US’s Danthorth in the UN: Walk softly and carry a rubber stick

Envoy Learns That Diplomatic Circumlocution Makes Friends at U.N.

By Colum Lynch

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26, 2004 (The Washington Post) — John C. Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, describes himself as a straight-talking “Midwest guy” who has been thrust into a world of diplomatic doublespeak where nonsensical rules are the norm.

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth in a pensive mood, Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 before the start of the U.N Security Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP).

The Republican former Missouri senator experienced his first encounter with the arcane ways of the world body when he led a U.S. effort in September to threaten sanctions against Sudan for failing to crack down on government-backed militia engaging in mass killings in Darfur. The 15-nation Security Council agreed to issue the warning, but only if the word “sanctions” was eliminated. A separate effort to impose a tough resolution demanding that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon was achieved after Danforth agreed not to refer directly to Syria in it.

“Everything has to go through these screens,” Danforth said in a recent interview at the U.S. mission to the United Nations. “We can pass a resolution on Syria so long as we don’t mention the word ‘Syria.’ ”

The thing that Danforth finds really strange here is a State Department rule that prohibits the U.S. ambassador from using a government limousine to ferry his wife, Sally Danforth, from the official residence at the Waldorf Towers to diplomatic functions. Danforth attributes this “weird rule” to a bureaucratic overreaction to “some excess” by former diplomats at the mission.

“It’s just ridiculous,” Danforth said. “There is an ethical way for my wife to go to a reception here at the mission and an unethical way. The ethical way is for me to get in the car here, go to the Waldorf, pick her up and bring her back. The unethical way is for me to stay in the office and continue to work, send the guard to the Waldorf to pick her up and bring her here. Now, does that make any sense?”

Elected in 1976 as a senator from Missouri, Danforth quit elective politics 10 years ago and returned to St. Louis, because “I didn’t want government to define me.”

But he has remained in the public eye, heading the 1999-2001 inquiry into the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Tex. An Episcopal priest, he officiated at President Ronald Reagan’s funeral at the Washington National Cathedral in June. Danforth was briefly mentioned as a possible candidate for secretary of state in President Bush’s second term, a job that went to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

A key consolation is that Danforth cannot be blamed for “this ridiculous state of affairs” that led to the State Department’s limousine rule.

Danforth acknowledges that he is something of a diplomatic novice. His first foray into foreign policy began Sept, 6, 2001, five days before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Bush appointed Danforth his special envoy to Sudan, where he has struggled ever since to end Africa’s longest civil war. Danforth said he did not know Bush well before he was chosen.

“I’ve known his family more than I’ve known him,” Danforth said. “I don’t know why I was asked to do Sudan.”

Still, the two men have formed a close working relationship. And Bush tapped Danforth in June to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, succeeding John D. Negroponte, who went to Baghdad to head up the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

“I am a political appointment, so the reason that I’m here is not because of any diplomatic skill,” Danforth said.

He said that despite the petty absurdities of the job he is “honored to be doing what I’m doing,” but he confesses that it is very difficult to prod the United Nations into tough action.

“While the U.N. is an important part of multilateralism, which is essential to U.S. foreign policy, it’s very difficult to get strong resolutions passed,” Danforth said. “It’s built for compromise and it’s built for wordsmithing. It’s difficult to create real policies because of the ornate structure of multilateralism, at least the U.N.’s version of it.”

The challenges of advancing U.S. foreign policy goals have been complicated by the lingering resentment toward the Bush administration for invading Iraq without an explicit Security Council endorsement. But the United States has also been constrained by the ability of blocs of small countries to thwart initiatives that Washington supports in the United Nations’ myriad bodies.

A group of African countries, led by South Africa, used a procedural motion this week to prevent a vote in the 191-member U.N. General Assembly on a U.S.-backed European Union resolution condemning Sudan for committing human rights abuses. “One wonders about the utility of the General Assembly on days like this,” Danforth told reporters Tuesday. “One wonders, if there can’t be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building? What are we all about?” One of Danforth’s chief priorities — expanding the U.N. presence throughout Iraq — has been hampered by Secretary General Kofi Annan’s reluctance to send U.N. officials into harm’s way there. But Annan recently agreed to raise the staff ceiling in Baghdad from 35 to 59 to prepare for Jan. 30 elections. A contingent of several dozen Fijian peacekeepers is preparing to go to Baghdad to provide security for U.N. personnel.

Shortly after his arrival, Danforth began canvassing senior diplomats to support an effort to combat a growing scourge: the rise of religious extremism in conflict. “Now obviously religion is more the problem than the answer in today’s world,” Danforth said. “Trying to bridge the religious divide is something that is very important in managing conflict, so I’ve had this notion that there should be some sort of facility for mediating religious disputes.”

The initiative ran up against immediate opposition from key Security Council members, who argued that religion should be kept out of that body.

“I think it’s really not an idea whose time has come,” he said.

Danforth has struggled to address Sudan. He has helped draw international attention to the crises there, convening a rare Security Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, last week to prod the government and the rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Army to sign an agreement to end the 21-year civil war.

He has also secured passage of two Security Council resolutions that threatened sanctions against Sudan’s oil industry if Khartoum failed to rein in government-sponsored Arab militia responsible for killing thousands of black African civilians in the Darfur region and driving more than 1.8 million from their homes. As a result of Danforth’s prodding, the council has established a commission of inquiry to determine if the perpetrators of such crimes committed genocide and approved the deployment of 3,500 African peacekeepers in Darfur to restore calm.

But the effort has, so far, failed to halt the violence. And Danforth has been unable to persuade Sudan’s closest allies on the council, especially China, to carry out the threat of sanctions against Khartoum.

“Are we leaning on a rubber stick? Sure,” Danforth said. “We are doing the best that we can with that particular tool.”