15 January 2009

U.N. Ambassador-designate Urges Cooperation Against Autocrats

Susan Rice says Obama sees United Nations as “indispensable” institution

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to represent the United States at the United Nations says she plans to use effective and “sometimes quiet” diplomacy to seek support for international action against autocrats like Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe.

Speaking at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee January 15, Susan Rice said there is potential to work with both China and Russia, which previously vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions targeting the rulers of Zimbabwe and Burma, and other human rights abusers, by maximizing common interests.

Using Zimbabwe as an example, she said there is “no logical reason” why Russia and China “are unable to separate themselves from the regime of Robert Mugabe. … Their interests no longer, frankly, coincide.”

The Obama administration will seek to engage Zimbabwe’s neighbors in southern Africa to “bring their often … private condemnations into the public sphere” and to work collectively with the international community to “bring the necessary pressure to bear on that regime so that the people of Zimbabwe’s suffering can finally end.”

When Zimbabwe’s neighbors “speak strongly with one voice” to support a peaceful transition from Mugabe to a democratically elected government and state their unwillingness to “stand by while great human suffering persists and cholera pours across … shared borders,” countries like China and Russia, she argued, “will have more interest in those regional relationships than they will in maintaining strong support for a regime that is clearly not long for this world.”

UNITED STATES REGARDS UNITED NATIONS AS “INDISPENSABLE”

Rice said the United States and the international community stand at a “defining moment” when collective effort is required to face common challenges.

“Terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, civil conflict, climate change, genocide, extreme poverty and deadly disease are global challenges that no single nation can defeat alone,” she said. “They require common action based on common purpose and a vision of shared security.”

Obama “has affirmed America’s commitment to the United Nations as an indispensable, if imperfect, institution,” Rice said, adding that, if confirmed by the Senate, she will work in New York to “refresh and renew” U.S. leadership and “bring to bear the full weight of our influence, voice, resources, values and diplomacy.”

Obama also believes the United States should pay its U.N. dues “in full and on time,” and will work with the U.S. Congress to pay down the dues in arrears and lift legal limits on U.S. financial support for U.N. peacekeeping missions.

When global crises occur, “we pay a cost from inaction [and] we pay a cost if we have to act alone,” Rice said. “So the challenge is to seek alternatives to doing nothing and doing it by ourselves, and that is the essential benefit of institutions like the United Nations, which are global in scope and in which the burdens and costs are shared.”

At the same time, she said, the United States will pursue “substantial and sustained improvements across the full range of management and performance challenges” at the United Nations because progress and reform are essential for addressing flaws in the organization, as well as enabling it to meet growing demands.

She said the Obama administration will work “unencumbered” by 20th-century divisive labels such as “rich” and “poor” countries, and the “nonaligned” and “Western” world. “In the 21st century these false divisions rarely serve anybody’s interests. ... All peoples and all nations should focus on what we have in common: our shared desire to live freely and securely in health, with hope and opportunity.”

U.S. MEMBERSHIP ON HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL?

Rice said no decision has yet been made by the incoming Obama administration on “whether or when to seek membership” in the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has been criticized for including many human rights abusers as members, and for paying disproportionate attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She cited the council’s recent resolution condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a classic example of the utterly imbalanced and reprehensible kinds of resolutions that too often have emerged” from the body. “There was no mention in that resolution of Hamas attacks on Israel,” she said. “It was entirely one-sided.”

Rice said she, President-elect Obama, Secretary of State–designate Hillary Clinton and others in the incoming administration are deeply committed to seeing the United Nations have “human rights instruments that are effective and live up to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other seminal documents.”

The membership issue is one that will be taken up “in the early days of the administration” as it considers “how best the United States can play a leadership role so that the instruments for international human rights are strengthened,” she said.

Rice’s testimony (PDF, 105.5KB) to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is available on the committee website.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)