[PEN-L:7091] (Fwd) ANNAN TAKES CRITICAL STANCE ON U.S. ACTIONS IN KOSOVO -

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Date sent:              Thu, 20 May 1999 09:02:43 -0700
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Subject:                ANNAN TAKES CRITICAL STANCE ON U.S. ACTIONS IN KOSOVO - The
        New York Times

The New York Times                                               May 19, 1999

ANNAN TAKES CRITICAL STANCE ON U.S. ACTIONS IN KOSOVO

        Washington has not hidden its opposition to UN's 
        efforts to help mediate an end to the conflict.

        By Judith Miller

UNITED NATIONS -- Reflecting frustration over his
organization's marginalization in Kosovo, Secretary
General Kofi Annan criticized the United States on Tuesday
for taking military action without Security Council blessing
and China and Russia for having ignored the ethnic purging
that led to NATO's bombing. 

In a speech at The Hague commemorating the centenary of
the first International Peace Conference, Annan did not
identify those Security Council members by name, but he
warned that the inability of the 15-member council to
achieve consensus on Kosovo and other critical issues
threatened both the United Nations and international peace. 

"Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent
position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force,"
Annan said, in the text distributed here on Tuesday, "we are
on a dangerous path to anarchy." 

Equally important, he continued, unless the Security Council
"can unite around the aim of confronting massive human
rights violations and crimes against humanity on the scale of
Kosovo, then we will betray the very ideals that inspired the
founding of the United Nations." 

Annan said the "Council's unity and inaction in the face of
genocide" in Rwanda was flawed, as was its "division, and
regional action" in Kosovo. 

Both times, he said, U.N. members "should have been able
to find common ground in upholding the principles of the
Charter, and find unity in defense of our common
humanity." 

A senior U.N. official stressed that Annan was not singling
out the United States and its allies particularly for using force
without Security Council sanction. The official cited at least
six other conflicts in the last five years, most of them in
Africa, in which individual states or regional groups resorted
to force with explicit council authorization. 

Annan's speech, he noted, also criticized states for "flouting"
Security Council sanctions and other unidentified states for
failing to cooperate with the council in "disarmament and
nonproliferation," or with efforts by the International
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to bring war criminals to
justice. 

"This is not a blast at anybody," the official said. "It is a
statement of concern about a growing trend -- the bypassing
of the Security Council -- which he wants member states to
think about." 

The official stressed that Annan was not abandoning his
earlier qualified support for NATO's action. "After 55 days
of bombing, he still says that the use of force was
necessary," the official explained. 

Yet Annan's speech on Tuesday differed somewhat in tone
and emphasis from his previous statements, which focused
more heavily on the human rights abuses taking place in
Kosovo. 

His speech also cited "the emergence of the single
superpower and new regional powers" and "the preference
for so-called coalitions of the willing" as having contributed
to the increasing resort to unauthorized force. 

Officials at the U.S. mission agreed that Annan's remarks
differed from his previous statements on the conflict, but
declined to criticize him. "Let's just say we prefer his earlier
speeches," one official said. 

"We share his disappointment that the council lacked
consensus and was unable to take action against the Serbs'
ethnic cleansing in Kosovo," James B. Foley, a State
Department spokesman, said on Tuesday. "And we see as
extremely positive his reaction that the bombing was
necessary." 

But Washington has not hidden its opposition to Annan's
efforts to help mediate an end to the conflict. Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright has made clear that negotiations
with the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, should be
handled through the Russian envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin,
and President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, who represents the
European Union and has supported NATO's goals. 

Annan had considerable difficulty appointing two envoys,
Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, and Eduard
Kukan, Slovakia's foreign minister, to help his mediation
efforts. 

Diplomats here said that Washington was particularly
unenthusiastic about Bildt's selection because of his critical
comments about the NATO air strikes. 

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Kukan said he and Bildt
would meet with Albright in Washington on Wednesday to
discuss their role. 

The State Department, eager to avoid a proliferation of
would-be mediators, has urged Annan and his envoys to limit
their efforts to refugee assistance, and to reconstruction after
a peace settlement is achieved. 

Kukan said that China, one of the council's five permanent
council members with veto powers, remained adamant that
the council should not discuss peace talks or a peace plan
until NATO stops its air strikes.