UNESCO Chief M’Bow, Accused of Anti-West Bias, Says He’s Retiring

Amadou Mahtar M’Bow said Monday that he will step down when his current term as director general of UNESCO expires in November, 1987.

He has been accused of anti-Western bias and mismanagement during 12 years in office.

The United States and Britain have quit the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in the last two years, compounding its financial problems.

“I would like you to know that I am not seeking a third term,” M’Bow told a closed meeting of the executive board. “I hope that the concern and even affection that I enjoy in many member countries will not be an embarrassment to any candidate whatever.”

The Senegalese educator said that the interests of UNESCO and the need to realize its ideals efficiently are more important than any other considerations.

It is “necessary, whatever the cost, to get UNESCO out of the hurricane zone, while remaining faithful to its democratic traditions,” M’Bow said.

His comments to the closed meeting were provided to reporters at a later briefing.

Several Western nations have charged that M’Bow, 65, was leading UNESCO into the worst crisis of its 40-year history.

Japan and the Netherlands said in recent weeks that they were considering their positions and might join the United States and Britain in withdrawing. The organization now has 159 members.

The U.S., British and other Western governments accused M’Bow of pushing programs with a strong bias against the West. One of the most controversial of these was M’Bow’s long but so far unsuccessful attempt to get UNESCO approval for a so-called “world information and communications order.”

Western governments saw many of the proposal’s provisions, including a scheme for licensing journalists, as a threat to freedom of the press.