Ukraine emphasizes: consistency is key to Security Council process (07/02/00)

Ukraine emphasizes: consistency is key to Security Council process

by Irene Jarosewich

UNITED NATIONS - In a moment reminiscent of the days of the Cold War, the Russian Federation's representative to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov, angrily walked out of a meeting of the U.N. Security Council after a procedural vote to allow Serbia's U.N. envoy, Vladislav Jovanovic, to address the council was defeated.

On the agenda for the June 23 open session of the Security Council was a discussion of the Balkans. Ukraine, which was elected to a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Security Council starting this past January, was represented at the meeting by its U.N. envoy, Volodymyr Yelchenko.

Several speakers requested permission to address the council on the topic of the Balkans, among them the Carl Bildt, U.N. special envoy to the Balkans; Javier Solana, secretary-general of the European Union Council, and Mr. Jovanovic.

The request by Russia's representative that all the speakers be approved was defeated. Council members readily agreed to hear presentations by Mr. Bildt and Mr. Solana, but Richard Holbrooke, former special envoy of the United States to Yugoslavia and for the past nine months the U.S. representative at the United Nations, strongly protested Mr. Jovanovic's request to address the council and asked for a separate vote.

Mr. Jovanovic, stated Mr. Holbrooke, represents a government whose senior members have been indicted for war crimes by a tribunal that the council established. He added that the council should not be seen as supporting the current Serb regime.

In explaining Ukraine's position, Mr. Yelchenko emphasized the need to maintain consistency in the work and procedures of the Security Council as the reason to allow Mr. Jovanovic to speak to the Balkan issue.

The council, he said, has placed an emphasis on allowing increased participation in council debates by non-members, even representatives of radical rebel movements, and added "my delegation ascertains inconsistency between this tendency and the request to vote [on the participation of Mr. Jovanovic]."

" I have to recall," he continued, "the important provisions of Article 32 of the U.N. Charter under which any state that is party to a dispute under consideration by the Security Council has to be invited to participate in a discussion relating to the dispute." He noted that Yugoslavia is a signatory to the Dayton/Paris Peace agreement and therefore integral to any discussion of the peace process in the Balkans.

He also pointed out that in 1992 the Security Council, taking into account the political upheaval in the Balkans, had developed a special procedure that allowed for the participation of Yugoslavia in council debates - a procedure that has been followed for the past eight years, "and we do not see any grounds to abandon this practice." He noted that Ukraine's position of allowing Mr. Jovanovic to speak before the council is separate from the issue of Yugoslavia's status at the United Nations.

The United Nations General Assembly, after declaring in 1993 that the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia no longer existed, decided that the all countries that arose on the basis of the former Yugoslavia needed to apply for U.N. membership. While Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have done so, Serbia has refused to apply, claiming that it is the successor state to the former Yugoslavia, which was a founding member of the United Nations. The republic's representative continues to post the same flag in front of the mission building.

The United Nations, in turn, has been inconsistent in its treatment of the republic. While the republic has been denied a seat in the U.N. General Assembly since 1993, its U.N. mission has been accredited and its representative serves on U.N. committees and has observer status at the Security Council.

Mr. Holbrooke has announced that the United States has begun a campaign to convince other countries to completely remove Serbia from the United Nations, directly opposing the claims of President Slobodan Milosevic that his republic is a legitimate successor state to Tito's Yugoslavia.

The U.S. position has provoked more concern from several countries that argue the attempt to discredit Mr. Milosevic and isolate Serbia will bring more harm than good to the Balkans and surrounding countries. In May, during a presentation in New York at a conference sponsored by the EastWest Institute, Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs Borys Tarasyuk noted that the economic sanctions against Serbia in 1993-1995 did little to change Mr. Milosevic, yet cost Ukraine $4 billion in lost trade with the region.

In the vote to allow Mr. Jovanovic's presentation, seven countries (Bangladesh, Canada, France, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States) voted against, four countries (China, Namibia, the Russian Federation and Ukraine) voted for allowing the presentation, and four countries (Argentina, Jamaica, Mali, Tunisia) abstained.

Immediately following the vote, before he walked out, Mr. Lavrov stated that "the policy of isolating Yugoslavia ... is counter to the U.N. Charter. ... To discuss the Balkans without Yugoslavia was nonsense ... not allowing people to speak is not the best way to resolve serious international problems."

"Even the accused has a right to defend his or her position," he emphasized.

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