In Quest of UN Resolution for War
All goes on it: Inducements, Blackmails and Inordinate Promises
Britain's minister of state for Africa, Baroness Amos, is on her tour this week to secure the votes of
Africa's three wavering UN Security Council members. Ditto the Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner, who completed this week his round of contacts with Paul Biya of
Cameroon, Lansana Conte of Guinea, and Eduardo dos Santos of Angola.
All three countries are officially on the fence and the US and British administrations desperately need
their support to pass a resolution giving them a quietus for war in Iraq. Without this UN resolution the
British administration may not be allowed to join a US unilaterally led war and the Tony Blair
administration may face a huge and deadly political misfortune. We should therefore understand that
this resolution is a question of life or death for many.
"These have been mature discussions. It has not been about offering inducements," Lady Amos said
yesterday after meeting President Paul Biya of Cameroon in Yaounde. Yet Cameroon, the Golf of
Guinea country recently named by anti-graft watchdog Transparency International as the world's most
corrupt country for an unprecedented two years running, is perceived as the skunk stomach irresistible
to inducements.
Walter Kansteiner spoke with Mr. Biya in Paris last week after visiting Guinea and Angola. Mr. Biya
was in Paris for a Francophone African summit that endorsed President Jacques Chirac?s campaign to
give the U.N. weapons inspectors more time and means.
"We want to make sure that people understand our positions and that they are able to make the kind of
judgment that is required of Security Council members," said Wednesday the US State Department
Spokesman, Richard Boucher. He described the talks with Mr. Biya as "very, very useful, very
helpful." Of course, they could not be otherwise.
Lady Amos? first stop was Guinea, to win over President Lansana Conte. Her message was probably
that Britain's intervention to next door's bloody Sierra Leone war prevented the sub-region going up in
flames ... and so Saddam Hussein must be disarmed.
Guinea is about to take over presidency of the Security Council for one month. Most important, it will
be a month in which crunch decisions will be taken on Iraq, and activities around the Security Council's
table will be under unprecedented scrutiny.
"To start, he hates the French. That's a plus in our column. And he seemed to listen intently when we
spoke to him," one senior U.S. official said. They Wednesday characterized meetings last week with
ailing President Lansana Conte as positive and said they predict that he will instruct his diplomats in
New York to favor a U.S. resolution for war.
Since late last year, Mr. Lansana Conte suffered a series of strokes. Many in Conakry believed he
might be dead. However, Lady Amos put paid to that rumor for the British public - she found him
convalescing.
Mrs. Amos next stop is Angola - to propose President Eduardo dos Santos the British helping hand.
Dos Santos government is accused of stealing about two billion dollars of oil revenues from its
impoverished population every year. The Angolan government tends to bend towards the anti-war side.
Mr. Kansteiner probably had an easier time convincing Angolan officials to take seriously the U.S.
position on Iraq. Dos Santos government exports more oil to the United States than Kuwait. U.S.
officials said Mr. Kansteiner raised the issue of American support for a World Bank aid program for
the country in the context of the U.N. vote.
"We are still selling more oil to America than Kuwait. Yet Kuwait has a special status that we do not
have. Kuwait has military support, political support, diplomatic support and economic support. We
want America to be engaged in the reconstruction of our country? If our government asks anything
from America, it will not be money, it will be a better political relationship," Evaristo Jose, Spokesman
of the Angolan Embassy in Washington said.
"We have made a very strong case and we will continue to make a very strong case?, said Lady Amos
as a final assessment.
The United States and its allies hope to secure at least the nine votes needed on the U.N. Security
Council to pass a resolution? if and only if none of its permanent members exercises a veto.
The draft imposes no deadline and contains no threat of armed intervention, but it refers to the earlier
Security Council Resolution 1441 passed in November. That resolution threatened of "serious
consequences" if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein failed to disarm. The United States and its allies interpret
the phrase as a threat of war.
The much debated phrase means either a war quietus for the war evils or a stronger/wider inspection
quietus for the self-proclaimed peace guardians.
Sam Meko
TAI ? Washington 03/01/2003
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