By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
March 18, 2009
UNITED NATIONS — Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the president of the General Assembly, lashed out at the West in general and the United States in particular on Tuesday, saying that Iran’s president had been maligned and that the indictment of Sudan’s president was racist.
Mr. d’Escoto has made controversial remarks periodically since assuming the presidency in September, but rarely so many in a single day.
His comments drew a rebuke from several Security Council ambassadors and even from the 33-member Latin American bloc that had nominated him. “He confuses his personal opinions sometimes with those of the General Assembly,” said Heraldo Muñoz, the ambassador from Chile. Mr. Muñoz credited Mr. d’Escoto with trying to make the General Assembly relevant by focusing attention on matters like the global financial crisis and reform of the Council.
Mr. d’Escoto was speaking at a news conference to mark the end of a world tour. He said that he had been struck by the “great respect” shown to Iran by its neighbors and that its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had been unfairly “demonized” in the West.
He said the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on war crimes charges was lamentable because it would undermine Darfur peace talks. A request by the African Union and the Arab League for the Security Council to suspend the indictment for a year should be respected, he said. The indictment “helps to deepen a perception that international justice is racist” because the case is the third to be brought against Africans, Mr. d’Escoto said.
Ruhakana Rugunda, the Ugandan ambassador and a Security Council member, said, “I do not consider that decision racist.” He said Africans supported a deferral to allow more time for talks.
Mr. d’Escoto supported Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s criticism of the United States for falling about $1 billion behind in its United Nations dues. Describing the United States’ attitude toward the Council, Mr. d’Escoto said, “ ‘You either give me the green light to commit the aggression that I want to commit, or I shall declare you irrelevant.’ ”
Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the United States Mission, said, “It’s hard to make sense of Mr. d’Escoto’s increasingly bizarre statements.”
Several ambassadors said they had found Mr. d’Escoto poorly informed at meetings. At the news conference, he denied ever having heard that Mr. Ahmadinejad had called for Israel to be erased, nor did he know anything about the case of Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American reporter arrested in Iran. He did not mention the plight of Darfur civilians, nor the United Nations’ effort to persuade Sudan to reverse the evictions of many humanitarian groups.
Mr. d’Escoto tends to draw support from countries at odds with Washington, while Western nations accuse him of being stuck in a leftist, Sandinista mind-set. Mr. d’Escoto, a Roman Catholic priest, was Nicaragua’s foreign minister from 1979 to 1990.
Mr. d’Escoto has made controversial remarks periodically since assuming the presidency in September, but rarely so many in a single day.
His comments drew a rebuke from several Security Council ambassadors and even from the 33-member Latin American bloc that had nominated him. “He confuses his personal opinions sometimes with those of the General Assembly,” said Heraldo Muñoz, the ambassador from Chile. Mr. Muñoz credited Mr. d’Escoto with trying to make the General Assembly relevant by focusing attention on matters like the global financial crisis and reform of the Council.
Mr. d’Escoto was speaking at a news conference to mark the end of a world tour. He said that he had been struck by the “great respect” shown to Iran by its neighbors and that its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had been unfairly “demonized” in the West.
He said the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on war crimes charges was lamentable because it would undermine Darfur peace talks. A request by the African Union and the Arab League for the Security Council to suspend the indictment for a year should be respected, he said. The indictment “helps to deepen a perception that international justice is racist” because the case is the third to be brought against Africans, Mr. d’Escoto said.
Ruhakana Rugunda, the Ugandan ambassador and a Security Council member, said, “I do not consider that decision racist.” He said Africans supported a deferral to allow more time for talks.
Mr. d’Escoto supported Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s criticism of the United States for falling about $1 billion behind in its United Nations dues. Describing the United States’ attitude toward the Council, Mr. d’Escoto said, “ ‘You either give me the green light to commit the aggression that I want to commit, or I shall declare you irrelevant.’ ”
Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the United States Mission, said, “It’s hard to make sense of Mr. d’Escoto’s increasingly bizarre statements.”
Several ambassadors said they had found Mr. d’Escoto poorly informed at meetings. At the news conference, he denied ever having heard that Mr. Ahmadinejad had called for Israel to be erased, nor did he know anything about the case of Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American reporter arrested in Iran. He did not mention the plight of Darfur civilians, nor the United Nations’ effort to persuade Sudan to reverse the evictions of many humanitarian groups.
Mr. d’Escoto tends to draw support from countries at odds with Washington, while Western nations accuse him of being stuck in a leftist, Sandinista mind-set. Mr. d’Escoto, a Roman Catholic priest, was Nicaragua’s foreign minister from 1979 to 1990.
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