NEW HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL PRESIDENT MARTIN UHOMOIBHI \

2008-07-01 12:57:00 08GENEVA498 US Mission Geneva CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN VZCZCXYZ0006\ RR RUEHWEB\ \ DE RUEHGV #0498/01 1831257\ ZNY CCCCC ZZH (CCY ADXAE2BA9 MSI5578 400A)\ R 011257Z JUL 08 ZDS\ FM USMISSION GENEVA\ TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6662\ INFO RUEHZJ/HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL COLLECTIVE\ RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 2774\ C O N F I D E N T I A L GENEVA 000498 \ \ C O R R E C T E D C O P Y - NOFORN CAPTION ADDED \ \ SIPDIS \ \ NOFORN \ \ E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/26/2018 \ TAGS: UNHRC PHUM PINR NI SUBJECT: NEW HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL PRESIDENT MARTIN UHOMOIBHI \ \ Classified By: Ambassador Warren W. Tichenor, Reasons 1.4(b)(d) \ \ ¶1. (C) Summary: Nigerian Permanent Representative to the \ UN in Geneva, Martin Uhomoibhi, was formally elected \ President of the UN Human Rights Council June 18. His \ nomination by the African Group to serve as the Council's \ President for the 2008-2009 session had been contested from \ within the Group by Djibouti, which had the strong backing of \ Egypt, which wanted a Muslim PermRep from a majority Muslim \ country to hold the presidency. Uhomoibhi, a practicing \ Roman Catholic who is close to the Holy See's mission in \ Geneva, beat out his Djiboutian counterpart in an 18-15 vote \ within the African Group. Uhomoibhi, who took up his post in \ Geneva on March 15, 2007, has attended Council sessions \ infrequently; we are not aware of any previous experience he \ may have handling human rights issues. Mission Geneva has \ dealt closely with him at both the World Intellectual \ Property Organization (WIPO) and on International \ Organization on Migration (IOM) issues and found him \ approachable, articulate, and principled. He is reportedly \ strongly influenced by his faith, and has proven himself \ willing to stand up to pressure from Organization of the \ Islamic Conference (OIC) countries under many circumstances. \ Uhomoibhi's relative independence from African Group \ "group-think" could be very useful to Western Group views at \ the Council. Based on our past dealings with him, Uhomoibhi \ has been willing to broker compromises with the U.S. and \ other WHRG countries if we are active and engaged, although \ he would not necessarily favor Western views otherwise. \ Uhomoibhi has informed Ambassador Tichenor that he wants to \ work closely with the U.S. and that he wants to lead the \ Council to become a body "that is worthy of U.S. engagement." \ End Summary. \ \ Standing Up to the OIC \ -------------- \ \ ¶2. (C/NF) Ambassador Uhomoibhi has little track record at \ the Human Rights Council, but both there and in other \ Geneva-based fora has demonstrated some independence from the \ views of the OIC. His predecessor as Nigeria's PermRep in \ Geneva had been Muslim and had been much more closely aligned \ to the OIC. Uhomoibhi's close election by the African Group \ as Council President highlights a fault line in the group \ along religious lines which bears close monitoring in the \ Council on important issues such as defamation of religions \ and freedom of expression. Uhomoibhi told Ambassador \ Tichenor that Egyptian PermRep (and future Egyptian \ Ambassador to the U.S.) Sameh Shoukry had pressured him to \ "protect" Sudan at the Council from those who would criticize \ its human rights record. In another context, when serving as \ President of the WIPO General Assembly, Uhomoibhi told \ Ambassador Tichenor that he had received visits from both the \ Egyptian and Algerian PermReps, claiming that he was "not a \ good African" for cooperating with those who were attempting \ to force WIPO Director General Kamil Idris from office. \ Unlike some of his African Group counterparts, Uhomoibhi \ appears to pursue no pre-cooked agenda within Geneva fora, \ instead relying on where his principles guide him. This \ willingness to consider various issues on their merits has \ made and continues to make him potentially a sympathetic ally \ to the U.S under certain circumstances. \ \ Uhomoibhi's Record as WIPO General Assembly President \ -------------- -------------- \ \ ¶3. (C/NF) Mission Geneva views of Ambassador Uhomoibhi are \ strongly influenced by our experience working with him since \ September 2007 in his role as WIPO GA President. At WIPO, \ the U.S. and other close allies were working to help force \ the resignation of WIPO DG Idris, a Sudanese national who had \ falsified his UN personnel records for personal gain. \ Uhomoibhi made the principled decision to support Idris's \ removal, and was supported by Zambia, Ghana and Rwanda, a \ similar split within the African Group to that we have seen \ at the Human Rights Council. Because he believed that Idris \ should resign, Uhomoibhi was accused by some of his African \ Group colleagues of being a tool of Western interests at \ WIPO. He stood up under the pressure, apparently deciding \ that Idris, by lying on his UN personnel records, had \ undermined the overall integrity and dignity of all Africans. \ Uhomoibhi worked closely with us on the text of Idris's \ retirement letter, not accepting Mission Geneva's proposed \ draft verbatim, but using it as the basis for constructive \ negotiations in which he served as intermediary between the \ U.S. and Idris. Once the WIPO GA accepted Idris's \ resignation, Uhomoibhi ran the election process for his \ replacement with scrupulous fairness, resulting in the \ election of a qualified candidate with high integrity. \ \ ¶4. (C/NF) That is not to say, however, that left to his own \ devices, Uhomoibhi will always act in U.S. interests. As the \ long process of inducing WIPO DG Idris to resign ran its \ course, Uhomoibhi accepted the U.S. proposal to create a \ "friends of the chair" group to bridge disagreements over how \ to act on an internal audit report documenting misconduct on \ the part of Idris. Once the "friends" group was created, \ however, Uhomoibhi initially acquiesced to an attempt to \ stack the deck against the good governance side by allowing \ representatives from groups such as the OIC, G-77 and other \ blocs on the "friends" group -- players sympathetic to \ Idris's efforts to remain in his job. However, when the U.S. \ countered by arguing that, in that case, other blocs \ irrelevant to the issue like JUSCANZ, the EU, etc. should \ also be represented among "friends of the chair," Uhomoibhi \ changed his position, deciding that only the coordinators of \ WIPO's seven regional groups would serve as "friends." \ \ \ Nigeria's Role in IOM/Swing Election Campaign \ -------------- \ \ ¶5. (C/NF) Nigeria, as well as most other African Group \ members, supported U.S. candidate Bill Swing in June 18 \ elections for Director General of the IOM. Uhomoibhi took \ the initiative to host a lunch for select African Group \ ambassadors with all four IOM DG candidates. Uhomoibhi told \ us he was hosting the lunch and promoting a separate meeting \ for Swing with the entire Africa Group to help bolster \ Swing's chances. In fact, we did not favor the lunch and it \ was soon clear that Uhomoibhi was acting also to demonstrate \ his own leadership among the Africans. While he did campaign \ among Africans for Swing -- who ultimately won -- the lesson \ we draw is that while Uhomoibhi can be likeminded in pursuit \ of shared enterprise, he remains independent and devoted to \ advancing his own agenda. \ \ Biographical Information \ -------------- \ \ ¶6. (C) Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi is married to Dr. \ Perpetua E. Uhomoibhi and has two children, a college-age \ daughter studying in Nigeria and a pre-teenage son who lives \ with the family in Geneva. Uhomoibhi reportedly speaks \ little French, a factor that we understand undermined support \ for him among Francophone African Group members. Colleagues \ at the Mission of the Holy See in Geneva confirm that \ Uhomoibhi is a practicing Roman Catholic who is close to \ their Mission. Through repeated conversations with \ Uhomoibhi, Ambassador Tichenor has learned that Uhomoibhi's \ faith is central to his work, and Ambassador Tichenor \ considers Uhomoibhi's faith the basis of his willingness to \ take principled positions. A UNOG press release dated 19 \ June 2008 on Ambassador Uhomoibhi's appointment as Council \ President follows: \ \ ¶7. (U) Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi is currently serving as \ Ambassador of Nigeria to Switzerland and Permanent \ Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva. Dr. \ Uhomoibhi begins his one-year term as President of the Human \ Rights Council today. Prior to his appointment to Geneva, \ Dr. Uhomoibhi served as the acting Director of the Office of \ the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of \ Nigeria from 2004 to 2007. From July 2003 to January 2004, \ he was Deputy Director and Head of Division for Inter-African \ Affairs at the Ministry. In 2000, Dr. Uhomoibhi was \ appointed Minister and Deputy Head of Mission to the Nigerian \ Embassy in Addis Ababa, where he concurrently served as his \ country's representative to the African Union and to the \ Economic Commission for Africa until 2003. In 1999 he was \ appointed Consul General of Nigeria in Atlanta, with \ responsibility for United States-Nigeria relations in the 16 \ states of the south-eastern United States. Dr. Uhomoibhi has \ also been serving as the President of the General Assembly of \ the World Intellectual Property Organization since September \ ¶2007. \ \ From 1995 to 1999, Dr. Uhomoibhi served as Special Assistant \ to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Prior to that, from \ 1993 to 1995, he served as the coordinator and alternative \ representative of Nigeria to the Security Council in New \ York. Dr. Uhomoibhi started his diplomatic career in 1984, \ when he joined the Minister of Foreign Affairs as a Senior \ First Secretary. In his previous career, from 1977 to 1984, \ he was a lecturer in diplomatic and African history at the \ University of Ibadan in Nigeria. \ \ Dr. Uhomoibhi graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1976 \ with a bachelor's degree in history. He also holds a \ master's in history and political science from the University \ of Ibadan and a D.Phil from Oxford University in Modern \ History and International Relations. \ \ Born on 3 November 1954 in Nigeria, Dr. Uhomoibhi is married \ with children. \ TICHENOR \