line for U.N. job

Somare’s still in line for U.N. job

By Ian Williams

United Nations correspondent SIR Michael Somare of PNG is still hot favourite to be the next President of the United Nations

General Assembly next month despite the last minute entry in the race of Saudi Arabia’s UN Am bassador Samir Shihabi.

That in turn was provoked because after a long silence which many assumed to mean withdrawal, Yemeni Ambassador Al-Ashtal an nounced that he was still running. Saudi dislike of Yemen knows no bounds since the Gulf War saw

newly united Yemen criticising Desert Storm.

The two will now split the Arab vote, while Cyprus is still running with little or no declared cup-port. By the consensus rules of the Asia Group, which call for rotation between countries and regional subgroups, the Pacific Islands and PNG should have it. But the usual consensus has been thwarted by Cyprus’s insistence on fighting it to the bitter end.

PNG Ambassador Renagi Lohia has

been assiduously courting waverers

with charts showing that the Pacific has been overlooked. But if it goes to the General Assembly then it will be PNG’s lack of enemies which will be as significant as the support of its active friends.

Yemen went on a limb over the Gulf War, and will pay the price with the West and its supporters, while Saudi

Arabia’s human rights record is not such as to inspire support for it heading the world’s highest body. Both of them will be suspected of partiality during a session in which the Middle East’s problems, both inter-Arab, and be tween Arabs, Israel and Iran, will dominate the agenda.

Cyprus will face the

intense hostility of Turkey, and will suffer from what many regard as being the less than glorious record of the current President Guido De Marco, of Malta. “After watching the showing of one small Mediterranean island, there won’t be much support for another one”, a Western Diplomat told Pacific Islands Monthly, adding: “It looks as if Somare will get it.” It is an optimism shared by Port Moresby, which has already been selecting support staff for the new President. □

Somare: favourite