PRESS CONFERENCE ON ANNUAL MEETING OF COUNCIL OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENTS
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE ON ANNUAL MEETING OF COUNCIL OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENTS
19990513
The actions being undertaken in the Balkans were necessary, the President of the Council of Former Presidents of the General Assembly said at a Headquarters press conference today. However, sidetracking the United Nations and giving it a secondary role in that kind of global security situation threatened to marginalize the Organization.
Ambassador Samir Shihabi of Saudi Arabia, the President of the forty- sixth session of the General Assembly and the group's President, explained that the members' main objective was to support the role of the General Assembly as a principal United Nations organ, as well as the role of the Assembly President, in particular, and the United Nations, in general, by pledging their experience and abilities.
He said the Presidents' Council, comprised of all former General Assembly Presidents, held its first annual meeting in 1997. Upon the conclusion this week of the third annual meeting, the former Presidents had asked him to convey the substance of their discussions to United Nations correspondents.
First, the members had discussed the role of the General Assembly, in an effort to ensure that it played its proper role, according to the United Nations Charter, he said. The Assembly was "the world parliament" and, as such, it had great authority, within the Charter, for running the affairs of the United Nations. Attempts to marginalize it were shortsighted and blind to the danger those posed to the system as a whole. Marginalizing the parliament of any country would cause the whole system to break down. That would apply to the United Nations, as well. Only the General Assembly represented all world governments.
He said the group's concern had intensified recently when not only the General Assembly, but the Security Council and other United Nations organs had been marginalized by the crisis in the Balkans. That concern was not intended as a comment on the action under way because what was being done to the people of Kosovo had to be stopped, and it could only be stopped by the same Powers responsible for it. The way it was done, however, had raised the group's concern about setting a precedent that could endanger the United Nations. Moreover, the current action could easily have been undertaken under the aegis of the United Nations.
Given the very serious precedent of marginalizing the United Nations in that way, he said, the group was urging the General Assembly President that the Assembly should be seized of the problem, so that legitimacy could take its normal course.
Asked whether he was saying that the General Assembly should take up the issue of Kosovo now, Mr. Shihabi said it should be seized of the matter.
How? the correspondent asked.
He said that was their responsibility, reiterating that it was not really possible to keep the United Nations out of a major global security problem, and at the same time have the necessary legitimacy of action.
Instead of talking about it, why don't you take a decision, like the President of the Economic and Social Council had this morning concerning a long-term development project in Haiti? another correspondent asked.
Mr. Shihabi said the group had formulated the idea of having three or four of its members go to Kosovo itself, but considered that such action could confuse United Nations efforts. Rather, it decided to stand behind the Organization and support it, as that was the group's role.
In a follow-up question, the correspondent noted two precedents: the operation in the Congo in 1960, which the Security Council had opposed but which the General Assembly had approved, and the case of Palestine, in which the same thing had occurred. The Presidents' Council could do likewise, he said.
The Ambassador said that presently members would be watching the result of their recommendations, and he would apprise correspondents of any change.
Another correspondent asked him to clarify whether the recommendation being conveyed to the General Assembly President was reflective of the members' governments.
Mr. Shihabi said the members served only in their capacities as former General Assembly Presidents; nobody represented his Government. Of course, the group comprised heads of State and foreign ministers, but their function in the Presidents' Council was only in the capacity of their former role in the Assembly.
He read out one paragraph of the recommendation, as follows: "The Council maintains that it is in the best interests of the United Nations that the present situation be discussed by the General Assembly as soon as possible." The group was presenting its finding to the Assembly President so that he would take the necessary action he deemed would satisfy that expression.
The Security Council was now dealing with Kosovo, another correspondent said. There was a resolution under way dealing with the humanitarian situation, and the Group of Eight Ministers were now drafting a resolution that would codify the peace plan they had worked out. Was the Ambassador
Shihabi Press Conference - 3 - 13 May 1999
saying that the General Assembly should take over some of that role and limit the involvement of the Security Council?
"No", he said, adding he was not separating the legitimacy of the Security Council from that of the General Assembly. Both could take legitimate action. Any global security actions, however -- from the beginning -- should be covered by the legitimacy of the United Nations. Such action could go through either by the Security Council or the General Assembly, but both bodies should not be sidetracked.
He said the security of small States today depended on the law of nations, not on their strength of arms. The security of the big Powers depended on the lessons learned in avoiding brinkmanship. The United Nations was the only platform that could avoid brinkmanship between big Powers. Remember the Cuban missile crisis -- "if it was not for the United Nations, God knows what would have happened".
* *** *