By Colum Lynch
Washington PostJune 23, 2000
The United States is campaigning to kick Serbia's U.N. envoy out of the United Nations, at least temporarily, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said today.
Richard C. Holbrooke said that Belgrade's envoy, Vladislav Jovanovic, continues to be accredited to the United Nations as the representative of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, even though that country ceased to exist in the early 1990s. He said Serbia must re-apply for membership in the United Nations as a newly independent state, or leave the organization.
"This is going to be an all-out effort to dislodge Yugoslavia from the United Nations. We may win. We may fail," Holbrooke said in an interview. "The flag flying [at U.N. headquarters] on First Avenue is the flag of a country that hasn't existed in a decade--Tito's Yugoslavia."
Holbrooke announced the U.S. campaign shortly after the Security Council, acting at the behest of the United States, voted to bar Jovanovic from participating in a council debate on the Balkans. The U.S. envoy said that he and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright would urge their counterparts in New York and in foreign capitals to support the U.S. position.
The United Nations decided in 1993 that the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ceased to exist and that each new country should apply for membership. The former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have since done so.
But the government of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic "refused to apply again, saying that they were the successor state and the other states were just breakaway renegades," Holbrooke said.
While Belgrade has been denied a seat in the U.N. General Assembly since 1993, the U.N.'s legal office decided to accredit the government's U.N. mission and allow it to participate in a number of U.N. committees. In the past, the Serbian representative has been permitted to sit in the Security Council as an observer.
Holbrooke said that since he became the U.S. ambassador nine months ago, he has quietly persuaded his colleagues to bar Jovanovic from addressing the council. But Russia's U.N. ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, decided today to put the issue to a vote. He was defeated 7 to 4, with China, Namibia and Ukraine supporting Moscow.
After the vote, Lavrov stormed out of the council chamber in protest, saying it was "nonsense" to discuss the Balkan troubles without the presence of Milosevic's representative.
"Gagging people's mouths is not the best way to discuss the acute international problems. . . . Even a defendant has a right to defend his or her position," Lavrov said.
"The Russians in effect triggered this fight by raising the issue," Holbrooke responded. "And now we're going to go at it."
