Global Policy Forum

By Michael Littlejohns

Through no fault of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's, the Dalai Lama was a conspicuous no-show at the world religious leaders' summit that opened in New York Monday, in advance of the gathering of heads of states and governments scheduled to open at the UN September 6. The Dalai Lama, who resides in exile in India, is a thorn in China's flesh and, not for the first time, Beijing's veto prevailed, although representatives of the Buddhist leader did manage to join the conferees.

Simultaneously, Annan took the opportunity of a gathering of 1,800 representatives of nongovernmental organizations, under UN auspices, to let it be known that he's strongly in favor of an open door policy toward groups that often irritate the powers that be, whether elected or self-appointed. The UN depends on NGOs, he said, and they ought to have better access.

It's too late for that, where the upcoming Millennium Summit extravaganza is concerned, and NGO's with any idea of disrupting this meeting of the global brass, as they managed to do at the World Trade Organization session in Seattle, is definitely out. The NYPD and UN Security have taken care of that with draconian traffic rules.

Still, Annan had these encouraging words for the NGOs: "You are our best defense against complacency, our bravest campaigners for honesty and our boldest crusaders for change." Ever an optimist, he said he believes that governments "in time" will agree that the UN's doors must be open and he would do his part to bring this about.

The Secretary General never did get to deliver his address on globalization at the WTO conference, because of the rowdies outside the hall, but the subject remains dear to him. If some folks believed that fighting globalization was like trying to repeal the law of gravity, he said, that still doesn't mean that "we should accept a law which allows only heavyweights to survive."

Globalization should serve as the engine that lifted people out of hardship and misery and not as a force to hold them down.

The annual NGO conference, now in its 53rd year, was due to hear, for the first time, from a head of state: Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Interestingly, he was one of the first leaders to cross swords with Annan at the UN last year in the controversy over the Secretary General's doctrine that human rights violations in a member state could be so egregious as to justify overriding the UN Charter inhibition against outside intervention. Also set to speak was Malia Craver, a 73 year-old indigenous leader from Hawaii.

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