WASHINGTON, 29 June — Every year, the Hannibal Club USA hosts an event to honor the lifetime achievements of an American leader. This year’s honoree for the Hannibal Award, in honor of the great Carthaginian general, went to former Secretary of State James Baker, now UN special envoy for Western Sahara.
In his acceptance speech, Baker quietly made news about the region: “...Efforts to implement the settlement plan (for Western Sahara) backed down due primarily to the inability to identify the people who will be entitled to vote in the referendum,” said Baker. “Now, as of today, the Kingdom of Morocco appears to be willing to support a ‘substantial devolution of authority’ to the people of Western Sahara.
“Early today a proposal framework agreement on the status of Western Sahara was communicated to the Security Council and later this month, I will brief the Council. My framework proposal for “the devolution of authority” as drafted may not be agreeable for all. But what is more important is that all the affected parties — Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario Front — be willing to sit down and once again under the UN auspices negotiate changes in the document that would make it acceptable to all. This can be done, and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this can be accomplished.
“The framework proposal calls for a ‘devolution authority’ in a way that does not foreclose the possibility of self-determination that it indeed provides for.
“...This approach offers us the same hope of progress that the Madrid Conference has offered 10 years ago, and I want to lobby every one of you here, every one who is interested in Western Sahara regardless of the country you come from. If you want to promote peace and stability in the Maghreb I hope you will support the idea that all the parties come together under the UN auspices and try and make this proposal work,” said Baker.
Hannibal Club USA is part of a global network launched from Tunisia, with chapters in Europe and Asia.
The club’s long-term goal is to bring fresh insight to the Mediterranean region’s complex issues. Founding members Hannibal Club USA include Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and James Baker.
Nader’s riposte
Ralph Nader, who angered some liberals who blame his Green Party presidential candidacy for sinking Al Gore last year, refuses to back down. He calls his former friends: “Cowardly liberals. Well-intentioned, cowardly liberals,” Mother Jones magazine reports.
However, Nader has asked Marcus Raskin of the Institute for Policy Studies to act as a peacemaker, the magazine said.
Critics of Nader say he first must promise not to run Green candidates against Democrats in next year’s House elections. No way, Nader says, sending this message to Democrats: “You better shape up or you’re gonna lose.”
A summer fling?
Senate staffers are giggling over this week’s cover story in the Globe, the supermarket tabloid. “Hillary Chases New Man,” the headline shrieks over a photo of New York’s Democratic junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the middle of a friendly chat with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota.
“Hillary has turned her baby blues on Tom, full power,” the Globe quotes an anonymous alleged “insider” as confiding to its intrepid reporter. “Every chance she gets, she’s whispering in his ear, taking his arm and pulling him gently to her. She’s obviously really attracted to him.” The tabloid continues that Daschle “is married with three grown children, but that hasn’t stopped Hillary from getting as close to him as possible — and Daschle isn’t objecting... And even though handsome Daschle is spoken for, Hillary told a pal, ‘I can dream, can’t I.’”
In response, the Washington Post’s column, ‘The Reliable Source’ says: “Our calls to various Senate offices yesterday elicited chuckles — even from Clinton press secretary Jim Kennedy — and the following observation from a Senate leadership aide who asked not to be named: ‘This has certainly been a months of firsts for Tom — his first month as majority leader, his first private dinner with a president and now his first appearance in a tabloid with a Clinton.”
