No. 436 October 2006:

It was Asia’s turn to select the next world’s highest international civil servant and on 13 October the United Nations General Assembly appointed by acclamation Ban Ki-moon (born 13 June 1944) to become UN Secretary General. He is the current Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea and previously served in  diplomatic and government posts at home and abroad. He is fluent in both French and English. His selection, which was approved by the Security Council on 9 October, was supported by China and the United States. Since the current concern over North Korea’s nuclear arms ambitions and its first test will remain a high-priority challenge to the world body, the US White House figured that someone intimately familiar with the Korean Peninsula and Korean thinking would be most helpful in the coming months. Others were less sanguine about choosing a South Korean because of his proximity to locale and issue and only time will judge the wisdom of the choice. Ban will assume his new office on 1 January 2007 when he will succeed Kofi Annan (born 8 April 1938) of Ghana who has served at the UN’s top since 1 January 1997.

Four of the next five non-permanent members of the UN Security Council were elected by the General Assembly on 16 October: Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, and South Africa. Voting on the country representing the Americas remained inconclusive and is being continued. At last count, Guatemala and Venezuela were tied. The new five members will begin their two-year term on 1 January 2007 and replace Argentina, Denmark, Greece, Japan, and Tanzania.

Israeli refusal to even acknowledge the right of return of Arab Palestinians to their homeland that they lost in 1948 has been consistent. The reverse is true for Jews in the Diaspora who are encouraged to return to a land where they have never lived. Obviously the influx of Arabs could not only place Jews in a minority position in Israel but the presence of a large number of non-Jews would seriously undermine Israel’s core reason for existence. Arab Palestinians and a large number of Arabs naturally are opposed to this position which they find indefensible and because of the injustice that befell the Palestinian refugees, they echo the Iranian president’s view that the State of Israel is illegitimate. To find a way around the right of return, Israeli governments have with changing enthusiasm supported the vision of two states, Israel and Palestine. In an address to the UN General Assembly last month, the Israeli foreign minister made her government’s thinking clear: Refugees should not expect to return to their homes in Israel and their right to return would be realized through the establishment of their own homeland. “This is the real only meaning of the two-state vision,” she maintained.

Readiness to pay bribes remains high in China and India, reported the watchdog group, Transparency International (TI), this month. Also included among the five countries where buying off for favors and services is still common are Russia, Turkey, and Taiwan.  Least likely are firms in Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Austria, and Canada.  TI criticized that numerous governments have criminalized bribery and publicly deplore the practice while companies from those countries continue to make payments.

There was some indication that voters in the Indian Ocean republic of the Maldives would voice their preference for a parliamentary or presidential form of governance in a referendum on constitutional change on 16 September. No such event happened since it took until 1 October for the Constitutional Assembly to finally approve procedures for holding such a referendum.

Another constitutional change is in the offing in South Africa although so far internal discussions are limited to government and the African National Congress (ANC). In August, the Sunday Times of Johannesburg reported that the country’s nine provinces might be abolished and replaced by four or five new regions—the country’s earlier division—with their own legislatures and administrations. Although politico-demographic thinking is never absent from such considerations, it appears that the main reason for contemplating such a change is  to improve management of public services at the local level.

One  reason the selection of the fifth non-permanent member of the UN Security Council  became stymied was the address of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez to the UN General Assembly on 20 September. The other reason of course is the long-standing dissatisfaction of the Bush Administration with the South American’s independent and defiant behavior. In fact, two speeches were delivered. The second one in which the US president was likened to the devil was found intemperate by some and may well affect the Security Council seat selection although the views of the speech are shared by a great many people around the world who are angry at the actions and policies of the Bush presidency. But there is probably more support for the sentiments expressed by the Venezuelan in his speech on 15 September in which he addressed dependency on oil and climate change,  US pressuring for open market policies in the Americas and the resulting  “high degree of misery, inequality and infinite tragedy for all the peoples on his continent.”

Turkey’s prime minister told a group in New York in early October that the era of military coups was over. His statement came in the middle of public statements by the commanders of the army, air force, and navy which centered on three themes: the Turkish military has a rightful place in national affairs and will not give it up because of the European Union (EU), the military’s national duty is to uphold secularism, and that the country is threatened by Islamic fundamentalism. The latter is a clear warning to the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) which has Islamic roots and to the prime minister not to try bringing the military under full civilian control. While the large deployment of Turkish forces in northern Cyprus and the closure of its ports to Cyprus is a major obstacle in current EU-Turkish admission negotiations, the role and place of the military is also an issue. This was highlighted recently by the EU envoy to Turkey when he criticized the military for speaking out on nearly every issue and justifying it by saying it was its constitutional duty to defend secularism. The president, a secularist, has done next to nothing publicly to rein in the flow of statements from the generals and even backs them. It is not unthinkable that in the case of military intervention—a move that would certainly kill the country’s slim chance of joining the EU—there could be considerable support by the public.

Country reports: September 2006.

bio briefs

forecast: December 2006, January 2007

Surveys: Cabinet Directories--Dominican Republic, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, United Kingdom

Documentation: Communiqué of the 6th Plenum of the 16th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

Policy Speech of the Japanese Prime Minister to the Diet.