US envoy to Indonesia expected to get key UN job

United Nations, Jan 9: The US ambassador to Indonesia is expected to be named as United Nations Undersecretary-General for political affairs, diplomatic sources said yesterday.

The leading candidate for the job, which will probably be announced this week by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is B Lynn Pascoe, 63, who served in several posts in Asia during the 1990s, including China, Taiwan and Malaysia. He speaks Mandarin Chinese.

Appointing an American to the post, first disclosed by the Times of London and confirmed independently by Reuters, is bound to raise criticism among some UN members who will question how independent he would be from US policy in negotiating agreements in a variety of crisis points.

The United States, until this year, had run the department of management and administration, which now is going to Alicia Barcena of Mexico. But some U.S. officials, including former ambassador John Bolton, began a push for political affairs, now headed by Nigerian Ibrahim Gambari.

Britain had wanted to regain the political affairs department, which it had held for many years, and put up a veteran diplomat, John Holmes, who now will be the humanitarian affairs coordinator.

Under current plans, UN sources told Reuters, the peacekeeping department will be divided, with France heading one half and possibly a Japanese leading the other. But the new UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon may need General Assembly approval for this.

Administration and field services for the peacekeeping department had been separate from the main planning unit until the mid-1990s when former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali found the division of labor untenable as missions multiplied.

The political affairs department may incorporate the disarmament department, although that department, now run by a Japanese, usually is not headed by a major power with nuclear weapons.

A veteran diplomat, Pascoe is regarded as a ''straight-talker'' with ''a little bit of a temper'' who will argue passionately for a position he has taken but only after marshaling his facts and thinking it through, according to a State Department diplomat who has known him for years.

''He'll twist your arm but not until it breaks ... He doesn't break crockery'' and is not perceived as operating from political biases, said the diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''He always argues from a point of principle'' and ''once he's taken a point of view, he's fairly unshakable.'' Pascoe, in his three decades in the foreign service, has held positions on the Soviet and China desks in the State Department and been posted to Moscow, Hong Kong and Bangkok, as well as to Beijing twice.

The new secretary-general is having to juggle demands by the key powers, who put him into office, with regional balance. China is expected to get the economic and social affairs department while Russia will stay in Geneva to head the UN's European offices, the sources said.

REUTERS