US embassy cable - 05ROME747

C O N F I D E N T I A L  ROME 000747 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
STATE FOR PRM, IO 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/04/2015 
TAGS: IO, IT, PREF, ITALIAN POLITICS 
SUBJECT: UN COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES: ITALIAN CANDIDATE 
EMMA BONINO 
 
Classified By: DCM Emil Skodon, 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
1. (U) Italian Radical Party leader Emma Bonino came to 
Embassy Rome March 4 to meet NEA DAS Carpenter.  Bonino's NGO 
"No Peace without Justice" is managing an aspect of the 
USG-GOI funded "Democracy Assistance Dialogue" under the G-8 
Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative. 
 
2. (C) After meeting Carpenter, Bonino stayed behind to 
discuss with DCM and POL MC her candidacy for UN High 
Commissioner for Refugees.  According to Bonino, PM 
Berlusconi has formally given her name to UNSYG Annan as the 
Italian candidate.  (Deputy FM called DCM later to confirm 
that his government fully supported Bonino and hoped the USG 
would).  Bonino said that she is aware of three other 
candidates who have been nominated by their governments: 
Bernard Kouchner of France, Gareth Evans of Australia, and 
"the Swedish Under Secretary" (presumably she meant Hans 
Dahlgren).  She expected other names to be put in before the 
March 9 deadline, and said that she had the impression Mark 
Malloch Brown would be the key decision maker for the UNSYG. 
During the conversation, she noted that she thought 
Canberra's nomination of Evans was pro forma and not very 
enthusiastic.  Kouchner was a strong candidate, she said, but 
the French were already well represented in top UN positions 
and may not push strongly for him, since other Europeans may 
be reluctant to see another high-level French appointment. 
In answer to her question, we said that the USG did not have 
a favored candidate at this time, and that several of the 
names being discussed appeared, like Bonino, to have the 
required political standing and management skills. 
 
3. (C) We asked Bonino to make her own case directly to us, 
particularly on the management side.  She noted that her 
portfolio as EU Commissioner for Human Rights (1994-1999) 
included the responsibility to establish and manage the 
European Community Humanitarian Organization (ECHO) with a 
budget of over a billion euros.  While humanitarian funding 
was as "bureaucratic as everything else in the EU", she said 
that she had made the EU's humanitarian initiatives speedier 
and more effective.  She was particularly proud of how well 
the EU had responded to the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo in 
1999.  Since ECHO had been a major donor to UNCHR in this 
period, she was well aware of how it was funded and managed. 
She said that she understands well the political challenge of 
the job, and that while one should always try quiet diplomacy 
first, she would have no hesitation to publicly "name and 
shame" when necessary to get states to meet their obligations 
to refugees. 
 
EMBASSY COMMENT 
 
4. (C) Bonino is the most prominent member of the Italian 
Radical Party, which combines a strong social conscience with 
a firm defense of individual freedoms.  In Italy, it is the 
party that everyone loves but nobody votes for, attracting 
only two percent of the national vote (and no Chamber seats) 
in the 2001 elections. The Radicals exert an influence on the 
public debate that far surpasses their number, and are 
actively courted by both the center-right and center-left 
coalition.  In the 1994 elections, Bonino was elected to the 
Parliament as a Radical, but under the umbrella of 
Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, an arrangement she may 
repeat in next year's elections.  (Her appointment to the 
European Commission was made during Berlusconi's short-lived 
1994 government). 
 
5. (C) Four core elements of the Radical platform stand in 
direct opposition to USG policy: opposition to the death 
penalty; decriminalization of drugs; abortion rights (Bonino 
was the driving figure in Italy's legalization of abortion in 
the 1970s); and support for the International Criminal Court. 
 We don't see that these positions would cause us heartburn 
in the UNHCR position (as opposed to the Human Rights 
Commissioner, for which her name was floated, but not pushed, 
in 2003). 
 
6. (C) Her party and personal philosophy have led her to be 
actively supportive of a number of other USG priorities. 
Bonino was an early supporter of the establishment of 
tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda.  She has 
enthusiastically backed the Community of Democracies, and 
Berlusconi appointed her to lead the Italian delegation to 
the 2002 conference in Seoul.  She helped organize and lead 
campaigns for the inclusion of women in the new Afghanistan 
 
 
government and (beginning in 1990) for the eradication of 
female genital mutilation.  Shortly after 9/11, she moved to 
Cairo to study Arabic and immerse herself in a deeper 
understanding of the Arab world.  (She remains a Visiting 
Professor at the American University of Cairo while shuttling 
to the European Parliament and her NGO activities.)  She is 
an enthusiastic supporter of the reform goals of the G-8 
Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative. 
 
7. (C) We have the highest opinion of Bonino's intelligence, 
energy, integrity and principles, all valuable qualities for 
this position.  She would be a charismatic leader of the 
organization.  Her outspokenness could at times cause us 
problems.  We are less well placed to judge directly her 
management skills.  Perhaps USEU could identify which USG 
official worked most closely with ECHO from 1994 to 1999 to 
give a better assessment of that. 
 
8. (U) For those interested, Embassy Rome can send a longer 
unclassified biography of Bonino.  Please address your 
 
SIPDIS 
request to Mina Mariani, marianim@state.gov. 
 
SEMBLER 
 
 
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	2005ROME00747 - Classification: CONFIDENTIAL