New York, NY - February 1, 2005

The oil barrel is power and power cows numbers and individuals. When
we
talk numbers, we think of the voting in the UN General Assembly, and
when we
think of individuals, we think of oil vouchers and potential monetary
gains.
All this is a lot of I.O.U.s held by UN members in their dealings with
the
UN bureaucracy. The most hot topic is obviously the Oil-for-Food Iraqi
oil
scheme. Also seemingly the finances of the aid to Palestinians, and
the
runaway funds that beg for an honest explanation. The Gilded Oil
Barrel may
be sitting in a glass building, but refuses attempts at transparency.
Is that news? We doubt it. But then this past week something really
new
happened at the UN and above scenery got lit up from a really new
angle.

US Congressman Tom Lantos, from California, and Holocaust Survivor from
Hungary, who once lived with an aunt in a Wallenberg safe house in
Budapest,
thought that the 60-th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz
death-camp should not go by unnoticed at the UN. Congressman Lantos, in
1944, thanks to his “Aryan” coloring (blond hair and blue eyes) was
able to
move around Budapest, in a military cadet’s uniform, delivering bread
or
medicine to other safe houses. He never saw Raoul Wallenberg, the
Swedish
businessman-turned-diplomat, who became his savior, his inspiration,
and
example for human conduct. Those less fortunate then Mr. Lantos ended
up in
the Auschwitz death-camp. After becoming U.S. Congressman, Tom Lantos
introduced legislation to make Wallenberg an honorary citizen of the
United
States. The wife of UN Secretary General, Mrs. Nane Annan, is the
niece of
Mr. Wallenberg, and Congressman Lantos was always a backer of an
effective,
reconstructed, Unite Nations, and he is in good relations with Mr.
Annan.

The Russian Federation, the heir to the Soviet Union, is proud that
Soviet
soldiers stumbled on January 27, 1944 upon the Auschwitz death-camp and
put
an end to its extermination activities. In effect, the Russian
Ambassador
to the UN said that January 27, 1944, the freeing of the last 7,000
inmates
of Auschwitz, should be viewed as the day that started rolling the
moves
that gave us now a democratized, free, united, Europe. The exact quote
of
the January 18, 2005 Russian Federation Press Release, the date of the
liberation of the Budapest ghetto, says: “The Soviet soldiers who made
a
decisive contribution to the defeat of fascism, rid the Central and
East
European peoples of the brownshirt plague and brought people freedom
and
peace. It was then that the process of the creation of a united,
democratic
and prosperous Europe commenced”. Russia immediately joined the United
States in starting the ball rolling - the request for a UN General
Assembly
Special Session (an UNGASS) as a memorial to the 60-th anniversary of
the
liberation of Auschwitz and the other Nazi camps in Europe.

All European states joined, so did the other decent states of the
Western
Europe and Other States Group at the UN (the WEAG in UN language).
When
Mr. Annan was approached mid-December, there were 30 proponents on
record,
and Mr. Annan, in a specially called Press Conference on January 19,
2005,
with representatives from Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, the
Russian Federation, the United States, and Luxembourg, that holds now
the
European Union Presidency, and speaks for all 25 member states,
announced
officially the holding of the 28-th UNGASS for Monday January 25,
2005.
That date was picked, rather then the actual date of January 27, in
order to
avoid conflict with the celebration at Auschwitz proper.

The Secretary General said on January 19, 2005: “For the United
Nations,
the special session will have profound significance for several
reasons.”

“First because the founding of this Organization was a direct response
to
the Holocaust. Our Charter, and the words ‘untold sorrow’, were
written as
the world was learning the full horror of the death camps.”

“Second, it is essential for all of us to remember, reflect on, and
learn
from, what happened sixty years ago. The evil that destroyed six
million
Jews, and others, in those camps is one that still threatens all of us
today. It is not something we can cosign to the distant past, and
forget
about it. Every generation must be on its guard, to make sure that
such a
thing never happens again. As survivors dwindle in number, and
yesterday I
met three of them, it falls to succeeding generations - to us - to
carry
forward the work of remembrance.”

“Third, this session should also be seen as an expression of our
commitment
to build a United Nations that can respond quickly and effectively to
genocide and other serious violations of human rights. Of course, that
work
is still far from complete.”

To understand what six million people is like, an American school, in a
valley without any Jews, decided to teach diversity by collecting six
million paper clips; the chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations
of
the Commonwealth, in The Daily Telegraph, used as yard stick for what
changed our world, the number of victims of the September 11, 2001
massacre,
when 3,000 people died. Rabbi Sacks said that “DURING THE SHOAH, on
average, 3,000 JEWS WERE KILLED EVERY DAY FOR FIVE-AND-A-HALF YEARS.”
This
means one 9-11 every single day for five-and-a-half years, men, women,
and
children - systematically - gassed, burned, and starved to death.

The fact that since Hitler’s and his helpers’ genocide against the Jews
is
old story, the fact that since those days, and with the UN at hand,
there
have been at least three more full fledged acts of genocide - in
Cambodia,
in Rwanda, in the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegowina and Kosovo),
and
that killings are going on right now in Darfur, Sudan, and that some
may use
for these actions the gentleman term ethnic cleansing, is also known -
that
the UN has done practically nothing to stop this is also a simple deja
vue.
That anti-Semitism is state sanctioned in member states of these United
Nations is also known - there are plenty of school books used to
educate
next generation of haters and there are plenty of articles in official
newspapers to attest to the fact that this activity is sanctioned by
quite a
few totalitarian governments bent on turning the clock backwards, and
that
the UN has not had yet the courage to step on the toes of sovereign
leaders
and tell them that their behavior contradicts the UN Charter, is also
known.
That some try to talk about activities that contradict the UN Charter
as
Cultural differences between the member states, and that UN officials
blindly bow to these arguments, is also known. Even in otherwise
advanced
states there are lately renewed cases of acknowledged anti-Semitic
activity. All this is known.

If the horrors of the Holocaust were an inspiration for the creation of
the
United Nations, how is it that there was no commemoration at the UN of
the
10-th, 20-th, 30-th, 40-th, 50-th memorials to the end of those
monstrous
events against the Jewish people? Why did we have to wait until we
have
only a few people that were left to tell about their experiences as
victims
or liberators in the 1944-1945 years? Can we indeed say that the UN is
entitled to our admiration for having done the right thing half a
century
too late? What about the fact that just last year - June 2004 - the UN
General Assembly could not pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism
because of the objection of the Arab states, and most of the Islamic
states?
What about the 2001 Durban UN sanctioned festivities favoring
anti-Semitism
and racism that caused a walk out by the US and Israeli delegations?
Yes, all this is not news, and let us look now into what were the real
news
of the 28-th UNGASS.

The official “UN Daily News”, reporting about Monday, 24 January 2005,
at
the larger UN Organization, starts: “With everlasting regret for the
past
and ‘never again’ resolve for the future, the United Nations today
commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death
camps,
symbol of the Holocaust that slaughtered at least 6 million Jews and
others
in World War II”.

Then - “It is, above all, a day to remember not only the victims of
past
horrors, whom the world abandoned, but also the potential victims of
present
and future ones, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the 191-member
General
Assembly during its first ever special commemorative session, noting
that
the United Nations itself was born out of the ashes of the Holocaust”.

Very good statements on the part of the Sectretary-General, but where
were
the 191 delegations? I was there, and what I saw looking down from the
fourth floor - the Press balcony - was a largely empty hall.
True, many delegations had six chairs occupied at quite high level of
representation, including the Speaker of the Italian Senate, the Deputy
Federal Chancellor of Germany, the Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg,
the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, the State Secretary in the Office
of
the Federal Chancellor of Austria, eight Foreign Ministers, two Deputy
Foreign Ministers, several Secretaries of State, Special
Representatives of
Heads of State, many Ambassadors, but many more had just one symbolic
representative, mostly at low level, and, horror, a lot of delegations
did
not show up at all. When the question about these empty seats was
brought
up before the spokesman for the Secretary-General, the answer was that
the
UN does not keep records of attendance. Then, how does the official
report
to the press mention the UN totality of 191? Is this a recognition
that the
Secretary-General accepts the fact that he must sometimes speak to
empty
seats? This is real news ! More on this later, but let us start
rather by
following first the positive side of the meeting.

The meeting was opened with a statement by the General Assembly
President
and a minute of silence, then the statement by the Secretary-General.

The General Assembly President, Foreign Minister Jean Ping of Gabon,
said
that there could be no more timely moment to hold the session than at a
time
when the Organization was embarking on an intensive reform process,
designed
to better prepare it to cope with the plethora of challenges and
threats to
collective security confronting the world today. There was a moral
obligation to act unconditionally to preserve what had been called the
“duty
of memory” regarding one of the most appalling crimes in the history of
mankind. That duty must also carry forward to the future.

Mr. Kofi Annan said that “the camps were not mere concentration camps.
Let
us not use the euphemism of those who built them. Their purpose was not
to
‘concentrate’ a group in one place, so as to keep an eye on them. It
was to
exterminate an entire people.” Also others were killed, he said “but
the
tragedy of the Jewish people was unique. Two thirds of all Europe’s
Jews,
including one and a half million children, were murdered. An entire
civilization, which had contributed far beyond its numbers to the
cultural
and intellectual riches of Europe and the world, was uprooted;
destroyed;
laid waste.”

The Secretary-General was followed to the podium by Mr. Elie Wiesel, a
Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. His
presentation
before the General Assembly had no precedent - he was the first speaker
ever
who did not represent any government, neither does he represent a UN
institution or a UN affiliate - if you wish so, you may say that he
represented there the human conscience. Perhaps the first time in the
history of the United Nations that a representative of “WE THE PEOPLES”
- as
in the Charter of the United Nations. Let’s face it, “we the peoples”
has
long changed to “WE THE RULERS” and some of these rulers wish no part
of
the post - Holocaust ideals that created the UN. About this more later
on.
Here only the comment that the official program of the meeting had an
item
“Procedural business to permit statement by Dr. Wiesel.” The
unprecedented
appearance had to obtain permission and this is thus news!

Mr. Wiesel said that not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were
victims.
He described the camps as places where killers came to kill and victims
came
to die. Then, moving on to what goes on today, he said that those who
today
preached and practiced the cult of death - suicide terrorism - the
scourge
of the new terrorism - must be tried for their crimes against humanity.
“The past is the present, but the future is still in our hands, yours
as
well as mine”. The world must be engaged, and it must reject
indifference
as an option. “Would the world ever learn?”

The Holocaust survivor was followed to the podium by former UN
Under-Secretary-General, Sir Brian Urquhart, who as a young enlisted
man in
the British Army was one of the first liberators to enter the
Bergen-Belsen
extermination camp. He, like Mr. Wiesel, pointed out that since the
liberation of the Nazi camps, despite the plea of “never again” uttered
by
the Nazi victims, the UN allowed three more acts of genocide. Sir
Brian’s
appearance was not announced in the program. I assume that since he is
a
former very high level UN official, though not representing now a
government, his appearance could simply come about sort of
under-the-rug and
this seems quite OK.

Now was the time for what the UN calls “General Debate”, and 41 country
representatives, plus the Holy See, took to the podium. From this
material
I will pick only several presentations from very different corners of
the
world.

The Korean representative said that he recalled that the revelations
that
emerged following the liberation of the concentration camps,
dovetailing
with the end of the war, had not only led to the creation of the United
Nations, but also to the elaboration of international human rights
covenants
and treaties, chiefly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Unfortunately, the end of the Nazi camps did not mark the end of
genocide,
and recent tragedies reinforced the need for global actors to redouble
their
efforts to build a reliable and efficient system of collective
security.

The Benin representative, who was not on the original program, and was
thus
a late addition to the speakers’ list, said that Nazism was a
rejection of
those inalienable principles on which modern society was based: respect
for
life; the equality of individuals and peoples; and their right for
self-determination, regardless of gender, race, language or religion.
The
key was the advancement of human dignity…. All Member States shared
the
duty to do everything possible to prevent a re-emergence of hateful
ideologies and regimes inspired by racism and anti-Semitism. The world
must
remain vigilant to ensure the failure of tyranny and all forms of
barbaric
behavior…. Today’s session was an opportunity to reflect on the past
and
renew the commitment to act to prevent further assaults on human
dignity.

Immediately after Benin, and also not on the original list, spoke the
Rwanda
representative. He said that the United Nations had been formed to
ensure,
among other things, that the world never experienced the kind of
horrors the
Nazis inflicted upon the Jewish people across Europe. Indeed, the
Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, both adopted in 1948, had
recognized
that “the inherent dignity of the equal and inalienable rights of all
members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and
peace
in the world.” But despite those international expressions of
solidarity,
the world was to be reminded of the odious crime of genocide in 1994,
when
more than 1 million people were slaughtered in Rwanda over a
three-month
period.

Alpha Ibrahima Stoed, Minister of State, Special Envoy of Guinea,
speaking
on behalf of the Group of African States, said that the extermination
of six
million Jews during the Holocaust would continue to weigh heavily on
the
conscience of mankind. The African Group hoped that the special
session
would serve as a framework for more intensive thinking on ways to draw
lessons from the Holocaust, as well as to address genocide, human
rights
abuses, and racial discrimination.

The China Representative said that China has profound sympathy for the
suffering of the Jewish people and others in the Second World War. He
thought to remind us that China lost 35 million casualties at the hands
of
the militarists and that in his opinion the militarists took no second
seat
to the Nazis.

Marcello Pera, Speaker of the Senate of Italy, declared that it was an
obligation to understand how it was possible that Europe, at the peak
of its
civilization, could commit such a crime. How could “Nazi Germany,
Fascist
Italy, collaborationist France, and others”, become responsible - in
different ways and to different extents - for such immense massacres?

Franz Morak, State Secretary, Office of the Federal Chancellor of
Austria,
said that Auschwitz today stood for the disastrous consequences of
tyranny
and contempt for the value and dignity of human life. Memorials were
important, but education was a more powerful tool. Young people must
be
taught that no country, no society, could achieve any progress or
development without respect for human rights and for the dignity of the
individual. That was the lesson and legacy of Auschwitz, It took
Austria a
long time to grasp the complexities of its own history and to
understand
that it was not just a victim of the Nazi regime, but that Austrians
were
also among the perpetrators; many had supported, or at least
acquiesced, in
the persecution.

The Romanian representative said that as the tragedy of the Holocaust
unfolded, a pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic Iron Guard legionaire movement
evolved subjecting the Jews to hideous crimes. Jews were deported to a
territory between the Dniester and the Bug rivers that was under
Romanian
occupation. To understand now what has happened then, the Government
had
assigned the task of disclosing the relevant facts to a national
committee
chaired by Mr. Elie Wiesel. The report would set the basis for any
future
investigation of that horrendous phenomenon and disseminate information
about it to the younger generations. Romania is committed to come to
terms
with its past and to establish a record of international cooperation in
researching the Holocaust.

Vartan Oskanian, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Armenia, said that
just as
after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the horror of so many dead
had
caused some politicians to remark that “We are all Americans”, memories
of
the Holocaust should evoke a similar refrain - “We are all Jews.”

The United States and the United Kingdom had both Jewish
representatives to
the UNGASS - both have lost large parts of their families to the Nazi
monsters. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Lord
Janner
of Braunstone, the Queen’s Council, both made it crystal clear that
neutrality in the face of evil is sin, and telling what has happened is
a
must.

Further, besides Guinea that spoke for the African Group, in UN
fashion,
other blocs represented were: Luxembourg that spoke for all of the
European
Union, and Portugal spoke for all of the Western Europe and Other
States
Group (WEAG), and Bulgaria for all of the former Eastern bloc. Also,
Honduras spoke, it can be assumed, for a large part of the Latin
America and
Caribbean Group, and Afghanistan spoke, it can be assumed, for part of
the
Asian Group.

The only Arab country that spoke was Jordan, further Islamic states,
besides
Afghanistan, that spoke, were - Bosnia and Turkey who aspire to Europe,
and
Central Asian, and former Soviet Republic, Tajikistan.

African Tanzania declared their “firm support for the State of Israel
and
all its Jewish people” and added their “unflinching support for justice
and
statehood for the people of Palestine”; Jordan did not mention the
Palestinians by name but it was quite clear what was meant - in effect,
His
Royal Highness Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, in his excellent
English,
sounded like the advocate for the Arabs that avoided the meeting. The
most
astonishing remarks he made were left out from the official UN General
Assembly Press Release GA/10330.

His Royal Highness said after talking of the Nazi atrocities: ” …
doubts
will always exist about our essential nature; and its stability, doubts
which will not likely be removed unless we succeed in making genocide,
aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, unthinkable by the
end
of this first quarter century”. Did the gentleman mean that what was
outlawed already in 1948 should continue by his grace until 2025?

Also, in his last paragraph, seemingly the clencher of His Highnesses
arguments:
“And what sense can we make of this important commemoration, when we
allow
through our inaction, year after year, one people to dominate another,
to
deny the latter many of its most basic rights and so, with the passage
of
time, also degrade it as a people. Mr. President, Surely our task
must
be, if we are to commemorate the victims of the terrible events that
shaped
the Holocaust, with policies fitting to their memory: policies that do
not
promote or tolerate even further injustice, we must see ourselves able
to
find once again the cooperative spirit that emboldened the world’s
leaders
in 1945 to establish the United Nations - that very antithesis of
chauvinistic nationalism - and to set about affirming the centrality of
justice in the search for a lasting global peace.”

Above statements, by His Royal Highness, were a disgrace to the
otherwise
memorable gathering. Those statements came from the descendent of the
Hashemite king who denied the Palestinians their statehood in the first
place, back then in 1948, a most crucial year in UN history - when the
Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on Genocide were
approved,
a year when three important states, India, Pakistan and Israel were
born - a
year of hope, that must also be remembered for the stillbirth of
Palestine,
as caused by the Arabs themselves. Was the intention of the Jordanian
speaker to use the memory of real martyrs of the Holocaust in order to
whitewash the fake, and misguided, so called martyrs, and real
murderous
suicide bombers, that the oil money is supporting in their craziness
right
now, and yes, in obvious anti-Semitism?

Is the fact that these statements were not summarized in the official
Press
Release a sign that someone up there disagreed with these remarks, or a
sign
of plain cover up of the kind of - don’t show your dirty linen in
public?
Let us not forget that this was the only statement at the UNGASS by an
Arab
member state of these United Nations, and that is real news !

Side events to the 28th UNGASS included an official breakfast for
Holocaust
survivors and dignitaries hosted by the Secretary-General, a panel
hosted
by an NGO - B’nai Brith International (”First Time UN Acknowledges
Holocaust
and Liberation of Camps”), and the opening by the Secretary-General
and the
Israeli Ambassador of an exhibition “Auschwitz - the Depth of the
Abyss”
organized by the Jerusalem Yad V’Schem with photographic records of the
extermination process made by the Germans and paintings of life in the
camps
made by a Russian prisoner.
The following day there was a short movie showing the six million paper
clips school project, and a panel organized by the US Mission to the UN
with
the Washington DC Holocaust Museum, a WWII veteran and Dachau
liberator, and
the Director of the German Information Agency.

Up to this point we were able to see the positive side of the
presentations
at the 28-th UNGASS, this with the exception of the undercover
introduction
of the Palestinian issue by Jordan, the only Arab state that presented
an
argument. Now we will return to the negative aspects at the UN - the
game
of numbers.

At the beginning we had a quote about the 191 figure - supposedly the
number
of UN Member States that were supposed to listen to the
Secretary-General’s
presentation on that Monday. Now we will try to understand how the
original
30 proponents of the UNGASS were able to get the needed majority in
order to
have the meeting. By UN procedural law, decisions at the General
Assembly
have to be achieved by consensus - this is how only the blandest, and
an
obviously lowest common denominator text, could ever obtain unanimity
in
order to be accepted.

An emergency system exists in the procedural law in order to be able to
discuss an issue, this even without being able to obtain a resolution.
Thus
the possibility to call for a Special Session of the General Assembly,
or an
UNGASS, by a simple majority. With a 191 membership, a simple majority
is
now 96. So how did we get from 30 to 96 ? The answer, as given by
the
Secretariat, is that the Secretariat canvassed in writing the Member
States
and is in the possession of written replies - the total number of
positive
replies has become anybody’s guessing game - at the UN we heard figures
that
range between 110 and 150. According to B’nai Brith International,
the
Jewish service organization, they have reached out for the support to
150
countries and “more than 110 have signed by end of last week” (The
Jewish
Week, January 21, 2005).

Warren Hoge, based on a Monday, January 24, 2005, UN official Press
Conference, wrote in the New York Times of Tuesday, January 25, 2004:
“Djibril Diallo, a General Assembly spokesman, said 150 of the 191
nations
had agreed to the session, including some in the Arab and Muslim world,
although the list of who they were was kept confidential.”
I found that note extremely disturbing and made it my business to go to
the
Tuesday January 25, 2005 Press Conference in order to raise the
question of
transparency; in fact I went even further and I demanded to get at
least the
list of the required 96 country names that had to be made public in
order to
justify the legality of the 28th UNGASS.

Mr. Diallo gave me the official Press Release that was the base for his
quoting the 150 figure. UN Department of Public Information, Note to
Correspondents No. 5913/Rev.1 of 20 January 2005 says: “With the
support of
150 Member States, the General Assembly will convene a special session
on
Monday, 24 January, to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the
liberation of the Nazi death-camps - the first event of its kind.” He
told
me that no further material was provided to him and that I should
continue
to address my question to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Mr. Frederic Eckhard showed full understanding to my request for
information
and, in my presence, made a phone call to try to obtain this
information.
He came later back to me, by phone, to say that the General Assembly
believes that because of the fact that the countries were not told that
their position will be made public, it is up to the country delegations
to
decide if the content of their written answer to the President of the
General Assembly should be made public. Mr. Eckhard then told me that
the
present situation has prompted the thought that the President of the
General
Assembly will raise the question to the Governments, that in the future
such
written canvassing requests, for the countries, for their opinion
about the
holding of an UNGASS, should include a note that the information in
their
reply will be made public. I told the Spokesman that considering the
agreement for such a step falls under the unanimity rule of the General
Assembly, it is quite obvious that even if such a step were to be
taken, it
would result in a wild goose chase and that THIS IS REAL NEWS !

So, we are now in the position that we have a choice between believing
that
the Secretariat went out on a limb and held a positive meeting without
having the required number of countries agreeing to that meeting. Not
being
presented with figures, and not having an attendance list, but judging
from
the number of speakers, and the number of countries represented at the
actual meeting - this proposition can not be brushed aside. Also,
having a
single, low level, representative present at the time of the meeting
is no
sign that the country did indeed co-sign the holding of that meeting.
As
evidence to this - please regard the pro-forma request by the Palestine
Observer Mission to be seated at the UNGASS. This is a permanent
request,
it is not sure they were in the room, but they surely insist, out of
principle, to be part of everything that goes on in that room.

The alternative is that if indeed the Secretariat holds 150 supporting
letters, means that at least 41 countries did not support the memorial
for
the Holocaust. In this case we are being faced with a cover-up of the
identity of the countries that do not believe that the cause of the
Holocaust is an honest cause; after all public material on denying the
Holocaust, in its totality, or in its figures, is being distributed by
government agencies in countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and
Egypt.
To back up this statement we will mention here a couple of examples:
“The Lie About The Burning of the Jews”, June 24, 2004 in Egypt’s
ruling
party’s newspaper, the National Democratic Party; “The Big Lie Of The
Alleged Holocaust”, December 18, 2004, with a sequel December 29, 2004,
in
Iran’s official Mehr News Agency reports; or such inflammatory
statements
as made by Saudi Sheik Abdel Bin Ahmad Banama in a Jeddah Mosque on
October
22, 2000, or The Mufti of Jerusalem, Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque, who in
an
interview to the Italian La Republica, March 24, 2000, stated - “Six
million
Jews dead? No way.. Let’s stop with this fairytale”. This list of
countries
involved in such rather official statements is much larger, and at
times
included Libya, Malaysia, Indonesia, and many others; getting to 41
countries belonging to the list of official Holocaust deniers - active
or
influenced by others - could not surprise me. But what is the real
number?
To be fair, I must say that here in New York, on January 14, 2005, at
the
American Iranian Council, I heard Iran Ambassador to the United Nations
distance himself from above mentioned material published in the
official
Iranian press - I am thus indeed anxious to know what were the
Ambassador
and his country’s positions regarding the 28th UNGASS.

If we could think that a number of country representations are so poor
that
they did not read their mail, one could have expected the Secretariat
to
phone them and remind them to answer - after all holding an UNGASS is a
serious responsibility for the UN Organization. Is it a coincidence
that
many of these countries belong to the Organization of Arab Oil
Exporting
Countries (OAPEC) and to the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) ?
Now the news here is that those countries should not belong to this
Organization as they are not bound to the goals that established the
United
Nations - just read the Secretary-General’s presentations, and others,
at
this UNGASS. Further, the UN Secretariat that sets the rules has to be
reformed, because it is totally unacceptable that concepts of
transparency
are foreign to the heads of the Organization, and to its bureaucracy.
Is
this news? Do we accept this as the evil that has to go with the good?

Not having been presented with an official list, and not wanting to
name
countries, being afraid I make a mistake, by what I saw myself in the
hall,
I had to search written material for reference. The Jewish Week,
January
21, 2004 writes quoting David Harris, Executive Director of the
American
Jewish Committee, who would be a very good source of such information:
“Wouldn’t it be a remarkably constructive step if other countries
beside the
111 on record, put aside politics as usual, and joined in with the
majority,
to mark this solemn occasion? But while several Arab and Muslim
countries
are sponsors, including Pakistan, Bosnia, Bangladesh, Oman, Morocco,
none of
Israel’s Arab neighbor states have endorsed the session.” So, it looks
like
Jordan spoke but did not co-sponsor, but Oman and Morocco did
co-sponsor but
did not speak. Also, the figure 111, as per January 20 may be more
accurate
then the figure 150 which was the latest figure released by the UN -
would
it not be nice if the UN could back up its “Note to Correspondents” by
releasing that list? This could only improve UN’s position.

Steven B. Nasatir, in a letter to the New York Times, prompted by the
January 25, 2005 article, writes: “It would be interesting to know the
names
of those governments that did and those that did not support this
session…In time, we may be able to learn the names … when we do, we
promise we will remember that too.”

Further, looking at January 25, 2005, Wall Street Journal article “The
Democratic Ideal”, it estimates the number of democracies at the UN at
117 -
that is 61% of the UN membership. The remaining 74 countries or 39%
are
under authoritarian rule. 20% of the world’s governments are outright
tyrannies.

In Latin America and the Caribbean 32 out of 35 countries have elected
governments. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 19 out of 48 countries have
elected governments, and in Asia and the Pacific only 23 out of 39
countries are democracies. In the former Soviet Union and its
satellites,
17 out of 27 are now democracies, proving that peoples long to be free.
The last two decades saw the increase in the number of democracies in
Latin
America and in the former Soviet Union groups. “The one region
completely
left behind, until now, by the democratic revolution is the Middle East
and
North Africa, where Israel remains the only democracy among 18 states”.

I do not think that above means that it is not possible for
authoritarian
states to do good. Clear examples were the authoritarian regimes in
three
Caribbean states, Venezuela, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic that
accepted
ship loads with Jewish refugees from the Holocaust while the United
States
closed its doors to such ships. Venezuela proudly spoke about this at
the
UNGASS - the country is better off for having done it as many of these
refugees stayed and helped develop the country. Cuba lost these
immigrants
to Canada and Canada is better off for this - but this is a separate
issue.
My point here is that when tyranny comes along with oil-wealth this is
a
dangerous combination - just think of the Iraq of the 1990s.

One additional comment about that may have to do something with the
importance of the gilded oil barrel in the corridors of the UN, or
perhaps I
am wrong and this is only my imagination. The subject is “The
Secretary-General Remarks at the handover of the chairmanship of the
Group
of 77.” A release by the UN Department of Public Information of 25
January
2005. This is actually big news - it is the first time a
Secretary-General
witnessed such a political handover in any group of member states.

The facts are that Jamaica is replacing Qatar at the helm of the G77.
This
is a very welcome change and I will explain from what I know as I
watched
carefully this last year how Qatar was speaking for the Group of 77 at
the
UN Commission for Sustainable Development (UNCSD) and at the Conference
of
the Parties of the UN Convention on Climate Change (the COP of the
UNFCCC).
A Qatar representative was sitting in front, and a Saudi was always
next to
him; sometimes the Saudi was just talking to the Qatar representative
and
sometimes the Saudi actually took over and spoke instead of him.

Traditionally the Chairman of the Group of 77 was a delegate from an
oil-rich country. I remember Iran, Venezuela, Indonesia, Malaysia…
The
Group numbers now 138 countries that call themselves Developing
Countries.
It is a hodgepodge of various economic levels including the poorest of
the
poor, the Small Island Developing States, and larger rich states of the
southern hemisphere. Many of the states need help and are candidates
for
what the UN defined as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); the
oil-country
leadership was actually a hindrance to these poor countries. At the
COP10,
November 2004, in Buenos Aires, three small Island Pacific states -
Nauru,
Palau and Tuvalu - left the G77 in protest of the leadership that put
the
interest of the oil-exporters ahead of the interest of the poor states.

Global Warming is a topic of life and death for the Pacific islands
that are
only a few meters above sea level. Just think of how the Tsunami has
now
completely obliterated the Maldives. Slow raise of the water level,
caused
by our overindulgence in fossil fuels means a death sentence for these
paradise island states. While the Association of Small Independent
Island
States (AOSIS) was advocating renewable sources of energy, the oil
leadership was demanding compensation for the potential losses because
of a
decreased oil market. In effect they claimed, as Developing
Countries, a
right to the meager funds that the World Bank makes available to the
Least
Developed Countries (the LDCs) - the poorest of the poor - countries
like
Bangladesh, Haiti and most members of AOSIS. The argument was led by
the
Saudis and it sounded like the highest case of Chutzpah you can
imagine;
nevertheless they managed to stall the taking of resolutions - and this
was
totally untenable. The change to Caribbean Jamaica, part of the
grouping
that includes Trinidad and Tobago, is not exactly a change to a leader
of
AOSIS or an LDC, a group that from the Caribbean island includes only
Haiti,
but it is a step forward nevertheless. My perhaps misguided question,
but a
question nevertheless - did the Secretary-General feel he had to go to
that
meeting because he helped in the process to create the change in
leadership,
or did he go there because he felt he had to balance the act of having
been
the previous day at the Holocaust UNGASS ? As this was a first, it is
clearly news that require further elaboration.

A very interesting article “The Geo-Green Alternative” by Thomas
Friedman,
January 30, 2005, The New York Times, states that by reducing the price
of
oil - by conservation, by developing renewable and alternative energies
and
by expanding nuclear power - we could force more reform in the Islamic
world
then by any other strategy. Friedman writes: “You give me $18-a-barrel
oil
and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran.
All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They
make
up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will
have to
open up their economies, and their schools, and liberate their women,
so
that their people can compete. It is that simple.” These
observations
are very germane also to our report and may hold also in their site the
future of a reformed United Nations populated with representatives of
regimes that have the real interests of their own people at heart.
That would make for real news !

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