - one on the DRC, one in general - I think you will find that Ambassador Dejammet was the most supportive imaginable. I was also very encouraged by the reaction of Ambassador Qin. And, of course, the British have shown their support by effectively doing the same thing this month by two straight,very informal sessions. Ambassador Fowler, the head of the Sanctions Committee and the Canadian Perm Rep, has been equally enthusiastic. And so has the Secretary General. And so has Salim Salim, with whom I've talked several times and who has told us he will come to New York to attend the latter part of the month. We're going to back-load the discussions on Congo. But the really important thing is the African states themselves. If you listened to the debate on Wednesday and Thursday of last week, you will have heard a recurrent theme. Everyone said - although they say it in UN speak, but all of you are well-versed in UN speak - everyone talked about the same issue -- coordination between the UN and the OAU. Every single person who spoke mentioned it. What I believe they were saying was that it ought to be better. And that is why I'm so pleased that Salim Salim will be coming to New York to participate. We're in direct contact with the Algerian government, which has the OAU presidency. We will be meeting with the SADC countries and other perm reps later in the day. I've already seen the Egyptian and Algerian perm reps this morning. We've been in lengthy contact with many of our colleagues on and off the Security Council, and all of them have been supportive while maintaining their own national positions. So we're encouraged. Jerome Godard-Godefroy (RTL French Radio): Mr. Ambassador, you mentioned that there were some problems between the Secretariat and some parts of the Security Council. Could you be more specific? Ambassador Holbrooke: Well, I'll give you an example. On November 15, we had the three Bosnian presidents here - Jelavic, Radisic, and Izetbegovic. An historic meeting, the first time they've ever come. All of you in this room know what happened. In the exact middle of that event you were summoned to a press conference to release the Srebenica report. It was completely "inprevu." We didn't know it was coming. I don't know what the English word is that is as good but that's a wonderful word. So I called up the Secretariat and said, "Why did you do that. You had a major report which we think is terrific and I praised it. It was backward-looking, but it was very important. And it was very courageous. And we had an important forward-looking event." And their answer was they didn't quite know what we were doing. And I said, "You mean the 38th floor didn't know what was happening in the Security Council chamber?" They said no. For me as a newcomer to the UN, I was sort of astonished by this. Yes, somewhere in their papers they knew that there was going to be this event. But there are four different people in this room today - maybe three, one of you isn't here - who came up to me afterwards and said that that was one of the worst press-managed events they'd ever seen. Well, we're not into press management. It's just rational. Asking each of you to be in two places at the same time to cover the same issues didn't make any sense. That's a minor league example. I use it because most of you in this room experienced it. It happens all the time. My own personal view is that the Secretary General's mandate, his authority, his role ought to be enhanced. Of course, I have the highest regard and respect for the current Secretary General, but I think as a general proposition, his role and influence over the agencies ought to be increased. Throughout our trips to East Timor, to the Balkans and Africa, we saw endless examples of what I thought was inadequate coordination between the specialized agencies. Now, each time I say this I get angry letters from people in the UNHCR or whatever. These people are very brave. My hat is off to all of the UN officials who live in such difficult circumstances as Rwanda or Kinshasa or Kigali. And they all do their job, but this idea of coordination - it's not adequate. The UNHCR in Angola - which is probably as difficult a place as there is on earth and where many UN officials have died, I want to be clear at the outset of my high respect and admiration for their courage. The UNHCR in Rwanda works with the refugees from the neighboring country. That is a few hundred thousand refugees. There are two and a half million refugees in Luanda who are called internally displaced persons. You know there isn't much difference to a person whether he or she is a refugee inside his or her native country as opposed to crossing the border. But there is a hell of a difference to the UN. This problem creates a terrible anomally. We saw the same thing in West Timor. These problems need to be addressed. The UNHCR is a great organization, and I've worked with it for over 20 years, but these issues need to be addressed. David Hirsch (NHK): Mr. Ambassador, given that you have set Africa as your top priority, could you explain what the U.S. (inaudible) the role of a stable, peaceful Africa. And the second question, with all due respect, given the fact that Republicans in the U.S. would probably not commit peacekeepers to Africa, isn't the question still why not Africa? Ambassador Holbrooke: Why not Africa? Or why Africa? Mr. Hirsch: Why not commit peacekeepers to Africa? Ambassador Holbrooke: Oh, I see. I understand your point. On the first half of your question, what was it again? Mr. Hirsch: What the U.S. and the world as a whole has to gain from a stable, peaecful Africa. Ambassador Holbrooke: I'm not sure I understand the question. Mr. Hirsch: You're focusing on Africa during your presidency and during your remaining term in the Security Council. Ambassador Holbrooke: I think you have to start by saying what are the costs right now of the current situation in Africa. Let's start with AIDS. Twenty-five to 30 percent of the population of some of the key countries in Africa is now carrying the HIV virus or has AIDS. It is being transmitted at a very high rate - perhaps as high as 50 percent - from pregnant women to children. It is so heavily stigmatized im most of the area with the exception of Senegal and Uganda that people don't admit they have the disease because they're afraid they'll lose their jobs. In Windhoek, we met with six pregnant women who have the disease. They were very brave, and they talked about it. But they came in a covered van to a room with curtains. And they told us quite frankly that if they were identified publicly they'd lose their jobs, and implicit in this was something even more frightening, which is that they hadn't told their husbands. And since it's unclear how it was transmitted, if they tell their husbands, they'll be ostracized, and they continue to carry it. In Lusaka, we went to an even more terrifying scene: an orphanage which was actually a bus depot. Hundreds and hundreds of children, because orphans are now a huge factor of the AIDS problem, who were trying to get help, but 80 to 90 percent of them would be put out on the street that night where they would be vulnerable to either spreading the disease or receiving it. People don't want to get tested. Now, you want to ask what that has to do with the United States. If it keeps going, it is going to spread back into the rest of the world. You can't quarantine a continent. Even if you could, it would be immoral and completely antithetical to the responsibilities of the rest of the world. But even if you wanted to commit triage on a great continent, you couldn't. Meanwhile, the resources of that continent are self-evident: Gold, diamonds, timber, uranium. This has been going on for a long time. And the outside world can't continue to simply extract the resources and leave the people impoverished. And in some areas, it's getting worse. Now, I want to stress not all of the continent is going into a negative direction. While we were in the region two countries, Namibia and Mozambique, had good, democratic elections. Events in Negeria, the largest country by population, in the last year have been very heartening. We were in Mali where we had wonderful talks with the new president of Mali. We went to Niger to see the new president-elect of Niger. Everywhere there are democracies. And that democracy should be strengthened and reinforced. As for the wars, I want to make another, to me, fundamental point. The international community always ends up dealing with the consequences of these wars through the UNHCR through WHO, through the World Food Program. It is imperative that we deal not simply with the consequences, which end up costing the international community hundreds of millions of dollars. We also need to deal with the causes of the wars. And that's what the Security Council was designed for. Final point on American peacekeepers: Every country in the region said they did not want "American boots on the ground,"as the Pentagon would call them. What they wanted was American resources, American commitment, American political leadership and involvement. But nobody asked for American troops. Linda Fasulo (NBC News): Ambassador, turning to another international threat, that of terrorism, how concerned are you about foreign terrorists possibly planning attacks here in the U.S.? Is there anything that can be done diplomatically, perhaps cooperation with the foreign intelligence agencies or groups? Ambassador Holbrooke: Our security officers here at the US-UN, the UN security officers and the people in Washington who have been speaking out on this issue over the weekend have all been in constant, detailed touch. I myself don't spend much of my own time on this issue. I'm not a professional. We have a very good professional team in which I have great confidence. Our concern is serious, and Sandy Berger expressed that for all of us yesterday. Questioner unknown: Ambassador, on the U.S.-UN relationship, I wonder how relieved were you personally when you realized that compromise was going to to through Congress. Do you think this marks a new start for what has been a jaundiced relationship...(inaudible)? Ambassador Holbrooke: I was very relieved. Because we faced - at the time we started this job around Labor Day - we all sat down, Mary Ellen, myself, my team over there - we all sat down and said we faced two scenarios for the rest of this administration. With the money and without the money. If we didn't get the money, if it was a repeat of the previous two years, we were going to survive but it would have been a pretty miserable existence. This changes everything. The Ambassadors I've been with in the last few weeks have all said the same thing: "We're going to now work with you." Pick any ten perm reps from the major countries, not just the Security Council countries but the important countries of Africa, East Asia, the Arab world, Latin America. Ask them whether or not the mood has changed. We feed it has, and I think relief is just the right word. We're not celebrating because we still have to go through the benchmarks, and there is still a very significant contested difference between what the UN says we owe them and the $926 million. But it's a terrain-changing event to actually have $926 million available and it allows us to work again with the other member states of this organization, and as I've said many times if you think its embarrassing or annoying to have this debt, imagine what it is to be representing the United States in this situation. So we were very pleased. Richard Grayson (Transworld News): Mr. Ambassador you seem to feel quite strongly about bringing war criminals to justice. I'm just wondering why if you and the Administration feel so strongly, why aren't more of these criminals living quite openly in the American sector being picked up? Ambassador Holbrooke: That's a very good question. Yes? Sema Emiroglu Soper (CNN Turkey): Ambassador, do you see any progress that's been made at the last round of Cyprus talks and is Cyprus still one of your priorities? Ambassador Holbrooke: Well, I committed myself during the confirmation hearings to remain heavily involved. There were some requests that I stay as the Special Envoy. It was my view and Secretary Albright's that that issue was so time-consuming that you couldn't do it and this job at the same time. We selected - Secretary Albright and I selected Al Moses, our former Ambassador to Romania, to take my place. Al was in New York most of the week of the talks with us. I talked to him regularly. I'm glad that the first round of talks agreed to a second round. I'm particularly glad that at Helsinki the European Union undid its unfortunate Luxembourg communique, which so grievously set back the cause of stability and progress in the whole region. If I said I was hopeful, I would be denying the history of the last 25 years. But I think it's encouraging that there will be a second round and that the Secretary General and Ambassador Moses and President Clerides and Mr. Denktash and company will continue to talk to each other. And I will remain involved, you can bet on that. But since those talks will be at exactly the same time as our pressure in Congo will be going on and they're going to be in Geneva, I'll just keep in touch with Al by phone and watch them carefully and focus more on Africa. Barbara? Barbara Crossette (New York Times): The lessons of Rwanda and Srebrenica which you said the international community should learn from these reports. What about what the United States needs to learn from the reports as well because although getting it right is in general...(inaudible) there are also clear indications in the Security Council during this week...(inaudible) unfortunately in the Security Council, maybe even the UN as a whole, nothing happens. And then later on the U.S. can then hold the UN responsible when in fact the U.S. had delayed the operation, you know what I mean. So what about American leadership on some of these big issues? Ambassador Holbrooke: I completely agree with the premise of your question and that's the month of Africa. It's not just a gimic, although Nancy Soderberg likes to say that Africa gets 60 percent of the attention anyway. I'm not ready to go into what we're going to do yet because we're just starting to formulate it. But at least speaking for myself, the lesson for Srebrenica which I wrote in my book marked the collapse of the international system. The energy had gone out of the system after Srebrenica. And Rwanda is an even sadder story - there never was any energy to begin with. The lessons are self-evident. Once President Clinton stated publicly that he did not wish to have that happen again - that dramatic statement was more than rhetoric. It is a guiding mantra for us going forward in similar situations. Now if you're asking about the specific application of this generalization to --I don't know whether you're talking about Burundi, the Congo, or Ethiopia-Eritrea or just in general. Ms. Crossette: (inaudible)...and also bring in Congress. Ambassador Holbrooke: I'm glad you mentioned Congress because I left out of my opening remark a key aspect of the first fifteen weeks. I should have said this at the outset. We have hosted in New York six or seven senators and about 30 members of the House already in addition to the people I called on in Washington. Most remarkably, Senator Helms in going to hold what we believe is the first Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing here in New York next month on January 21. Senator Biden and he will chair it. They will call witnesses just as they do in Washington. Other committees have held hearings outside Washington for many years, but the Foreign Relations Committee as far as we can tell has not. And all of that, Barbara, goes to your point about the Congress. Perhaps we didn't do a good enough job in bringing Congress aboard on policy in the past. To some extent, it is inevitable that there is going to be friction between the two branches particularly when they're going to be controlled by different parties. But the more coordination the better, and we have to bring them on board. Questioner unknown: Mr. Ambassador, I'd like to ask about Jesse Helms and the Security Council. His spokesman said last wee that he would address members of the Security Council? Can you tell us how that's going to work? Ambassador Holbrooke: That's correct. Well, we'll work out the details. It will happen. Caroliue Imlau (ARD/German TV correspondent): (inaudible)...how important are the United Nations still to resolve the conflicts sin the world? The second question: How much does the United States rule the United Nations? Ambassador Holbrooke: The United States does not rule (laughter). We don't rule the United Nations although some of our colleagues in the Congress think that we should. That's not what the UN is designed to do. But we must lead in the United Nations, and that's why the Helms-Biden reform package is so important. It enables us to remove a problem in which was weakening us. The first part of your question? (inaudible) Ambassador Holbrooke: Well, last year, this year that's coming to an end now, sends a mixed message on the role of the UN, doesn't it? In Kosovo, it was military action by NATO without UN prior approval, but the UN de facto approved it...(tape changed). The UN is running Kosovo now. And in East Timor, you have a much more dramatic example of the UN itself fixing the problem. Many people, myself included, think the UN should have done more in the past, but when the crunch came, the Security Council system actually worked in this case. The system worked. The delegation sent by the Security Council, headed by Ambassador Andjaba of Namabia did a superb job. No question about it - it affected the Indonesian decision dramatically. Now, as we saw first-hand three weeks ago, they are on their way to becoming the first new sovereign state of the 21st century. And this will happen. There is by the way, an interesting debate going on in East Timor and elsewhere about when it should happen, whether it's sooner or later, but it will happen. And it's a success for the UN. That's why I said earlier in answer to a question over here about the three phases of the post-cold war world and peacekeeping. Ian Williams (The Nation): There's a contender for East Timor as a possible first nation state. There's the Palestine Administration. This is something you've managed to avoid so far. I know you were busily engaged in trying to get Israel into the West European group and the United Nations General Assembly has just passed its usual string of resolutions condemning Israeli behavior. Do you think you'll be involved at all in the final status solution? Ambassador Holbrooke: I don't expect to be personally, deeply involved in that issue. That's for Dennis Ross and the Secretary of State, the President, Sandy Berger. They've been doing it, and our role here is to try to drag the United Nations slowly into the present tense. The UN for peculiar reasons, which are almost cultural-institutional, the UN as an institution seems to lag behind the reality on these issues. Hence, the resolutions you just referred to and hence, the failure of Israel to join the WLOG, which is a genuine and bitter disappointment to Secretary of State Albright and me. It is wrong. The failure to admit them so far is not something that Madeleine and I are going to take passively. I have told the European Union Ambassadors that they will be hearing from Secretary Albright and me every week if not every day on this issue all through next year. I can assure you, we're not going to let go of this issue. Column Lynch (Washington Post): Ambassador, are you likely to have an agreement in the next couple of days on the zero growth budget and on the AIDS issue? Is it primarily a public awareness event or is the Council likely to do anything specific? Ambassador Holbrooke: I would say on the AIDS question, Column, it is more the latter. It's so unprecedented just to have an issue which appears ostensibly a health issue on a Security Council agenda that I think that's about as far as we could possibly go. But we will try to make it more than a routine meeting. We're working on the plans now. On the first issue, on zero nominal growth, I would rather have another day or two to figure out where we are. This is a tough issue and I'm not prepared to say that we're where we want to be yet. David Hirsch (NHK): On U.S. arrears, you started off with, how do you expect the other member states who might have to pick up...(inaudible) specifically perhaps Japan...(inaudible). Ambassador Holbrooke: Let me be clear that the amount of money we're talking about here is $38 million a year to be redistributed over the member states of the UN. Thirty-eight million dollars. The last assessment scale adjustment was in 1972. Fifty-six new nations have joined the UN since then. Fifty-six. Some nations have gotten richer on the oil boom. Some nations have gotten poorer. There are other nations that also want to change the scale of assessment. Some nations have told us privately already that as part of a package they will increase their contributions. Other nations have said that they would like to reduce. We are calling for general revision not simply a diktat from Washington. Finally, in reference to Japan, the Japanese pay an enormous amount of money to the UN. All Americans who understand the situation should be aware of the role Japan plays in making the UN function. It is my good fortune that the Japanese permanent representative in New York at this time, Ambassador Yukio Satoh, is my oldest and closest colleague in the Gaimusho. And therefore he and I spend a great deal of time privately talking about this. The Japanese also are making significant voluntary contributions in many places in the world notably East Timor. We're grateful to Japan. We think Japan and Germany should be permanent members of the Security Council, as you all know. That is a position I first personally stated in 1978 when I was Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs, and I'm happy to restate today, again, I do not think Japan should always be the country that all of us always go to, to write the additional check because their generosity which is insufficiently recognized by most of the world needs to be stated. The actual details of our discussions with the Japanese - I've met with several delegations from the Diet in the last three months - are something that we'll work out. I will be seeing Ambassador Satoh in the next day or so as a matter of fact. Questioner unknown: (inaudible) Ambassador Holbrooke: I just said Japan and Germany. (end transcript) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)
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