finally come to the floor for a vote, without the driving force of Hansen to guide it through, there was little hope that sufficient relief from the food-producing regions would be approved.
Christopher was in no position to help. As the Alternate from Europe, Christopher had replaced Moore as Chairman of the World Peace Organization (WPO). While Christopher's experience would have better suited him to work with Executive Director Louis Colleta as the Alternate in charge of ECOSOC, that position had been held for the last two years by the ambassador from Australia. Under current world conditions, ECOSOC offered far greater visibility and hence the Australian ambassador had no interest in giving it up just because someone else was better qualified for the position.
With no sign of relief and the Pakistani refugee camps growing ever more crowded, those who had the strength were attempting to cross the border into India. Many were intercepted and returned to Pakistan by the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which had monitored the border between the two countries since 1949. But with sixteen hundred miles of border, half of which were traversable (the other half lying in the Great Indian Desert), the number of refugees pouring across into India was far more than the U.N. forces could handle.
The Indian government, while expressing sympathy for the plight of the refugees, responded to the attempted migration by sending its military forces to protect its borders against 'invasion.' India had its own problems with famine and had no interest in allowing any additional mouths at its meager table. So far the Indian military had shown restraint, choosing in most cases to simply escort refugees back across the border with a stern warning. There were a few dozen shootings and beatings, but these were the exceptions. Whether the policy of restraint would continue under a government led by Rajiv Advani remained to be seen. Despite the efforts to stop the migration, UNMOGIP estimated that hundreds of refugees eluded capture on a daily basis, and there was no telling how long the Indian government would allow this to go on before resorting to unrestrained military force.
Once in India, refugees who made it through soon found their efforts to be futile. Although food was not as scarce as in Pakistan, it was impossible to purchase and nearly impossible to beg or steal. Even when the refugees had money, the Hindu merchants chose to sell what little they had to their own people, unless a sufficient premium could be paid to convince them to do otherwise. Added to the refugees' problems were the cultural and religious differences between Pakistanis, who are nearly all Muslims, and Indians, who are predominantly Hindu.
At the FAO, Christopher might have been in a position to do something to help. As the Chairman of the World Peace Organization, his job had the wholly different focus of keeping the refugees from pouring into another region and minimizing the chance of a major outbreak of violence. At the Pakistani/Indian border more than just countries and cultures met. It was also the demarcation between the U.N. regions of India and the Middle East, and between Muslims and Hindus. Adding one more element to the amalgam was a third region, China, which shares a border with both India and Pakistan. For decades, even with the easing of tensions that had occurred under Hansen, the Indian government had provided covert support to the Tibetan Buddhist followers of the Dali Lama who sought the separation of Tibet from China. China, meanwhile, maintained a very strong relationship with Pakistan.
Were this not enough to distract Christopher from the Security Council proceedings, there was another matter as well. Christopher's predecessor at WPO, Albert Moore, had left numerous unfinished matters. Prominent among them was a U.N. treaty with Israel to formally extend expired diplomatic agreements, ensure the exchange and safe delivery of diplomatic packets, and provide diplomatic immunity for visiting officials. The treaty had very little to do with military issues, but after being shuffled around the other agencies for two and a half years because no one could convince the Israelis that it was in their interest to sign it, someone decided that it should go to WPO because one of the more obscure provisions was a mutual agreement of non-aggression. It was ironic that such a treaty was even necessary, but Israel – which had become a nation as a result of a vote by the United Nations General Assembly – had later resigned its membership because of the reorganization of the Security Council, and was now the only country in the world that refused membership in that body.
As far as the Israelis were concerned, the old agreements with the U.N. could stand just the way they were. They saw no reason to renegotiate and were reluctant to open themselves up to new demands. The Israeli resignation from the United Nations originally had been viewed by her Arab neighbors as an opportunity to isolate Israel from the rest of the world. They had sought a complete and immediate halt of all trade with Israel, but that attempt was doomed from the start. Ultimately, a non-binding resolution and statement of principles was adopted by the General Assembly which prohibited sales of advanced weapons to Israel, but the resolution had exactly the opposite effect than was hoped for by Israel's opponents. For the first seven years after their war with the Arab states and then with the Russian Federation, Israel's defensive arsenal consisted primarily of the huge weapons caches left behind by the Russians. Most of the Russian weapons were inferior to those Israel possessed prior to the war, but with modifications they were made workable. Since that time, while most countries' military budgets were being cut back, Israel had maintained a constantly increasing defense budget. The upshot was, that while her Muslim neighbors grumbled loudly, there was no real possibility that they'd attack Israel again anytime in the foreseeable future. Israel could afford to be a little smug.
Albert Moore, who had never expended much effort on his responsibilities as Chairman of WPO, had not even tried to get the new treaty with Israel signed. There was evidence that he had let slide or mismanaged a number of other duties as well. The one thing he did seem to do well was to appoint his friends to positions in WPO's administration.
With the formalities behind them, Ambassador Lee opened the floor to nominations for the position of Secretary-General. One of the perhaps less democratic holdovers from the days before the reorganization of the Security Council was the manner in which the Secretary-General was elected. The dominance which the 'Big Five' demanded when they established the United Nations in 1945 included the assurance that the choice of the Secretary-General would be someone who met with the approval of all five. Since no one with ties to any of the five permanent members of the Security Council would be considered unbiased by the other four members, it was agreed that the Secretary-General would be from a country that was not aligned with any of the members of the Security Council. The decision was made, therefore, that the Security Council would select a candidate who was mutually acceptable to all parties, and would then offer that candidate to the General Assembly for approval.
During the years of Secretary-General Hansen, this procedure had not been an issue. Hansen had proven during his first five-year term that he placed no region over any other, not even his own. At the conclusion of each of his first two terms Hansen was renominated by the Security Council and re-approved by the General Assembly. It was assumed by most that the same would be true at the end of his third term. With the death of Hansen, the Security Council was faced with the sticky problem of finding a candidate who was satisfactory to all ten Primary members. The disapproval of any one of the members would, in effect, veto the nomination. And it was no longer possible to select a Secretary-General from a non-aligned country: with the reorganization of the Security Council on a regional basis, every country became aligned.
The net result for this meeting was that everyone knew from the outset that this day would see no consensus on the selection of a candidate. Perhaps the days of cooperation among regions which had existed under Hansen's rule would return in time under the new Secretary-General. For now, however, there was far too much at stake to allow such hopes to overrule cautious reason. It was not that there was unwillingness to compromise, but no one wanted to risk voting for a candidate who might someday allow the interest of his own region to take precedence over theirs.
First to be recognized by the chair was Ambassador Yuri Kruszkegin of the Republic of Khakassia, representing Northern Asia. Following the devastation of the Russian Federation, Kruszkegin had left the United Nations to help form the new government of his home province of Khakassia, but had returned to the U.N. five years later. His election to represent Northern Asia on the Security Council had been unanimous by the members of that region. Kruszkegin rose and nominated Ambassador Tanaka of Japan, the Security Council member representing the Pacific Basin region. Japan had been very supportive of the countries of Northern Asia in their efforts to rebuild after the war with Israel. Even before the United Nations voted to eliminate trade barriers, Japan dropped many of the trade impediments between itself and the nations of Northern Asia. These steps had been very important to the reconstruction of that region and Kruszkegin was repaying the debt. The nomination was seconded by Ambassador Albert Moore of France, representing Europe. Moore's reasons for seconding the nomination were far from clear. There was no reason Ambassador Tanaka should have been unacceptable to Europe, but neither was it believed that Europe had any clear reason to second the nomination. The best guess of most observers was that Moore was hoping for something in return.
