Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 18, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba J t Power struggle for in top Job by William Frye Chicago Sun times United nations by United nations diplomats in their pin striped carrying attache file into the carpeted South lounge at in Headquarters and separately enter an inner among them Are some of the uns bes known people a Dapper sir Anth ony Parsons of Britain an intense Jeane Kirkpatrick of the United states a enigmatic Mashiro Nisi Bori of Japan an angry Lara of Tunny of Uganda a Western looking Oleg ale Sandrovich Troyanovsky of the soviet the 31yearold ambassador of Post Amin is spearheading a third world drive to seize control of the uns secretariat civil service by electing Tanzania 39yearold for eign minister Salim Salim As the next in Kirkpatrick is of Yunnus principal of she wants to Block backing the third world takeover bid is the secretive Ling qing of of Yunnus major he is trying to Clear the Way for Salim by preventing reappointment of 62year old Kurt Waldheim of the Street fighting Diplomat a Veteran of a thou Sand bruising diplomatic is uncharacteristically sitting this one out for the time he does not need to the United states is in the front taking All the the Battle is Over a Job which once was considered among the most influential in the and which despite the uns decline in recent exerts much moral authority Secretary general of the Waldheim old a second five year term As Secretary general he would very much like to continue for a at one he almost made but something happened on the Way Back to his office on the 38th floor of the in skyscraper Headquarters some thing which he and his supporters by no Means consider the third world decided to insist on having one of its own men in the the third world needed help to bring this by it could not Force Waldheim because selection of a Secretary general is one of the things the five great Powers the United the soviet France and China expect to control through their veto and at least two of the United states and the soviet Union support so the third world found a great Power Champion in peking was delighted to pose As a Leader of the third with a great show of it took up the fight to Block Battle of political wills the resulting confrontation China and the third world against the United states and the soviet Union produced one of the world organizations most evenly matched Arm Wres thing one which has paralysed the Security Council for Handi capped the and created new antagonism Between the West and the third this thing has become very Emo a japanese Diplomat obviously disapproving of Waldheim is in a state of advanced said a Man whose country has been voting for it the fight tends to immobilize lots of things where the in should be said a Waldheim no body knows who is going to be running the show no solution is in were in for a Oleg Troyanovsky Jeane Kirkpatrick Kurt Waldheim May retain Secretary general Post because and soviets dislike him less than other Long maybe a very Long a British Diplomat some think the in might even be without a Secretary general for a time after 31 Waldheim term ending with no one yet having been chosen to take his that seems but it is one of the bizarre possibilities in this unusual so the Stream of pinstriped in Diplo Mats flows through the South lounge and into the inner office of the presi Dent of the in Security Council for consultations to break the dead the Man who has been receiving the visitors is a fatherly 67year old Taieb a third Wolder but by no Means a a Man whose natural instincts Are for if the in is to get out of this plight it will be in Large part because of slims ability As a but the tunisian has Only a relatively Short he will be Council presi Dent Only until then of Tunny takes Over following the custom of monthly rotation in English alphabetical order Uganda following once of Tunny is in the the balance of diplomatic Power will assuming continued the iraqi president of the 157nation in general is Nat plans to write of Tunny a formal letter asking if the Security Council is Able to carry out its duty to recommend a according to a scheme being formulated behind the scene by Radical third notably will reply that it is not that it is hopelessly then the veto free general Assem where the third world rides will assert the right to make its own Choice without a Council recommend the third worlds would be virtually certain of a manoeuvre a pressure tactic yes threat built a fire under the Waldheim Legal not under a literal Reading of the in which provides that the Secre tar general shall be appointed by the general Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security but it happened once in when the United states arranged to have the Assembly extend the term of Trygve the norwegian who was the uns first de spite a soviet veto in the Security lie had offended and the United states was determined that he should not be punished for for the rest of lies the soviet Union insisted the whole thing was and refused to Deal with frustrated by the soviet lie eventually asked in a Telephone interview As Council he would cooperate in bypassing the american stun no said diplomatically that he doubted the situation would but that if it he would consult with other cil members before according to other in he has strongly implied that together with other third world members of the Council he would try to carry out the bypass in the Waldheim the counter tactic is talk about softening up the Over Washimi in an expensive East Side new York restaurant where cognoscenti sit on the matted japans Delegate Nisi Bori probed Ling to see if he was serious about his vetoes of he was it was not merely a a bid for third world Ling said his instructions from peking were very he was to Block Wald Heim until or unless Salim clearly was out of the this triggered a search for a harm less third world alternative who could draw votes from Salim and make his Case seem China would it was abandon the and Waldheim would slip the trouble was that no serious candidate wanted to play the role of the wounded diverting chivas Atten and there was always the danger the harmless diversion might Acci dentally be things sometimes get pretty machiavellian Here at the Waldheim is seen As a even if he gets a new he can claim that it is a fight Between blocs the third world versus the West More than it is a rejection of him but this is Only partly there is a lot of uncomplimentary comment going around about even diplomats who Back him Call him a Faute de Mieux Secretary general someone to support in the absence of a better v enormous salary should both Waldheim and Salim prove there Are plenty of others to pick up a fallen As Noel the Irish told an the horses Are prancing nervously outside the for one the fee bag comes to a mexican Delegate Porfirio Munoz Ledo is one eager of a Council member said we would probably veto him to hell and another is Radha Krishna Rayphul of his chances Are not much serious possibilities As deadlock breaker include Javier Perez de Cuel Lar of until recently a High in and Jorge the mexican foreign Castaneda has a far left wife and is himself considered pretty he might have More trouble escaping a soviet veto than an the United states would find it hard to veto a balloting is theoretically but everyone knows who voted officials close to Waldheim Are alarmed by the Prospect of agreement on if the state depart ment is ready to take thinking it can escape slims Marx ism that they Are out of their one absolutely out of their the Force is with him a Canadian thought castanedas real trouble was that he is too Strong a he is a wild he i take that he is not a wild he is a Man with definite quite a bit of very Well known and a Force in his own that is just what the great Powers do not want a Man who is a Force in his own of he is a Force in the Correct in which Case he is automatically unacceptable to the other men who Are acceptable Are men who Are who have not seriously offended anyone and Are not Likely to offend they have such a Man in Moscow and Washington both want to keep it is one of the rare aspects of the Battle that the superpowers Are on the same they rarely agree on Wien they they usually have their and in the Many think it May be More focus on Page 8 about 3 election a longtime Manitoba conservative it Doest look he in were going to lose asked he answered tersely i would say the Meg projects and rent in that while those made the superstructure of the Dps smashing Victory last a seismic tremor rattled across and the province has passed into a new phase in its political his Many myths have been and new ones Are in the the Foremost myth to fall was the belief that the nip was a creature of de Schreyer would fade once he left the the with its 47 per cent of the popular is now Mani Tobas other major and if the new government uses its impressive Phalanx of Cabinet Talent properly Over the next four it could replace the conservatives As the majority party of the just As the nip has been for the past three decades and More in another myth that is gone is the popular Conception of Manitoba As a Small conservative Manitoba at least Manitoba Urban seek the Centre in and a Large part of the tories defeat rests in their misreading of that the the first of a string of neoconservative governments to be elected in creates a new political majority Frances Russell the rightist tide of the late looked and acted like politicians from earlier Premier Sterling Lyons rigid righting stance on everything from a Bill of rights to Lavisse Zaire and the party Reliance on big bang private ail recalled a political style that died with Howe and the it kept the tories largely Anglo Saxon but it was rejected massively by Urban during the Lyon repeatedly taunted the nip for made in Regina True or those policies obviously had More Appeal to Manitoba voters than his own made in Toronto and Madei new York the tories relied on Ottar ios big Blue machine and its cynical belief that elections can be bought by Reliance on big corporations and saturation advertising in the last few Days of a but Manitoba is not politically or economic its a poor province and it has a much More Active political the turnout in the last Ontario election was about 55 per since Manitoba voter turnout has consistently been in the mid thigh seven another myth that perished last night is that democratic socialist Par ties cannot win in a straight two Way that belief dogged the Schreyer government which constantly faced claims that it Only took Power because of a vote split Between conservatives and the Liberal vote uttered a death rattle last dropping six Points from its already vestigial 12 per cent garnered in the 1977 a pollster who conducted election samplings throughout the summer and fall said there was nothing Surpris ing in that final the he said just prior to the would win for two reasons its massive support among the under35 voters and the wholesale desertion of the liberals into the new Democrat the tories will probably conduct much soul searching about the final Liberal after it was they who had benefited from a six percent drop in Liberal vote in the Liberal vote which remained went nip this time because it was a centrist vote and also because of the Lyon governments continual ing of the government in with these myths a new myth May be on the Way in the person of Premier elect Howard Pawley was dismissed too easily and too Early by his political foes because of his poor platform own party worried about it so much they added to his problems by making him self con scions and giving him written texts when he functions much better Etem to Pawley must go much of the credit for fashioning his party spectacular return to shattering Manitoba longstanding tradition of two term Pawley created a formidable grassroots Organiza Tion after who never believed in the need for won two elections on the strength of his personal Appeal and left the party near bankruptcy after its doonesbury the grassroots organization Pawley forged with the new new democrats he attracted could be the basis for a new Manitoba political it was visible in the horrendously cramped and Happy audience at the Union Centre last its the other half of Manitoba political culture the the new the Long established ethnic Community and the contrast Between the nip crowd and the tory gathering election night be More and it spells problems for the conservatives As they contemplate their own political Manitoba Diago Nal line once More jumps out from the electoral the tories Are clinging to an old and fading majority com posed of Rural reaction and the Wasp As presaged by the recent redistribution which gave Winnipeg a majority of the provinces the Politi Cal action in this province has moved to the Urban centres and to a new Multi cultural the Dps Victory last night was not so much the popular vote they or their comfortable margin of their Victory was that they have brought into the mainstream of Politi Cal life in Manitoba Many people who never thought they counted let alone thought they could elect a provincial tit As in r16htnquk political aside rom to in Shipong Cammin soup financial and the Early support of maw How about in willing to kill 4 i r ;