Global Policy Forum

By Judith Miller

United Nations -- Reflecting frustration over his organization's marginalization in Kosovo, Secretary General Kofi Annan criticized the United States on Tuesday for taking military action without Security Council blessing and China and Russia for having ignored the ethnic purging that led to NATO's bombing. In a speech at The Hague commemorating the centenary of the first International Peace Conference, Annan did not identify those Security Council members by name, but he warned that the inability of the 15-member council to achieve consensus on Kosovo and other critical issues threatened both the United Nations and international peace.

"Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force," Annan said, in the text distributed here on Tuesday, "we are on a dangerous path to anarchy." Equally important, he continued, unless the Security Council "can unite around the aim of confronting massive human rights violations and crimes against humanity on the scale of Kosovo, then we will betray the very ideals that inspired the founding of the United Nations." Annan said the "Council's unity and inaction in the face of genocide" in Rwanda was flawed, as was its "division, and regional action" in Kosovo. Both times, he said, U.N. members "should have been able to find common ground in upholding the principles of the Charter, and find unity in defense of our common humanity."

A senior U.N. official stressed that Annan was not singling out the United States and its allies particularly for using force without Security Council sanction. The official cited at least six other conflicts in the last five years, most of them in Africa, in which individual states or regional groups resorted to force with explicit council authorization. Annan's speech, he noted, also criticized states for "flouting" Security Council sanctions and other unidentified states for failing to cooperate with the council in "disarmament and nonproliferation," or with efforts by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to bring war criminals to justice. "This is not a blast at anybody," the official said. "It is a statement of concern about a growing trend -- the bypassing of the Security Council -- which he wants member states to think about."

The official stressed that Annan was not abandoning his earlier qualified support for NATO's action. "After 55 days of bombing, he still says that the use of force was necessary," the official explained. Yet Annan's speech on Tuesday differed somewhat in tone and emphasis from his previous statements, which focused more heavily on the human rights abuses taking place in Kosovo. His speech also cited "the emergence of the single superpower and new regional powers" and "the preference for so-called coalitions of the willing" as having contributed to the increasing resort to unauthorized force.

Officials at the U.S. mission agreed that Annan's remarks differed from his previous statements on the conflict, but declined to criticize him. "Let's just say we prefer his earlier speeches," one official said. "We share his disappointment that the council lacked consensus and was unable to take action against the Serbs' ethnic cleansing in Kosovo," James B. Foley, a State Department spokesman, said on Tuesday. "And we see as extremely positive his reaction that the bombing was necessary."

But Washington has not hidden its opposition to Annan's efforts to help mediate an end to the conflict. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has made clear that negotiations with the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, should be handled through the Russian envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin, and President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, who represents the European Union and has supported NATO's goals.

Annan had considerable difficulty appointing two envoys, Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, and Eduard Kukan, Slovakia's foreign minister, to help his mediation efforts. Diplomats here said that Washington was particularly unenthusiastic about Bildt's selection because of his critical comments about the NATO air strikes. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Kukan said he and Bildt would meet with Albright in Washington on Wednesday to discuss their role.

The State Department, eager to avoid a proliferation of would-be mediators, has urged Annan and his envoys to limit their efforts to refugee assistance, and to reconstruction after a peace settlement is achieved. Kukan said that China, one of the council's five permanent council members with veto powers, remained adamant that the council should not discuss peace talks or a peace plan until NATO stops its air strikes