U.S. RAPE RESOLUTION: STATE OF PLAY AS OF OCT. 19

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 000896 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/19/2012 TAGS: AORC UN UNGA KWMN SOCI SUBJECT: U.S. RAPE RESOLUTION: STATE OF PLAY AS OF OCT. 19 Classified By: Ambassador Grover Joseph Rees for reasons 1.4(b) and (d). ¶1. (U) Summary: The United States tabled its anti-rape resolution in the UNGA Third Committee on Wednesday. The resolution has attracted considerable opposition from certain African, Middle Eastern, and other delegations who correctly perceive it as targeting, inter alia, the Government of Sudan. Some delegations have also insisted on contentious language on extraneous policy issues including "foreign occupation" and unqualified endorsements of treaties and other documents that contain provisions the United States cannot unequivocally endorse. Despite these obstacles, the United States has been given credit for showing flexibility and good will in negotiations and has resolved a number of contentious issues. In order to build momentum for the resolution, high-level contacts in capitals are needed to urge immediate co-sponsorship and to counter attempts to assemble regional blocs in opposition to the resolution. Action on the resolution, either a vote or adoption by consensus, is expected to take place on November 1. End Summary. ¶2. (U) The U.S. Mission tabled its resolution on "Eliminating the Use of Rape and Other Forms of Sexual Violence as Instruments to Achieve Military or Political Objectives" on October 17 with four co-sponsors joining the U.S.: East Timor, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Subsequently Afghanistan and Nauru also signed on as co-sponsors. ¶3. (U) A number of other delegations, including Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Croatia, assure us that they support the resolution in its present form and/or that they will help us pass it, but have not yet co-sponsored. Although most say that they are awaiting instructions from capitals, these delegations are most likely reluctant to associate with an initiative that has attracted a number of outspoken opponents and are awaiting further developments. ¶4. (C) There are three major sets of issues outstanding, raised by three distinct but overlapping groups of countries: -- Reproductive Health/Beijing/CEDAW: From the outset, a handful of countries including the EU, Canada, China, and South Africa have proposed amendments unacceptable to the U.S. including unqualified reaffirmation of the Beijing Platform for Action and its five-year follow-up, reaffirmation of and/or calls upon states to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and unqualified references to "reproductive health" and "reproductive HEALTH services." Portugal, negotiating for the EU, has repeatedly indicated that the EU will be flexible about the wording of these provisions, but has also indicated that U.S.-proposed compromise language on CEDAW and Beijing are unacceptable. However, the Third Committee delegate from the UK (please protect) assured USUN today that in the end the EU will accept the U.S. language on these issues. This delegate warned, however, that the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden might still cause problems for the resolution within the EU. Canada has taken a harder line than the EU, insisting on unqualified reaffirmation of Beijing and CEDAW and of language endorsing "reproductive health services." However, today the Canadian Deputy Perm Rep assured USUN that in the end Canada will be flexible on all these issues. (Comment: Both of these assurances appear to have come as a result of lobbying over the last few days by the Department and USUN.) -- Some OIC and other countries - notably Sudan, Syria, South Africa, and Cuba, supported on occasion by Egypt, Venezuela, Russia, and others - have been extremely hostile. This is primarily because they correctly perceive that ONE target of the resolution is the continued use of mass rape by the Government of Sudan and its allied militias. OIC members including Pakistan, Sudan, and Jordan have also proposed a large number of references to "foreign occupation" and related issues. The UK tells us that the EU will speak up more in informals to counter hostile OIC proposals. -- Africa Group. This week Benin, on behalf of the African Group, announced that the Group opposed the U.S. resolution. This appears to have been the result of a working-level meeting at which the Third Committee representatives from Sudan, Egypt, and South Africa denounced the resolution. At a subsequent meeting, working-level representatives of these three countries plus Botswana, Zambia, Algeria, and Sierra Leone denounced the resolution as an attack on Sudan that called for African solidarity in opposition. Permanent Representatives of several key African missions, including the Benin Perm Rep, whose subordinate announced the putative Africa Group consensus, have told USUN they were unaware of such a consensus. The Perm Reps of Nigeria, Morocco, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, and Senegal undertook to make clear at a meeting today that there is no African consensus against the resolution. Ambassador Khalilzad also spoke with the South African Permanent Representative, who was surprised to learn that the resolution did not specifically name Sudan or any other country and who promised to read the resolution. However, it appears that the rape resolution was not formally discussed at the meeting, ostensibly because there were too many other items on the agenda. Although USUN will continue to take the position that there is no Africa Group consensus, the working-level meetings that purported to announce such a consensus have given rise to a broad perception that the resolution is in trouble. This perception will likely continue until the Africa Group Perm Reps reverse the lower-level decision, or at least until the resolution attracts several African co-sponsors including ONE or two large countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and/or Senegal. ¶5. (U) In an effort to show flexibility and good will, the USDEL has accepted numerous amendments, including from the EU, OIC members, South Africa, and even Cuba. The most important of these amendments was to change the title and several key provisions so that the principal focus of the resolution is no longer rape "as an instrument of state policy." The resolution now focuses on rape as an instrument to achieve military or political objectives, whether by states, rebel groups, or other non-state actors. There has been widespread support for this change, including among EU, OIC, and African delegations. However, some African delegations and others are now saying that the change did not go far enough, since rape "as an instrument to achieve military or political objectives" is still seen as targeting the Government of Sudan among others. ¶6. (U) Although Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela, and several others will likely try to defeat or hijack the resolution no matter what changes are made, the United States strategy is to isolate them in two ways. -- First, we will continue to negotiate the text in order to address sincere concerns, a process that will entail accepting some language we find disagreeable while rejecting only those proposals that are irreconcilable with U.S. legal or policy positions. -- Second, we will work over the next few days to assemble a strong co-sponsors group that will help deflect unwanted language. If this group includes a few key members from each of the African, Latin, and European groups, and if we can work with moderate OIC members to resolve the "foreign occupation" and related issues, it will isolate the core diehard opponents and prevent them from building their own coalition. ¶7. (C) Action requests. Resistance to the resolution appears to be coming from the working level within UN missions and in a few capitals, and/or from the reluctance of some Permanent Representatives to take positions they perceive as controversial. It is therefore important to weigh in at higher levels in key countries, both in New York and in capitals. USUN believes targeted high-level demarches in capitals, and/or calls from appropriate Assistant Secretaries and Under Secretaries, to senior foreign ministry SIPDIS officials in the following countries would be extremely helpful: South Africa (urging instructions not to oppose the resolution); all other sub-Saharan African countries, particularly Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Senegal, and Mali, urging immediate co-sponsorship as well as active efforts to dispel the illusion of an Africa Group consensus against the resolution; Croatia, Bosnia, Romania, Greece, Czech Republic, Poland, Malta, and Ireland, urging immediate co-sponsorship, which in the case of these countries may require them first to argue at the daily meeting of EU countries that each country should be allowed to decide for itself whether to co-sponsor; and the Philippines, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, urging immediate co-sponsorship. Demarches should address the specific regional issues discussed above and could also draw on talking points sent during the last few days by USUN. Central themes in all demarches should be that the United States has shown extreme flexibility and good will in addressing all major concerns raised by all regional groups; that the resolution is not country-specific and that no government has anything to fear from the resolution unless it plans to use or condone rape as an instrument of political or military objectives; that we will continue to negotiate in good faith to resolve any remaining issues, although we cannot accept amendments that would result in a weak resolution or that would introduce extraneous and contentious policy issues on issues other than rape and sexual violence; and that co-sponsorship is urgently needed now to build momentum for the resolution so that it can be adopted by consensus, or at least by an overwhelming majority, when action is taken on or about November 1. KHALILZAD