Election of the UNESCO Director General

10/28/12

Leaked U.S. State Department Report on 2009 election.

Wikileaks published the contents of a reporting cable from the U.S. Mission to UNESCO discussing the 2009 election of the UNESCO Director General. Click here to read the cable.

9/5/12

Farouk Hosny Held on Charges of Corruption

The former long-time Egyptian Minister of Culture who led in the early balloting for the position of Director General of UNESCO in 2009 has been charged with corruption by the new Government of Egypt. Here are a few related articles:

11/23/09

How to Read the Blog

This blog can now be seen to serve as a documentation of the recent election for the post of Director General of UNESCO. For that purpose it might best be read in the following order:

The Background

Biographical Information on the Candidates

Candidates' Vision Statements

Coverage of the Campaign (prior to the first vote of the Executive Board)

Coverage During the Voting by the Executive Board

The Election in the UNESCO General Conference

Post Election Materials

Commentary

The voting in the Executive Board was, as expected, the defining element of the election. Prior to that voting most of the press coverage was framed around the candidacy of Farouk Hosny -- his leadership position in the race and the likely challengers. Perhaps as a result of that framing, several key forces aligned against his candidacy. Arrayed against Hosny were several candidates, the strongest of whom appeared to be two Permanent Delegates to UNESCO (Bokova and Marciulionyte) and an European Union Commissioner (Ferrero-Waldner). The only candidate from the Americas (Baki) appeared as a dark horse who was rumored to have the support of the United States delegation. Candidates tended all to have visible presence on the Internet, campaign brochures, and hospitality suites at key events. Several of the candidates spent time traveling to UNESCO member nation capitols to promote their candidacies, most importantly the eventual winner, Irina Bokova. The strong support of top officials from their home governments was important for several candidates, suggesting that there was some important behind the scenes electioneering going on.

Ultimately, it appears that the negative campaign opposing Hosny was effective. There was little public discussion of the negative aspects of other candidacies until they became serious challengers to Hosny. Ultimately, it appears that Hosny could not expand his lead to a majority of the delegates to the Executive Board and a majority finally coalesced around his principal opponent, Bokova.

The General Conference did not unanimously support the recommendation of the Executive Board, but did so by a large majority.

Ultimately, the Organization selected its first woman Director General and the first from Group 2 -- the former Communist nations. In doing so, it rejected the bid of the candidate of the Arab nations who would have been the second Muslim and the second person from Group 5 and the African nations.

Of course, it is important that all the leading candidates were multilingual, with experience in high level government posts, and counted significant diplomatic experience in their backgrounds. None was a globally recognized leader in education, science nor communications. Indeed, the only scientist in the field got few votes and dropped out early. Hosny, as long term Minister of Culture of Egypt, was the only candidate with major credentials in management of one of UNESCO's key sectors.

Normalization Politics on the Nile

Ursula Lindsey, a Cairo based reporter, published this article in Middle East Report describing the boycott of Israel by Egyptian intellectuals and defining that as a context for Farouk Hosny's opposition to cultural normalization with Israel during his decades as Minister of Culture of Egypt, and the brouhaha in Egypt when in running for Director General of UNESCO he appeared to some Egyptians to be wavering on that opposition.

The article describes also the opposition that arose against Minister Hosny's UNESCO candidacy, led by Jewish intellectuals (but by no means limited to them), based on his history of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel remarks.

It does not deal with the opposition to the candidacy based on other factors, and as such is not a complete documentation of the UNESCO election bit of Minister Hosny. Reporter Lindsey does however make a strong case for rethinking Egyptian tactics in support of the Palestinian cause, especially in the more effective targeting of the boycott.

11/5/09

"Yo ya me he convertido en un símbolo"

Fuente: ANTONIO JIMÉNEZ BARCA, El Pais (Espana), 05/11/2009

Dice estar decidida a impulsar la institución, un tanto paquidérmica y adormecida. "Tenemos que convertir la Unesco en una suerte de conciencia de la humanidad. Nuestra labor es fortalecer el humanismo, la dignidad, el diálogo. Es mi ambición". ¿Y qué papel desempeña en eso el director general? "Yo ya me he convertido en un símbolo", dice sin petulancia.

Ama la música, toca el piano, le gusta la arqueología y cuando era estudiante le apasionaban las novelas de ciencia-ficción con trasfondo moral: Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem... Ahora ya no. Para leer en su casa, se olvida de ese futuro al que alude constantemente, y se sumerge en los libros de historia.

10/28/09

"Media flurry demonizes Egyptian culture minister"

Source: HAZEL HEYER, eTurboNews (eTN), October 26, 2009

"Egyptian reviews and numerous opinions have been expressed in newspapers throughout Egypt about the recent defeat of Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. His defeat happened in the last round of the elections for UNESCO’s director-general post. Diverse opinions - contradictory or complementary – flood the press from the assumption of a conspiracy orchestrated by the so-called American axis of evil, as they call him, to the idea of a missed opportunity to develop the Arab-West dialogue.

"Not long after Minister Farouk Hosni lost the last round of the elections for UNESCO’s top position, the gates of media hell flung wide open. The press in Egypt reflected on the subject from different points of view. Under the headline, 'Collusion,' al-Musawwar of September 23, 2009 wrote, Hosni lost with honor and Washington lost its own. The Al-Musawwar ascribed his failure to the conspiracy of the 'American axis of evil; Germany, Japan and Israel.'”

Read "Egyptian minister declares 'culture war' on Israel"

10/24/09

UNESCO General Conference: Irina Bokova sworn in as Director-General

The 35th session of UNESCO’s General Conference, which ended on Friday, was marked by the election of Irina Bokova as Director-General of the Organization and the adoption of the new programme and budget for 2010 and 2011. Two ministerial round tables, focused respectively on education and the oceans, a ministerial Forum and the launch of the “World Report, Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue,” were among the highlights of the 35th session.

Egypt's Post Election Action in Berlin

Berlin’s war-ruined Neues Museum opens last week after 70 years, rebuilt from rubble left by World War II bombing as a home for Queen Nefertiti’s bust and the city’s Egyptian and prehistory collections. (See the article on Bloomberg.com.) Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist has announced that his country wants either evidence that the bust was obtained legally a century ago, or in the absence of such proof, the return of the world famous object itself.

Last week, the Louvre returned five objects to Egypt that it had purchased between 2000 and 2003. The objects, discovered in a tomb near Luxor in 1980, had been the object of demands for their return in the past without success, but recently the Egyptian government had suspended relations with the Louvre and suspended its excavations at Saqqara. (See the article from Al Ahram Weekly.)

The New York Times now reports:

It didn’t go unnoticed in Paris, Berlin or Cairo that Mr. Hawass pressed his case about Nefertiti and suspended the excavations by the Louvre just after his country’s culture minister, Farouk Hosny, bitterly lost a bid to become director general of the United Nations’ cultural agency, Unesco. The post went late last month to a Bulgarian diplomat instead........

In any case, days after the Unesco decision, Mr. Hawass went after France and Germany. When questioned about the timing, he insisted there was no connection, saying he had asked the French to return the artifacts two months earlier. But that was when Mr. Hosny’s campaign had already started to fall apart.

10/17/09

Dream for the future

“It is my dream to nurture relations of perfect synergy between the Director-General and Member States, so as to move together towards the creation of societies that are more just and prosperous, based on knowledge, tolerance and equal opportunity for all, thanks to education, science, culture and access to information. I shall be guided in my work by my concept of a new humanism for the 21st century.”
Irina Bokova, the newly elected Director General of UNESCO

10/16/09

Irina Bokova elected Director-General of UNESCO

The 35th Session of the General Conference today elected Irina Bokova of Bulgaria as the tenth Director-General of UNESCO. The investiture will take place in a ceremony on Friday 23 October 2009, when Irina Bokova will become the first woman to hold the post since the foundation of the Organization in 1945.

10/14/09

"Play politics with Unesco and you defeat its mission"

In a world plagued by environmental, economic, military and political calamities, it is wrong to deal with culture, education and science as mere pieces on a square-checkered political chessboard. Co-operation in scientific and cultural pursuits are the stepping stones for realizing harmony and unity between nations and create a platform for universal dialogue and co-operation. This must be Unesco’s mandate.

Muhammad Ayish
Al Arabiya
09 October 2009

9/28/09

I am on vacation and may not be posting for a couple of weeks.

The Executive Board has done its work, and the General Conference will consider the recommendation in Octover. I am on vacation, and will not post until I return, I do expect to post on the General Conference.

9/22/09

Bokova Elected

The UNESCO website has confirmed that Irina Bokova has won the Executive Board election to be Director General of UNESCO.

Read the official notification of the selection.

I have three independent unofficial reports from reliable sources that Irina Bokova received 31 votes to 27 votes for Farouk Hosny in the fifth round of voting for the position of UNESCO Director General. Having received the majority of votes from the 58 members of the Executive Board, her name will be forwarded to the General Conference.

Read:

Charge: Farouk Hosny Helped Hijackers of Achille Lauro Escape

The New York Times yesterday reported:

Elaph.com, an Arabic-language Web site, published Saturday what it said were private admissions by Mr. Hosny that when he was the Egyptian cultural attaché in Rome, he helped to organize the escape from Italy in 1985 of the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. In that episode, a retired American Jewish tourist in a wheelchair was shot and pushed into the sea, horrifying much of the world.

Here is the Elaph.com article in Arabic.

Indications of his involvement in the escape of Abu Abbas appear to be widely available in the Arabic literature:

http://dostor.org/ar/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32600&Itemid=58
http://www.egyptiantalks.org/invb/?showtopic=52234
http://www.almatareed.org/vb/showthread.php?t=409
http://www.engineerportsaid.com/2009/01/blog-post_6870.html
http://4flying.com/archive/index.php/t-21858.html

Farouk Hosny was the Director of the Egyptian Academy in Rome when he was tapped, two years after the Achille Lauro affair, to become Minister of Culture. According to Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council on Antiquities, while in Rome

Farouk Hosni was not well known by the public, but he was known and respected as a talented artist within the cultural community. Several reporters visited Farouk Hosni in Rome including my friend Mostafa El Nagar and Ahmed Abu Kaf. When they were interviewing Farouk Hosni he confided in them that Atef Sedky wanted him to be Egypt’s minister of culture but he did not want the job. Upon hearing this Abu Kaf said to Mustafa that Farouk Hosni was dreaming and there was no way he could be the minister of culture. Many people wanted to be the minister of culture including famous writers and journalists.

The story of the Achille Lauro Hijacking

On October 7, 1985, led by Abu Abbas, men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the liner off Egypt as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said. After being refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers killed disabled American passenger Leon Klinghoffer and then threw him overboard.[1] The ship headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.

United States President Ronald Reagan ordered that the plane be intercepted and directed to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella, a N.A.T.O. base in Sicily, where four hijackers were arrested by the Italians after a disagreement between American and Italian authorities. The other passengers on the plane (possibly including the hijackers' leader, Abu Abbas) were allowed to continue on to their destination, despite protests by the United States. Egypt demanded an apology from the U.S. for forcing the airplane off course. Italy refused extradition of the prisoners to the United States and they were tried in Italy.

The fate of those convicted of the hijacking was varied:

Bassam al-Asker was granted parole in 1991. He died on February 21, 2004.
Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi disappeared in 1991 while on parole.
Youssef Majed al-Molqi, convicted of killing Leon Klinghoffer [2], was sentenced to 30 years, left the Rebibbia prison in Rome on February 16, 1996, on a 12-day furlough, and fled to Spain, where he was recaptured and extradited back to Italy. On April 29, 2009, Italian officials released him from prison on good behaviour.[4][5] In June 2009, however, al-Molqui's attorney told the Associated Press that the Italian authorities had placed his client in a holding cell and were about to deport him to Syria.[6]
Abu Abbas left the jurisdiction of Italy and was convicted in absentia. In 1996, he made an apology for the hijacking and murder, and spoke out in favor of peace talks between Palestinians and Israel; the apology was rejected by the U.S. government and Klinghoffer's family, who insisted he be brought to justice. Abbas was captured in Iraq in 2003 by the U.S. military during its 2003 invasion of Iraq. He died in U.S. custody March 8, 2004.
Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. He served 20 and three more on parole and on July 7, 2008, he was expelled from an illegal immigrant detention center in Rome. He plans to appeal this arguing that he has nowhere else to go since Lebanon will not allow his return as he was born in a refugee camp and is thus not a Lebanese citizen.