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African Nations Seek Veto Power At UN Security Council
TAKING a bold step to etch themselves on the global scene, African countries at the United Nations have now decided to submit a different proposed resolution on the expansion of the Security Council. They posit that the previous proposed resolution by the G-4 countries-Japan, India, Brazil and Germany does not include a request that the new permanent members of the council should have veto power.
But the G4 countries are still hoping that they can convince the Africans to abandon that course and join their own proposed resolution, which is already being debated in New York.
The G4 nations had held up the submission of their draft resolution until the African Union summit completed its meeting in Libya in the hope that the AU with its 53-strong members would support them. But after the African Union summit, the Africans insisted that the proposed new permanent members must also wield veto powers, a demand the G4 countries are not making in their draft resolution.
Even in the report of the High Panel set up by the UN Secretary-General, the option of adding six new permanent members was silent on giving them any veto power.
But the African group at the UN is insisting on equal status for any new permanent member of the Security Council.
Sources said a meeting would be held tomorrow between the African group and the G4 countries here in New York to resolve the differences in their draft resolutions. The meeting is aimed at ensuring that Africans and the G4 nations of Germany, India, Brazil and Japan support a single resolution thereby increasing the chances that the resolution would make the 2/3 requirement for adoption at the UN General Assembly.
None of the two draft resolutions is mentioning the six countries to be the new permanent members. Diplomats say once the first resolution is adopted perhaps in another week or two, a second resolution would be proposed mentioning the names of the proposed members.
But it is already well known that Japan, Germany, India and Brazil would be four of the new proposed six permanent members while two African nations would fill the other two slots. There is a deep concern about how Africans would resolve the issue of which two countries would be nominated by African diplomats.
Already, Nigeria's foreign minister Olu Adeniji is in New York for talks tomorrow with the G4 group. The meeting is to reconcile differences between their two drafts and take a decision on when to call for vote.
Under the A.U.plan 11 new members are to be added to the council's current 15. This would enlarge the council to a 26-member council with six new permanent members with veto power in addition to the five current permanent members: the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain.
The plan calls for increasing the number of countries elected on short terms to 15. Currently there are 10 elected for two-year terms.
The A.U. draft resolution was the outcome of the Libya AU summit.
The resolution requires two-thirds majority-128 out of the 191 members of the UN- and cannot be vetoed at this stage; there is no veto power in the General Assembly.
The resolution for enlarging the Security Council from the current 15 members to 25 by creating six new permanent seats and four additional non-permanent seats was introduced in the UN on July 12.
During the debate, the G-4 found strong support from a number of countries, including France, a co-sponsor, Latvia, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Tavalu and Bhutan. But there has also been very strong opposition from China and Pakistan.
Algeria, Argentina, Colombia and San Marino have also opposed the G-4 resolution. Jordan supported the resolution but demanded that Arabs must have one seat.
Islamabad described the G-4 effort variously as "unethical," "selfish" and "fruitless."
The United States is also opposed to the resolution, saying this was not the time, and instead the UN should concentrate on overhauling its management and bureaucracy, and strengthening peacekeeping and human rights operations.
The drafts from the African Union countries or the G4, or a medley of the two is just the first of the three resolutions that would have to be discussed in plans to realise the expansion of the Security Council. All require two-thirds majority in the 191-member Assembly.
The second resolution will have names of the countries seeking permanent membership and the third will call for amendment of the UN Charter to give effect to these changes.
It is at the last stage that the Security Council comes into play, and here a veto by any of the five current permanent members can kill the move.
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