USUNESCO: MEDIA FREEDOM - DANISH CARTOONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PARIS 002796 SIPDIS FROM US MISSION TO UNESCO E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/26/2016 TAGS: KPAO PREL ECON UNESCO SUBJECT: USUNESCO: MEDIA FREEDOM - DANISH CARTOONS REF: Paris 7472 and 7677 ¶1. (C) Classified by: PAO Caitlin Bergin for reasons 1.4; B/D ¶2. (C) SUMMARY: Executive Board Agenda Item 46, Title, was renegotiated by a working group during the Executive Board to address concerns about respect for culture and religion raised by the Danish cartoons of Mohammed published in 2004, while drawing a firm line in favor of UNESCO's constitutional obligation to uphold the principle of freedom of expression. A solution favoring media freedom, and avoiding new instruments was reached due to U.S. leadership. Many EU member states, including its current president Austria, have hate speech laws and were surprisingly comfortable with permissive language on media freedom. Russia and India were unhelpful in negotiations, while Pakistan, Morocco and Brazil took a more moderate line. The Mission found strong support for its position from Canada, Switzerland and Israel and quiet support from new Central European EU members. Yemen, which reached out to the Mission during the month before the negotiations, remained very quiet during the working group meetings. Norway provided effective working group leadership and the Secretariat generally supported our position. The U.S. was seen as a serious player in part because delegations knew we had not been afraid to loudly break consensus on cultural diversity in October 2005 and because Mission made it clear that freedom of expression was sacrosanct for Washington. EU member states swapping seats among delegations during the working group has started an intense debate about rules of procedure at UNESCO. Libya also submitted a draft decision calling outright for an instrument, but postponed consideration of this document. END SUMMARY. -------------- BACKGROUND: DANISH CARTOONS AT UNESCO: -------------- ¶3. (C) When the Danish cartoon crisis raged in February 2006, after re-publication in a French newspaper, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) asked the Director General to issue a statement of support. The statement, drafted by his Chef de Cabinet ADG Francoise Riviere, with input from the organization's Communications and Information (CI) sector and to some extent, the World Press Freedom Committee (a U.S. NATCOM member) came out strongly in favor of media freedom. Many OIC member states reacted strongly because the statement did not fully address their concerns. The group, officially led by Yemen, drafted a decision for the Executive Board which limited media freedom and left the door open to new instruments. (COMMENT: Once this occurred, the issue took on a life of its own, with India and Sri Lanka attempting to hijack it into a developed-versus-developing-world debate. In early negotiations, India took a harder line than most OIC members. Yemen always wanted a consensus document which would include U.S. support. END COMMENT.) ¶4. (C) According to Mogens Schmidt, Director for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace in the CI sector, the UNESCO Director General wanted to avoid a debate on media freedom at the Executive Board, partly because he knew the U.S. would take a strong position on this issue. He tasked preparation for the issue to the culture sector, in hopes of focusing on dialogue. He also cancelled a conference tentatively scheduled for March 27 on the topic after being told by member states that it would polarize the debate and possibly prevent achieving a consensus document. Schmidt expressed concern that the culture sector might inadvertently sell out media freedom, but noted his hands were tied. Yemen, representing the OIC, repeatedly updated the Mission on negotiations, which were stalled. These had begun in late March between the E.U. and the OIC with the later additions of India and Sri Lanka, but on the eve of the Executive Board, the Mission suddenly found the EU Troika on our doorstep with a weak document that we told them we could not support. (COMMENT: At this point, emotions were high and the shadow of colonialism loomed large: In a March meeting the Mission attended on Education, the Indian Ambassador accused the U.K. Ambassador of super-imposing Israeli Palestinian conflict dynamics on to the cartoon issue. You see everything through this lens, she shouted as others in the room shrank back. She also lambasted him for "forgetting" that India had valuable expertise to share as a modern democracy with a large Muslim population. END COMMENT.) -------------- A WORKING GROUP FORMS: -------------- ¶5. (C) Negotiations continued unsuccessfully behind the scenes during the beginning of the Executive Board. IN order to try to establish a consensus document, the Norwegian chair of the Program and External Relations Committee (PX) was asked by the Chairman of the Executive Board (China) to convene a working group to draft a new resolution that could be adopted by consensus in the PX before being given to the Executive Board Plenary session. The Norwegian Chairman consulted with a number of countries before deciding who should participate in the working group. The working group began its meetings on April 6. By the morning of April 10, since there was still no consensus, Norway announced that the self-imposed deadline of that afternoon (the official end of the PX meeting) would be ignored and that we should continue negotiations to achieve consensus. The Chair stated that, following the precedent set at the last Executive Board meeting, when the document was ready to be presented to the PX, the Plenary would close briefly in order to permit a reopening of the PX meeting for that purpose, after which time the plenary would resume. (COMMENT: This sent a signal to all working group members that they had to reach a solution. All parties were told by the Chair that failure to reach consensus would deal a devastating blow to UNESCO's already fragile status within the UN system, since it would show that it could not even address an issue at the heart of its unique culture and media mandates. END COMMENT.) ¶6. The working group members were as follows: the U.K., the U.S., Yemen, Morocco, Pakistan, India, the Bahamas, Brazil, Russia, Hungary, Nigeria, and Namibia. Ambassador Oliver, representing Group I, immediately began seeking views of other non-EU group I members such as Israel, Switzerland, Canada and Iceland, who, especially Canada, fully supported our position. When U.S. opposition to the EU position became apparent during the working group, the EU reconvened and strengthened its position to be more in line with the U.S. The EU also regularly briefed its members in group I and II but as usual excluded the U.S. and other non-EU Group I and II members from these briefings. (COMMENT: This is a separate issue but increasingly a problem for non-EU members of these groups. END COMMENT.) -------------- GROUP DYNAMICS: -------------- ¶7. (C) It was clear from the beginning of the working group meeting that India and Morocco were going to be the most outspoken members of the working group and would push for limitations on freedom of expression through such words as responsible and accountable. They had strong support from Russia, who always agreed with everything they said. The EU and the U.S. representatives were uncompromising on refusing to accept limitations on freedom of expression. The German Ambassador (representing the United Kingdom) wanted to be strongly allied with the U.S. and later told Ambassador Oliver that Berlin had specifically instructed him to play a helpful role on this issue. He helped keep Austria close to the U.S. position. ¶8. (C) The GRULAC representatives, particularly Brazil, said that they had stayed out of the negotiations until the working group was convened because they initially felt that it was an EU-OIC problem, but had realized that how the issue was resolved would affect all UNESCO member states and the credibility of the organization itself. They consistently pushed the need for consensus and adamantly refused to consider a possible vote on this issue, unlike Russia and India who were perfectly willing to have a vote in the absence of consensus, even making interventions on this point. The Arab and Asia Pacific representatives frequently referred to the fact that they had already made many concessions from the OIC's original draft decision, and would be unable to convince their respective geographic groups to make further concessions. The African group representatives said very little during the negotiations. ¶9. (C) The breakthrough occurred when Afghanistan informally and outside of the working group meetings suggested new language for paragraph 7 to Ambassador Oliver, which the U.K. also indicated that the EU could support. With EU and U.S. support secured, the Afghan Ambassador then suggested the new language at the next Asia Pacific group meeting. India publicly attacked him for inappropriately engaging in working group negotiations. However, at the working group session immediately following the Asia Pacific meeting, Pakistan said that the new language (respect and understanding) might be acceptable if the word mutual was added in front of each word, and that he thought he could convince the Asia Pacific group to support it. (COMMENT: This neutralized India and prevented it from continuing to obstruct negotiations. END COMMENT) When a consensus document had been tentatively agreed on, Ambassador Oliver asked Cameroon, a Vice Chairman of the Executive Board to tell the African working group representatives to support the consensus text, which they did. ¶10. (C) Though Russia continued to voice concerns about the new language, it was isolated. (COMMENT: Russia hoped to push the issue to a vote, where media freedom advocates at UNESCO would have been vastly outnumbered. Mission is aware that while negotiations were underway at UNESCO, Russia's Mission to the UN in New York circulated a copy of a government controlled NGO's "Rules of Conduct of the Media in cases of terrorist attacks and counter-terrorist operations" as an "example of how media professionals can assume responsibility in the fight against terrorism." END COMMENT.) ¶11. (C) The Secretariat played a positive role in negotiations by pushing for consensus and was generally helpful to the U.S. position. (COMMENT: This was driven, in large part, by its pride in being the only UN agency with a mandate for protecting media freedom, and a strong desire to protect it, and in part to avoid another confrontation involving the U.S. When the Secretariat actually suggested language during the working SIPDIS group, India attacked the secretariat, accusing it of inappropriate interference. END COMMENT) -------------- ALL EYES ON THE U.S. -------------- ¶12. (C) Ambassador Oliver emphasized two key points: achieving true consensus was essential and freedom of expression was sacrosanct. Member states knew from the cultural diversity negotiations last October that the U.S. had no qualms about loudly breaking consensus on matters of principle, which, in the case of cultural diversity, included building a public record of opposition against a UNESCO decision. They also recalled, in private conversations with the Ambassador, that the U.S had left UNESCO in 1984 because of "New World Information Order" which sought to sharply limit freedom of expression. Despite EU willingness to include permissive language on freedom of expression, the Ambassador made clear that the U.S. could not accept terms such as responsible, accountable or self-discipline in paragraph 7 as a matter of principle. ¶13. (C) Among OIC members, there was ambivalence about language leaving the way open for future instruments. Ambassador Oliver asked the working group if they wanted to have an instrument on the issue. When they all told her no, she suggested putting specific language in paragraph 10 of the document stating that fact. This suggestion was rejected because of the concern that it would be inappropriate to potentially limit the options of a future DG. However, since they understood our concerns, India suggested having the chairman's oral statement include language specifying that paragraph 10 of the decision should not be interpreted as leading to or providing support for a future normative instrument in this area. The German Ambassador supported this idea by emphasizing that the Chairman's oral statement is binding and would accompany the resolution. This was also done for paragraph 7 at the request of India and Morocco. -------------- RULES OF PROCEDURE: -------------- ¶14. (C) At the working group, Ambassador Oliver was surprised to see on her left the German Ambassador seated in the U.K. chair and referred to as "the Ambassador from the United Kingdom" and, on her right, the Austrian Ambassador seated in Hungary's chair, also called on as "the distinguished representative of Hungary." The U.K. (the last EU President) and Germany (the last Executive Board Chair) advised the Mission that they had deposited a note with the Secretariat to formally state that the German Ambassador was a member of their delegation. Hungary, for its part, stated that they had made "an arrangement." Hungary was representing Group II on the working group, but Austria is a member of group I, adding further confusion to the appropriate role of geographic groups at UNESCO. This new practice grows out of a decision taken by the EB a year-ago (over strenuous U.S. opposition) to grant the EU "enhanced observer status" during the cultural diversity negotiations. Whenever the Austrian Ambassador tried to intervene in the name of the EU, particularly when he raised EU objections to the title, the Indian Ambassador shouted that the EU did not exist as an official group at UNESCO, and that it was too late to change the title as a matter of procedure. (COMMENT: Despite U.S. warnings about the precedent that was being set, most member states, including India and Canada, supported the EU and are now lamenting their decision. END COMMENT.) Mission notes that India, stated that it would submit an item on this topic for the agenda of the next EB in Oct, which would address the issue of representation on member state delegations and EB procedures. ¶15. (C) Long-time UNESCO observer and World Press Freedom Representative Rony Koven advised that the emphasis on geographic groups at UNESCO began under Director General M'Bow (under whose leadership the U.S. left) who wanted to discipline African countries that disagreed with his native Senegal. The easiest way to do this, Koven noted, was for him to develop regional groups and encourage them to establish one common position. The practice remains in effect today. -------------- NEXT STEPS: -------------- ¶16. (SBU) Mission expects the DG to revive his idea for a conference as part of the request in para 10 of the resolution asking him to propose next steps. Mission is encouraging media freedom NGOs to work with UNESCO to help develop a positive agenda and identify appropriate speakers for this possible conference on the topic of media and respect for religious and cultural difference. Libya also submitted a separate draft decision calling outright for an instrument, but postponed discussion of the document and suggested they might reintroduce it at the next Executive Board. However, Morocco, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Arab group countries maintained that they would not support this. They also noted that this was simply a "face saving statement" for Libya. OLIVER