US embassy cable - 05PARIS8248

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 008248 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM USMISSION TO UNESCO 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: ETRD, FR, EU, AU, YI, UNESCO 
SUBJECT:  USUNESO - AMBASSADOR'S DECEMBER 2 LUNCH WITH 
THE AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR 
 
1.  Ambassador Oliver attended a lunch December 2 
hosted by the Austrian ambassador to UNESCO Harald 
Wiesner.  The 11 guests were from other delegations and 
the UNESCO secretariat and included Monsignor Follo, 
the Holy See observer, the ambassadors of Lithuania, 
Russia, and Serbia-Montenegro, the Thai Deputy, 
Francoise Riviere and Katerina Stenou from the UNESCO 
Secretariat, and a member of his office staff. 
 
SIPDIS 
Highlights of the conversation were as follows: 
 
2.  In response to a question from Ambassador Oliver, 
about what he planned to do when Austria took over the 
EU Presidency on January 1 and how he was preparing for 
that, Wiesner said he had done nothing thus far and 
really had no plans yet.  He added that Austria removed 
their ambassador from their UNESCO mission several 
years ago because they did not consider UNESCO to be of 
much value.  He was asked last summer to go to Paris 
and revive the position.  (Comment:  Wiesner was 
clearly assigned as part of Austria's assumption of the 
EU Presidency which, given the recent success the EU 
had has at UNESCO, means that the EU will probably 
continue to focus on initiatives at UNESCO.  We know 
that the EU members continue to have regular policy 
coordination meetings.)  The ambassador from Serbia- 
Montenegro later told Ambassador Oliver that everyone 
knew that others would set the EU agenda, not the 
Austrians. 
 
3.  The Russian ambassador discussed three issues in a 
one-on-one conversation with Ambassador Oliver, saying 
every now and then, "Let me be frank with you".  The 
first was Iraq, where he said that although Russia 
could not say it publicly, they understood and agreed 
that the US could not withdraw from Iraq, as chaos 
would follow.  He added that was the same situation 
they had in Chechnya.  He then asked Ambassador Oliver 
about the situation with China and Taiwan and wondered 
how the US was going to deal with that in the long run. 
Finally he discussed the role of NGO's at UNESCO in 
terms of UNESCO's NGO committee and said that the 
Chairman of the NGO Committee had to decide what the 
committee should focus on.  When Ambassador Oliver 
asked him about the issue of NGO's in Russia, he said 
that the reason for the new regulations is to make sure 
that the NGO's actually do the jobs they claim that 
they do as the government feels that there are NGO's 
that are not being open and transparent about their 
organizations and/or work. 
 
4.  Monsignor Follo talked about a symposium that the 
Holy See mission is going to sponsor next week and said 
that it was part of the Vatican's long-time interest in 
promoting dialogue. 
 
5.  Ambassador Oliver asked the ambassador of Serbia 
and Montenegro about the rumor concerning his desire to 
change the composition of the geographic electoral 
groups.  He said that the rumor was true.  He said that 
Group II had three sets of countries--EU countries, 
Southeastern Europe, and former Soviet bloc.  He said 
that the EU countries win all the elections, which is 
why the Czech Republic is on seven committees and is 
the Vice-Chairman for Group II at the Executive Board. 
That is unfair to the other non-EU countries in Group 
II, plus it gives control to the EU of both Group I and 
Group II.  He said that he had tried to persuade Group 
II to establish a rotation system between the three 
groups of countries.  That idea was completely rejected 
because, he said, the Group II EU countries like their 
position of power.  Now he is going to push to 
eliminate Group II altogether and put all the EU 
countries in one group.  He intends to do this using 
the resolution passed at the General Conference that 
asks the President of the General Conference to review 
UNESCO's geographic groups and propose possible 
changes. (Comment: Obviously if Group II, is 
eliminated, there will be changes in Group I, which may 
strengthen the position of those countries in Group III 
(GRULAG), particularly some of the islands in the 
Caribbean, who do not like being dominated by Latin 
America and are interested in creating a new Group of 
the Americas.) 
 
6.  The ambassador of Serbia and Montenegro added that 
some Group I countries are very unhappy that Israel was 
elected to four UNESCO committees.  Last fall there was 
general agreement in Group I that Israel should be 
elected to a couple of committees, but it seems there 
are some countries that did not want them to get so 
many.  (Comment:  We do not know if this is related to 
the threats that Israel received during the cultural 
diversity convention negotiating process when they were 
told that voting with the US against the convention 
would result in the loss of votes for UNESCO committees- 
-particularly for the World Heritage Committee. 
Clearly that did not happen, and we suspect that has 
irritated some countries.) 
 
7.  Francoise Riviere, UNESCO's chef de cabinet, at the 
rank of Assistant Director General, was very quiet 
during lunch.  Although it is widely known at UNESCO 
that she has applied to be the new ADG for Culture, it 
was never discussed at lunch.  In fact the word 
"culture" was never mentioned publicly, though perhaps 
cultural issues were discussed in private 
conversations.  (Comment:  Perhaps that subject was 
avoided because of Ambassador Oliver's presence at the 
table.) 
 
OLIVER