United Nations, Feb 23: A soft-spoken straight-talker, Kofi Atta Annan of Ghana appears to have pulled off the biggest coup of his 13 months as secretary-general of the 185-member United Nations.The fine print of his negotiations in Baghdad -- where he convinced president Saddam Hussein to open sensitive sites to UN weapons inspections -- has to be approved by the 15-member UN Security Council.
But, pressure will be great on both the United States and Britain to delay conflict and bloodshed until the agreement brokered by Annan has a chance to be put into practice.
Patient and calm, Annan had faced two weeks of cajoling by nearly every country in the world to go to Baghdad and try to prevent a war. As head of an organisation devoted to world peace, he felt that he had no choice but to make the effort.
But, before he left for Baghdad, he consulted world leaders, including president Bill Clinton as well as Iraq's deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, his main negotiating partner in Baghdad.
He also usedthe Russian and French governments, who have embassies in Baghdad, to make it clear to Iraqi officials that some of their demands, such as a deadline on inspections for sensitive sites, would break the back of any agreement.
Consequently, analysts believe that he would not present a deal to the Security Council he thought the United States or Britain could reject easily.
Annan, who turns 60 in April, is known to be tough when necessary, but speaks always in a soft voice that can give the opposite impression. "He sometimes shifts his weight slightly from one foot to another, but that's about all the tension you can see," said a staff member.
When diplomatic efforts to settle the dispute were at an impasse two weeks ago he told an interviewer it was time all sides dropped "fundamentalist or purist positions".
"We need to make sure that Baghdad will understand that the Council's resolutions are serious," he said.
"They have painted themselves in a corner and we need to work with them to get them toback down. But I think we should not insist on humiliating them," he said.
Annan has spent more than 30 years in the United Nations system, and achieved the near impossible feat of walking through political minefields unscathed. He rose to become the head of UN peacekeeping operations in March 1993.
But, the blame for not ending the war in Bosnia and the disaster of UN troops in Somalia went to former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and not to Annan.
"People trust him because he is honest," said Mohamed Sacirbey, Bosnia's UNambassador and a fierce critic of the world body. "He doesn't try to hide behind a false argument."
That candor was evident in his comments on Bosnia when he went to Sarajevo to hand over control to Nato force two years go. "The world cannot claim ignorance of what those who live here have endured," he said.
"In looking back, we should all recall how we responded to the escalating horrors of the last four years."
Annan is no stranger to bargaining with Iraq. AfterBaghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, he was sent to repatriate 900 UN staff, negotiate for the release of Western hostages and help resolve the plight of 500,000 Asians stranded in Kuwait and Iraq.
But, since he assumed office, the United Nations has been marginalized in many of the world's crises, in part because no new peacekeeping operations have been approved by the United States.
The Clinton administration, which forced Boutros-Ghali out of office for allegedly not streamlining the UN system enough, backed Annan for secretary-general despite his years in the bureaucracy.
Annan spent most of his first year in office on reform policies to change the way the world body does business only to have the United States renege on its debt, which reached $1.3 billion at the end of 1997.
Annan works from a 38th floor office decorated with carvings and plaques. He is married to the former Nane Lagergren, a Swedish artist and lawyer and the niece of Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who saved 100,000 Jews inHungary from Nazi death camps towards the end of World War Two.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
