US campaign to deny UN post

A senior US official announced on Tuesday that some countries in southern Africa would probably vote in support of Mauritius rather than Sudan in next month’s vote for the African seat on the UN Security Council. The United States has campaigned to deny Sudan the role. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was reported by Reuters on Tuesday to have discussed the contest for the African seat in New York with representatives of the 14 countries in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, urging them to bar Sudan from representing Africa on the United Nations Security Council. In an earlier Associated Press (AP) report on 13 September, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher cited UN reports that Sudan had bombed areas in the country where UN relief operations were based, calling the African nation an “unsuitable candidate”. Tuesday’s announcement suggests the American campaign was paying off, AFP reported. While the US official admitted that there were two African candidates - Sudan and Mauritius, given discussions with other countries, “quite a few indicated that they would vote for Mauritius... Nobody spoke in favour of Sudan, except procedurally,” the Reuters report said. The report went on to add that once the vote goes to the General Assembly, the United States can be relatively confident about excluding Sudan, which has few friends outside the Islamic world.