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Updated Saturday, September 19, 2009 11:37 am TWN, By John J. Metzler, Special to The China Post

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U.N. Assembly to open amid anxiety and yawns

Contrary to the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean elected to a five-year term, the Assembly President is a one-year post, also based on geographical rotation. The election, or should we say selection, of the President this session, is none other than long-time Libyan diplomat Dr. Ali Treki, a Colonel Gaddafi confident, who has had a long tenure both in New York and as Foreign Minister back in old Tripoli. Dr. Treki succeeds the lamentable left-wing Father Miguel D'Escoto of Nicaragua.

Just a bit of history - over its six decades the General Assembly Presidents included such statesmen as Carlos Romulo of the Philippines, Charles Malik of Lebanon, Jaime de Pinies of Spain and Jan Eliasson of Sweden to name a few.

The Assembly Agenda is chock-full of 164 items which range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Over the next few months delegates will consider important issues such as U.N. peacekeeping, human rights, economic development, counter-terrorism, the role of diamonds in fueling conflict, and combating malaria.

Then there are such gripping issues as Question of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) “Armed Israeli Aggression against the Iraqi nuclear instillations” (that dates from 1982!!), and the Question of the Malagasy islands of Gloriossias, Juan de Nova, Europa, and Bassas da India (have they found oil?), “Effects of Atomic Radiation” (not good) and the Situation in Afghanistan (I think we know).

My bipartisan favorite is “Observer status for the International Olympic Committee in the General Assembly.”

In a sense the global movers and shakers are doing an orchestrated diplomatic minuet around the movers and workmen who are packing, moving, shuffling and banging around the 39-story Secretariat building and soon other parts of the U.N. complex built back in the early 1950s. U.N. staff are being shifted and dispersed in swing-space around New York in a kind of musical chairs orchestrated by something called the “Capital Master Plan,” which evokes an old five-year plan but will be much longer. Catchwords like efficiency, green-tech, and change are the modernization mantra. Charles le Corbusier's once-impressive architectural edifice on the East River, has been turned into a harried worksite without spirit or a soul.

The 64th General Assembly is about to begin amid global anxiety, the clang of pipes, and the yawns of curious indifference.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. jjmcolumn@att.net

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