Venezuela and Guatemala dropped out of a deadlocked race for the Latin American seat on the 15-nation council and accepted Panama as the compromise candidate on Wednesday, after neither country achieved the required two-third majority of 124 votes to win in 47 rounds of balloting in the UN General Assembly.
The two nations had competed to replace Argentina, which will hold the seat until December 31.
Chavez, a popular leftist, branded Bush 'the devil' in an address to the UN General Assembly in September and made other derogatory remarks against his American counterpart as he campaigned for the council seat.
'The defeat of Venezuela certainly accomplished our principal target,' Bolton told reporters. The US strongly supported Guatemala over Venezuela.
'But the Venezuelans defeated themselves through a variety of tactics and I have said repeatedly we don't get involved in regional group decision,' he said. 'We become involved because of the threats that we thought that Venezuelan obstructionalism imposes on the operations of the Security Council.'
'President Chavez's unconscionable speech to the General Assembly was indicative of how they will behave in the Security Council,' Bolton said, adding that an 'overhelming majority' of UN members did not support Chavez.
Chavez's speech may have cost him the council seat, which he had said he would use to launch reforms to curb US influence at the UN and in the world.
The compromise candidate, Panama, must be approved by the 35- member Latin American and Caribbean group at the UN before it can be officially introduced to the General Assembly for the final vote to replace Argentina.
The compromise was reached Wednesday in talks mediated by Diego Cordovez, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UN, and attended by Foreign Ministers Gert Rosenthal of Guatemala and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.
'They have agreed that Panama will be the country that will replace them as a candidate for the Security Council,' Cordovez said Wednesday night.
The 15-nation Security Council has five permanent, veto-wielding members - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - plus 10 countries elected for staggered two-year terms. Each year, the General Assembly elects five new countries to replace five countries whose terms expire. The 10 seats rotate among the world's five regions, which are expected to agree on a single candidate.
On October 16, the assembly elected South Africa, Indonesia, Italy and Belgium to replace, respectively, outgoing Tanzania, Japan, Denmark and Greece.
© 2003 - 2006 by Monsters and Critics.com, WotR Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All photos are copyright their respective owners and are used under license or with permission. * Note M&C cannot be held responsible for the content on other Web Sites.
Arts - Books - DVD - Forums - Home - Movies - Music - People & Celebrity - Science - Soundtracks - Sport - Tech - TV - World News
About Us - The Team - Advertise - Contact - Join the Team - Privacy - RSS Feeds - Site Map - Terms & Conditions - Webmasters
Servers supplied by Servint
