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.

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BACKGROUND: DANISH CARTOONS AT UNESCO:
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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.)

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A WORKING GROUP FORMS:
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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.)

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GROUP DYNAMICS:
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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)

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ALL EYES ON THE U.S.
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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.

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RULES OF PROCEDURE:
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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.

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NEXT STEPS:
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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