[A-List] US rejoins UNESCO

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

After 18 years away America rejoins Unesco in surprise announcement

US pledge on human rights and tolerance

Owen Bowcott
Friday September 13, 2002
The Guardian

Eighteen years after withdrawing from Unesco in protest at its alleged
mismanagement, America is to rejoin the United Nations' educational,
scientific and cultural organisation, President Bush announced in New
York yesterday.

The decision, greeted with applause by delegates at the UN general
assembly, surprised critics of the Bush ad ministration which has been
accused of flouting international cooperation on the environment and
arms control.

"As a symbol of our commitment to human dignity, the United States will
return to Unesco," Mr Bush declared during his speech lambasting Saddam
Hussein's regime in Iraq. "This organisation has been reformed and
America will participate fully in its mission to advance human rights
and tolerance and learning."

Unesco, based in Paris, was created at the end of the second world war
to combat intolerance, ignorance and racism. By the mid-1980s it was
facing claims that it was corrupt, politicised and mismanaged. Under the
leadership of Senegal's Amadou Mbow it promoted a controversial "new
world information order" which the western media believed amounted to
censorship.

The United States pulled out in 1984 during Ronald Reagan's presidency.
The then secretary of state George Shultz said Unesco had strayed from
its original purpose. At the time, the United States provided a quarter
of Unesco's budget.

Britain also withdrew from the organisation in the 1980s but decided to
rejoin in 1997 when the Labour government came to power. Unesco's
current director, a Japanese career diplomat, Koichiro Matsuura, was
elected in November 1999 with a mandate to simplify its sprawling bureau
cracy and woo back Washington.

Mr Matsuura provoked staff protests, and even a short hunger strike by
two employees, when he dismissed 20 senior advisers and suspended more
than 100 promotions and appointments that his predecessor, Federico
Mayor of Spain, had put in place just before leaving.

Unesco recently revealed that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Algeria and
other states had asked the organisation for assistance in breaking the
association between Islam and terrorism that has developed in the minds
of many.

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Unesco
"still has work to do" on reform.