(CNSNews.com) – The usual September parade of world leaders descending on New York City for the opening of the annual United Nations General Assembly will be characterized this year by the presence of some of the world’s most controversial figures.
Likely to provoke the most ire this year will be Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who plans his first visit ever to the United States at a time when his emergence from international isolation has been set back by the release of the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing. Of the 270 people killed when the New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up after taking off from London in 1988, 189 were Americans.
Gaddafi’s plans to erect his customary Bedouin tent in the grounds of a property in New Jersey owned by the Libyan Embassy were shelved after locals protested.
But his presence will still be provocative, with families of Lockerbie victims and the American Libyan Freedom Alliance among those planning to protest.
The alliance, which says its objective is to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Libya, said it had expressed its disappointment to U.S. and U.N. officials about the planned attendance by Gaddafi “despite all his well documented international and domestic crimes.”
Gaddafi, who on Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of his seizure of power, is scheduled to speak after President Obama, in his capacity as chairman of the African Union.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also plans to attend the UNGA session, as he has for the past four consecutive years, but this time the visit comes on the heels of his disputed re-election and subsequent state crackdown, and as an Obama administration deadline for cooperation on the nuclear issue runs out the clock.
Adding to the storm, Ahmadinejad has
nominated as defense minister a man wanted by Argentina and Interpol for his alleged role in the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Ahmadinejad first attended the UNGA session in 2005, just weeks after becoming president. At the time there was some debate over whether the State Department would issue him a visa, given allegations that he was linked to the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage taking saga.
Months after the trip, the Iranian president told clerics in Iran that he had sensed a divine hand entrancing his listeners as he delivered his speech in New York. (Ahmadinejad, like supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, adheres to the Shi’ite belief in the 12th imam – also known as the “hidden” imam, Mahdi – who disappeared more than a thousand years ago but has been miraculously kept alive, pending his emergence at a time of global chaos.)
Last year’s U.N. visit by Ahmadinejad was met by protests that were overshadowed by political bickering over a decision by organizers of the main demonstration to invite the then Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin – and then disinvite her after Sen. Hillary Clinton withdrew when she learned that Palin had been invited.
The 2008 visit also saw five religious “peace” groups organize an interfaith meeting with Ahmadinejad in a bid to “build bridges of peace and understanding.” Critics derided the event as naïve.
‘Self-righteous finger pointing’
Other heads of state hostile to the U.S. who may attend this year’s session opening on September 23 include Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
Chavez grabbed the headlines in 2006 when, addressing the General Assembly one day after President Bush had spoken there, called the American president “the devil” and said “it still smells of sulphur around here.”
He skipped last year’s event, choosing instead to visit allies Cuba, Russia and Belarus.
This week Chavez began another tour of friendly countries – Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus and Russia – but has yet to indicate his final plans for the U.N. session.
Also yet to confirm his attendance is Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for 29 years, but over the past year under international pressure agreed to allow opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to become prime minister.
At last year’s U.N. session, the then 84-year-old Mugabe lashed out at his traditional foes, Britain and the U.S., accusing them of “self-righteous finger-pointing” and calling them “perpetrators of genocide, acts of aggression and mass destruction” in Iraq.
As in past years, the presence of such figures the U.N. has again prompted questions about why the U.S. government should issue visas.
Under the 1947 United Nations Headquarters Act, foreign delegates are permitted unimpeded access to a demarcated “headquarters district” in New York City.
Leading calls this year for Ahmadinejad to be denied a visa is Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
She argued in a letter to Obama that the threat posed by Ahmadinejad to American national security interests outweighed U.S. responsibilities under the U.N. Headquarters Act.
The Reagan administration in 1988 set a precedent by denying PLO chairman Yasser Arafat a visa, citing “associations with terrorism.” He was not the representative of a U.N. member state, however.
The General Assembly, dominated by governments supportive of the PLO, reacted by voting to hold a special session in Geneva, which Arafat then attended and addressed.