Mexican Bid for Top U.N. Post May Be in Jeopardy

By BENNY AVNI, Staff Reporter of the Sun
May 13, 2008

UNITED NATIONS — Efforts to appoint a Mexican national to the highest U.N. human rights position may be undermined by new reports that the Mexican government has successfully pressured the outgoing human rights commissioner, Louise Arbour, to remove her representative from the country.

Several countries are lobbying Secretary-General Ban on high-profile U.N. positions that are expected to become vacant in June. In addition to rights commissioner, they include an undersecretary-general for peacekeeping and a management chief.

Since the 2000 election of President Fox, Mexico has vied for deeper involvement in international and U.N. affairs. Officials in the government of President Calderon want a Mexican-appointed rights commissioner, which would be the country's top U.N. official. That honor now belongs to Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, who is expected soon to leave her post as undersecretary-general for management.

That effort could be crippled by reports in the Spanish-language El País and several Mexican press outlets that Ms. Arbour, under pressure from top government officials, removed her representative in the country since October 2005, Amerigo Incalcaterra of Italy, because of his frequent public criticism of human rights violations in the country.

U.N. officials denied the press accounts, but the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, wrote in a letter of protest to Mr. Calderon last week that the reports seemed "credible." Mr. Roth expressed "profound concern" and asked the Mexican government to publicly explain the circumstances leading to Mr. Incalaterra's departure, calling it a possible "alarming step backward" from the advances the country has made since the 2000 election.

At least two Mexican officials — Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa and a former Human Rights Council president, Luis Alfonso de Alba — aim to become human rights chief, but they face tough competition. Brazil wants to recapture the post it lost in 2003, when Commissioner Sergio Vieira de Mello became the U.N. envoy in Iraq, where he was killed. Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey of Switzerland is said to be a candidate, as is Jordan's ambassador in Washington, Prince Zeid. The current U.N. special adviser for the prevention of genocide, Francis Deng of Sudan — a former top aide to Khartoum's late strongman Jaafar Numeiri — has also fielded a candidacy.

In choosing a commissioner, "it's important that the individual is well-recognized as being someone who upholds human rights," a British U.N. ambassador, Karen Pierce, said, adding: "The individual is more important than the country." American officials said they follow the races for several U.N. positions "very closely" — including the race for the human rights post. An aide to Mr. Ban said he was not yet close to a decision.

Mr. Incalcaterra will depart Mexico on Thursday, following last week's announcement about his departure, a U.N. spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, said, adding that Mr. Incalcaterra was recently named to a new U.N. "senior post" that needed to be filled quickly. "The speed of his departure seems to be misinterpreted as some sort of drama, which it is not," Ms. Okabe told The New York Sun.