The Horseshoe Table

Title: The Horseshoe Table – An Inside View of the UN Security Council
Author: Chinmaya R Gharekhan
Publisher: Pearson Longman 2006 (First)
ISBN: 81-7758-453-7
Pages: 322

The Horseshoe Table is the table around which discussions are being made in the UN security council. It is a privileged reserve of the five permanent members (P5) who wield veto power. The tolerance and accommodation displayed by the haughty P5 is limited and many a times the ordinary members with a term of only 2 years are forced to toe the line of one of the big powers. Chinmaya Gharekhan, the author was a member of the Indian Foreign Service, who had served in Egypt, Congo, Laos, Vietnam and former Yugoslavia. He spent nearly a quarter-century in the UN in varying capacities from first secretary of Indian mission, Permanent Representative to the UN, and as India’s Ambassador to the UN for over six years. He was appointed Under-Secretary-General in 1993 and he was the personal representative of the Secretary-General to the Security Council which afforded him to get a first-class eye witness account of the wheelings and dealings of the world’s most popular diplomatic body. The book is adorned with a foreword written by Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, the former UN Secretary General, the only one who didn’t obtain a second term so far.

The author was a confidante of Ghali and when he stopped the practice of attending the discussions at Security Council citing excessive work load, he appointed Gharekhan as his personal representative in the Council, which was an unheard-of practice in the UN. Ghali became more and more unpopular with the USA as time went by and was vetoed by them when he tried and failed for a second term. The book also shows the arrogance and condescension displayed by some of the US diplomats, the most noted being Madeleine Albright who later went on to become the US Secretary of State in the second Clinton administration. The book describes several events which the world body discussed and acted upon when the author served in the Council. These issues include the Gulf War of 1991 and consequent sanctions on Iraq, the civil war and disintegration of former Yugoslavia, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Libya after Lockerbie disaster, Haiti and the Rwanda genocide. The tussles and lobbying attendant to the election of the Secretary-General in 1991 and 1996 are given. The book ends with a very relevant chapter on the reform of the Security Council which is noted for the prescience writ upon it in every sentence.

The essential point one discerns from the book is that the UN is not so elegant or effective as it is often made out to be. People of developing countries look to the UN to rectify some of the injustices occurring in several parts of the world, but it is a prisoner of the might of the permanent members of the Security Council, which is the most powerful body of the world organisation. Gharekhan doesn’t mince words when he says that the UN as well as the Secretary General are often force to go along the line USA adopts. Since they are the largest contributor to UN’s coffers and the principle of ‘who pays the piper calls the tune’ is made out clearly by subsequent actions.

The passages are witty in some chapters, but the momentum is not generally kept up. Regarding the role of the Secretary of UNSC to assist its President in matters of rules and regulations are impressively narrated. “It is the Secretary of the Council who is the more useful to the President since he is the one who must instantly advise the President in case he is confronted with a difficult issue related to a point of order from a member quoting some rule of procedure of which the President almost certainly has never heard. Mercifully, members of the Council themselves hardly have a nodding acquaintance with the rules of procedure and are understandably reluctant to expose their ignorance. As a result, the Secretary is seldom put to test about his knowledge of the rules” (p.17). UN’s obsession with its official languages are brought out in another passage. “It is the practice in the Council for each speech to be translated consecutively in all the working languages. When a statement was made in Russian or Chinese, it was interpreted in other languages one by one! This was in addition to the simultaneous interpretation, which was available to the members as the statements are delivered. The real reason for this absurd, time-consuming and highly expensive practice was that it gave time to diplomats to seek instructions from their governments, since consecutive interpretation could at times take several hours. Very often, the delegates left their seats and either went home for meals with their families or, more likely, patronised the bar and ‘held consultations’ with fellow delegates” (p.16). The resolutions are often colour-coded to reflect their status. Drafts are circulated in blue and once they are adopted, the text is distributed in black.

US ambassadors often treat the UN as one of their departments and an incident is described regarding the UN mission in Yugoslavia represented by Akashi. Madelline Albright’s tirade against him is put down as “In the Security Council consultations on the 26^th, Mrs. Albright lashed out at Akashi for the remarks attributed to him in the New York Times. She said it was ‘totally unacceptable for an international civil servant, whose salary for the most part we pay’ publicly criticise President Clinton or any other government leader. When I told Akashi about all this, he was quite cool. ‘I thought she was my friend. Do the Americans pay?’ This was a reference to the fact that the US at the time was heavily in arrears in the payment of its dues to the UN budget” (p.141). The critical difference between ceasefire and cessation of hostilities is given. Ceasefire stopped fighting but left the opposing forces where they stood. Cessation of hostilities called for the withdrawal of forces to an agreed distance from the ceasefire line and the interposition of neutral or UN forces.

One would naturally expect to find some references in this book about UN to have some references to Shashi Tharoor, the present Minister of State for External Affairs of India who was also an Under-Secretary-General and tried unsuccessfully to contest to the post of Secretary General when Kofi Annan’s term ended. In fact, there is only one reference regarding the naming of the UN forces to the various states in disintegrating Yugoslavia. “The operation in Croatia would be called UN Confidence Restoration Operation (UNCRO). The Croats were happy since ‘CRO’ sounded very much an abbreviation of Croatia. The mission in Bosnia would continue to be called UNPROFOR. The mission in Macedonia would be called UN Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP). All these names were suggested by Shashi Tharoor, the great Indian novelist, and the most able deputy of Kofi Annan” (p.166).

The book is really worthy at getting a feel of matters going on in the world body of ‘united nations’. After reading the book, we would get a feel that the member states should behave more properly in dealing high international policies and to try to transcend the barriers of petty nationalism and regionalism. Ever since the cold war ended, the practice of putting religion in international affairs is also seen to be going strong in the UN, particularly Islamic countries. The problem in Bosnia was a case in point.

However, there are obvious drawbacks to the narration as well. At several places, it degenerates to copying from a diary kept by the author. Also, the various problems discussed are not followed till the natural conclusion. The issues are narrated only for the period the author was in the UN! Some issues like Palestine have neither the beginning nor the end. Some other issues like Iraq have the beginning because Gharekhan was in the UN when it occurred, but don’t have the end properly explained. The reader is thus kept in a state of limbo after reading the book. Also, since the issues were international and involving neighbours, some maps would have been valuable. There is not even a single map in the book. Use of terms not explained was particularly troublesome when the Yugoslave crisis was considered. The word ‘Pale’ was used intermittently and it was not clear whether the author meant a person or place. I had to search Google to find out that “Pale is a town and a municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, located southeast of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo. The municipality of Pale is one of the six municipalities of the City of Istočno Sarajevo in is located in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. The author could have saved me the trouble! Any way, this is a good work and recommended.

Rating: 3 Star