US cast in role of spoiler over stand on 2 treaties
RIO DE JANEIRO — As preliminary events began for the Earth Summit, the US found itself cast in the role of spoiler by critics who said that it had undermined the huge environmental conference’s potential accomplishments.
Washington was accused by official delegates and environmentalists of showing little leadership at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, which begins its official two-week run today, and of taking positions that threatened the summit’s success.
The hostility boiled over on Saturday with the news that President George Bush would not sign a bio-diversity treaty when he comes here from June 11 to 13.
Brazil, as host, tried to play the role of mediator in negotiations and called a press conference here on Monday at which it and the European Community expressed "disappointment" over the US position.
Already, "villain" and "party pooper" are being used to describe the Bush administration, reviving anti-American sentiment rarely seen in International forums since the Vietnam War.
"The mood in Brazil is that the United States will be the biggest villain of the conference," Mr Fabio Feldman, a Social Democratic congressman in Brazil, said on Monday.
"US intransigence is recreating the polarized atmosphere of the 1960s — all civil society and the press against the US."
Centrist Brazilian magazines and newspapers are taking an increasingly harsh tone, accusing the Bush administration of draining the content from what Brazilians predict proudly to be the largest gathering of heads of state in history.
Calling Mr Bush "Uncle Grubby" and "Mr Smoke", Veja, a Brazilian news weekly, told its million readers on Sunday: "Bush Comes to Rio as Earth Summit enemy."
The EC’s chief delegate said the US position on two treaties to be signed at the summit could divide rich nations at a time when they should be showing leadership to the developing world.
The latest comments came as thousands of delegates from 185 countries began gathering at the sprawling Rio Centro convention centre, south of Rio de Janeiro’s beaches.
The US has come under attack in two main areas —initially for watering down a treaty on global warming and, more recently, for refusing to sign a bio-diversity treaty Intended to protect plants and animals from extinction and to conserve natural resources.
Washington said that it would not sign the bio-diversity treaty because it objected to mechanisms that it said would give developing nations too much control over funding decisions for projects to protect the world’s varied species of plants and animals.
Instead, it has offered US$150 million (S$249 million) as part of a forest conservation programme it is pushing.
But Brazilian chief negotiator Marcos Azambuja said that the money did not make up for the failure in signing the treaty, adding that it was an individual gesture out of tune with a global meeting.
"There’s no linkage between not signing a bio-diversity agreement and giving U$150 million for forests.
"One does not rescue the other." A number of environmentalists, who are among the 30,000 summit participants, said the US decision threatened the success of the summit altogether.
Mr Nicanor Perks of the Philippines-based Centre for Alternative Development Initiatives said:
"Unced is gathering the world’s best minds to come up with positive solutions and the US decision will mean uncertainty for the thousands of people who have been working towards this for years."
Meanwhile, expectations were building here that Japan and Germany would assume world leadership on environmental issues, said diplomats.
The Global Environment Facility, run by the World Bank, was expecting Japan to announce a substantial contribution to the fund, which financed the environmental aspects of various development projects through donations from countries, said sources. — Reuter, NYT, AFP.
'The mood in Brazil is that the United States will be the biggest villain of the
Mahathir speaks out strongly for South in interview
LONDON — Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad was given centre-stage treatment in a BBC current affairs programme on the Rio Summit in which he urged developed countries not to regard the tropical forest as common heritage if they were not willing to pay for its conservation.
The 40-minute current affairs programme, Panorama, which was shown at prime time on Monday night, chose Dr Mahathir as the spokesman for the South in a special programme entitled The South Strikes Back.
British viewers saw Dr Mahathir as a tough, no-nonsense leader who spoke on behalf of poor countries of the South against the collective onslaught of the richer North.
Dr Mahathir explained his frankness by telling his interviewer: "A lot of the countries in the South owe a lot to the North".
"We happen to be a little bit more independent, and all of them tell us that we would say the same thing as you have said except that ... we depend upon aid from the North and it is not diplomatic to say nasty things about aid donors, or we might be cut off. But of course they all support what we say."
"So you say the same things that other countries don’t?" asked reporter Steven Bradshaw.
"We do, we stick out our neck for them," Dr Mahathir replied.
The view of the South was stated very clearly by Dr Mahathir in the earlier part of the programme which showed extracts from his speech at the second Ministerial Conference of Developing Countries on Environment and Development in Kuala Lumpur in April.
In the speech, he warned that if the rich North expected the poor to foot the bill for a cleaner environment, Rio would become an exercise in futility.
Interviewed during a conference break, Mr Mark Griffith, a delegate from Barbados, said of Dr Mahathir’s speech: "It is the type of speech that more Third World leaders should give." — Bernama;
Source : The Straits Times, June 3, 1992
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