MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov)
"Cherchez la femme," somebody said regarding candidates for the post of UN Secretary-General, and the advice was heeded. The other day, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga proclaimed her readiness to change her residence on the Daugava River for the UN skyscraper on the East River.
That unexpected announcement shocked the five official candidates to the post. Jordanian Prince Zied Hussein, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, UN Undersecretary General for Public Affairs Shashi Tharoor, who is from India, Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, and former UN disarmament chief Jayantha Dhanapala, a Sri Lankan, are not misogynists. But they respect the rule of geographic rotation, according to which the post should go from one continent to another.
Now is Asia's turn. The previous two secretaries-general, Kofi Annan (Ghana) and Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt), represented Africa. Before them, three UN chiefs came from Europe, one from South America, and one from Asia. Peru's Javier Perez de Cuellar chaired the organization in the 1980s. But Asia has not been represented since Burma's U Thant, who held the post from 1961 to 1971.
No wonder the Asian diplomatic community is dissatisfied, and its mood is shared by African representatives. Taken together, they make up the majority of the General Assembly, whose opinion should be heeded.
The Latvian president doesn't think so. She firmly rejected the geographical principle in her statement and advanced an argument she regarded as incontrovertible: No woman has been UN Secretary-General in the 60 years of the organization's history.
This is true, and the fair sex should have its share of power in the UN. There is a substantial group of female politicians who deserve to be elected to the post, including Finnish President Tarja Halonen, New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark, and former head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland.
But these ladies hardly regard Vaira Vike-Freiberga as a fitting rival. In their opinion, which is shared by the majority of the international community, the Latvian president has one major drawback: Latvia is a NATO member.
Just imagine a UN Secretary-General taking time off between Security Council sessions to order a NATO patrol to fly to Russia's borders (since the Baltic countries joined NATO, the bloc's fighters have been deployed in their airfields in close proximity to the Russian border).
On the other hand, some countries may see NATO membership as a positive factor, which is probably why the idea of moving Vike-Freiberga from Riga to New York was first voiced by the American media. U.S. commentators tend to consider the Latvian president a very suitable candidate. Indeed, she might be approached both in the UN building in New York and at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
It was especially touching that Vike-Freiberga reminded us in her statement that the UN plays a major part in protecting various groups of people in rich and poor countries. It made me think about a certain group of people - 475,000 of them, in fact - whom the Latvian president could start protecting now, without moving to New York.
They are the Russian speakers of Latvia who still carry the humiliating violet passports of "non-citizens". More than 40% of Latvia's population have limited political and civil rights, are prohibited from taking up some professions, are discriminated against in business, and in general are treated as second-class people.
This is the result of a political choice by the Latvian authorities, and a personal one by Vaira Vike-Freiberga. She spoke exceedingly openly about the Russian minority in a recent interview. "They should admit that this is an independent country and become Letts of Russian origin. If they want to remain Russians, they should go to Russia," she said.
The Latvian president publicly denied nearly half of her population the right to a national tongue, traditions and culture. To earn the right to citizenship, Russian speakers should pretend to become Letts.
Latvia's disregard for the rights of ethnic minorities has grown into an open challenge since May 1, 2004, when it joined the European Union. Upon admission, it pledged to comply with the co-called Copenhagen criteria. The criteria require the acceding state to have the necessary institutions to preserve democratic governance and human rights, a functioning market economy, and to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU.
However, discrimination against Russian speakers in Latvia has intensified since then.
And now the international community is being called upon to elect a politician who shares this unacceptable view of human values to the highest post in the United Nations. What for? So that she will have more opportunities to spread the ideology of intolerance towards the rights of ethnic minorities on a global scale?
I hope the third round of the "beauty pageant", as the vote on candidates set for September 27 is generally called, will prove that the 15 representatives of the UN Security Council states are compos mentis, that is, rationally thinking and of sound mind.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
