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Published on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 in the Guardian of London

Chemical Coup D'Etat:
The US Wants to Depose the Diplomat Who Could Take Away Its Pretext for War
With Iraq

by George Monbiot
 
On Sunday, the US government will launch an international coup. It has been
planned for a month. It will be executed quietly, and most of us won't know
what is happening until it's too late. It is seeking to overthrow 60 years
of multilateralism in favor of a global regime built on force.

The coup begins with its attempt, in five days' time, to unseat the man in
charge of ridding the world of chemical weapons. If it succeeds, this will
be the first time that the head of a multilateral agency will have been
deposed in this manner. Every other international body will then become
vulnerable to attack. The coup will also shut down the peaceful options for
dealing with the chemical weapons Iraq may possess, helping to ensure that
war then becomes the only means of destroying the m.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) enforces
the chemical weapons convention. It inspects labs and factories and
arsenals and oversees the destruction of the weapons they contain. Its
director-general is a workaholic Brazilian diplomat called Jose Bustani. He
has, arguably, done more in the past five ears to promote world peace than
anyone else on earth. His inspectors have overseen the destruction of 2
million chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world's chemical weapon
facilities. He has so successfully cajoled reluctant nations that the
number of signatories to the convention has risen from 87 to 145 in the
past five years: the fastest growth rate of any multilateral body in recent
times.

In May 2000, as a tribute to his extraordinary record, Bustani was
re-elected unanimously by the member states for a second five-year term,
even though he had yet to complete his first one. Last year Colin Powell
wrote to him to thank him for his "very impressive" work. But now
everything has changed. The man celebrated for his achievements has been
denounced as an enemy of the people.

In January, with no prior warning or explanation, the US state department
asked the Brazilian government to recall him, on the grounds that it did
not like his "management style". This request directly contravenes the
chemical weapons convention, which states "the director-general ... shall
not seek or receive instructions from any government". Brazil refused. In
March the US government accused Bustani of "financial mismanagement",
"demoralization" of his staff, "bias" and "ill-considered initiatives". It
warned that if he wanted to avoid damage to his reputation, he must resign.

Again, the US was trampling the convention, which insists that member
states shall "not seek to influence" the staff. He refused to go. March 19
the US proposed a vote of no confidence in Bustani. It lost. So it then did
something unprecedented in the history of
 multi lateral diplomacy. It called a "special session" of the member
states to oust him. The session begins on Sunday. And this time the US is
likely to get what it wants.

Since losing the vote last month, the United States, which is supposed to
be the organization's biggest donor, has been twisting the arms of weaker
nations, refusing to pay its dues unless they support it, with the result
that the OPCW could go under. Last week Bustani told me, "the Europeans are
so afraid that the US will abandon the convention that they are prepared to
sacrifice my post to keep it on board". His last hope is that the United
Kingdom, whose record of support for the organization has so far been
exemplary, will make a stand. The meeting on Sunday will present Tony
Blair's government with one of the clearest choices it has yet faced
between multilateralism and the "special relationship".

The US has not sought to substantiate the charges it has made against
Bustani. The OPCW is certainly suffering from a financial crisis, but that
is largely because the US unilaterally capped its budget and then failed to
pay what it owed. The organization's accounts have just been audited and
found to be perfectly sound. Staff morale is higher than any organization
as underfunded as the OPCW could reasonably expect. Bustani's real crimes
are contained in the last two charges, of "bias" and "ill-considered
initiatives".

The charge of bias arises precisely because the OPCW is not biased. It has
sought to examine facilities in the United States with the same rigor with
which it examines facilities anywhere else. But, just like Iraq, the US has
refused to accept weapons inspectors from countries it regards as hostile
to its interests, and has told those who have been allowed in which parts
of a site they may and may not inspect. It has also passed special
legislation permitting the president to block unannounced inspections, and
banning inspectors from removing samples of its chemicals.

"Ill-considered initiatives" is code for the attempts Bustani has made, in
line with his mandate, to persuade Saddam Hussein to sign the chemical
weapons convention. If Iraq agrees, it will then be subject to the same
inspections - both routine and unannounced - as any other member state
(with the exception, of course, of the United States). Bustani has so far
been unsuccessful, but only because, he believes, he has not yet received
the backing of the UN security council, with the result that Saddam knows
he would have little to gain from signing.

Bustani has suggested that if the security council were to support the
OPCW's bid to persuade Iraq to sign, this would provide the US with an
alternative to war. It is hard to see why Saddam Hussein would accept
weapons inspectors from Unmovic - the organization backed by the security
council - after its predecessor, UNSCOM, was found to be stuffed with spies
planted by the US government. It is much easier to see why he might accept
inspectors from an organization which has remained scrupulously
even-handed. Indeed, when UNSCOM was thrown
out of Iraq in 1998, the OPCW was allowed in to complete the destruction of
the weapons it had found. Bustani has to go because he has proposed the
solution to a problem the US does not want solved.

"What the Americans are doing," Bustani says, "is a coup d'etat. They are
using brute force to amend the convention and unseat the director-general."
As the chemical weapons convention has no provisions permitting these
measures, the US is simply ripping up the rules. If it wins, then the OPCW,
like UNSCOM, will be fatally compromised. Success for the United States on
Sunday would threaten the independence of every multilateral body.

This is, then, one of those rare occasions on which our government could
make a massive difference to the way the world is run. It could choose to
support its closest ally, wrecking multilateralism and shutting down the
alternatives to war. Or it could defy the United States in defense of world
peace and international law. It will take that principled stand only if we,
the people from whom it draws its power, make so much noise that it must
listen. We have five days in which to stop the US from bullying its way to
war.

<http://www.monbiot.com>www.monbiot.com

� Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

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