Arabs Seek to Defuse WHO Crisis

Arabs seeking to placate Washington have passed word to European and other U.S. allies that they will not consider abstentions “hostile” when the World Health Organization votes Tuesday in Geneva on the admission of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

They argue that abstentions, instead of votes for admission, could soften the impact of the heavy majority that is expected to favor the PLO’s admission, which has so far been publicly opposed only by the United States and Israel.

Arab diplomatic sources, speaking on condition that they not be named, said PLO leader Yasser Arafat was reluctant to confront the Bush Administration over joining the U.N. health agency because official talks between the United States and the Palestinians have been under way in Tunis, Tunisia, since late last year.

But one said that Secretary of State James A. Baker III “pushed us into a corner” by announcing his opposition to PLO membership in WHO and threatening to cut off U.S. funding for the agency if the Palestinians are admitted to full membership.

Appeals for PLO Retreat

WHO’s general director, Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, appealed for a PLO retreat because loss of this year’s $73.8-million U.S. assessment, plus another $25 million in back dues, would virtually halt the agency’s work. The United States pays a quarter of the budget of the agency, which finances immunization, nutrition and other public health programs largely benefiting people in the Third World, including Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories.

Arab diplomats said the PLO is merely following a path blazed by “national liberation movements” in the former Portuguese colonies in Africa in the 1970s. Despite opposition from Western nations, such movements in Angola, Mozambique and elsewhere declared themselves governments and were admitted to membership in U.N. agencies with the backing of African, Arab and Soviet Bloc votes.

A simple majority of WHO’s membership can raise the Palestinians from observer to full status, despite the assertion of opponents that the PLO fails to qualify as a government. There is little doubt that the votes will be forthcoming, and Arab diplomats meeting with Baker last week urged him to accept the PLO bid for membership, the sources said. But the secretary remained obdurate.

“We explained to him that Arafat badly needs some kind of gesture of support from Washington because he’s under heavy attack from Palestinians to his left and right,” an Arab diplomat said. “His critics contend that Arafat has made all the concessions and Israel has made none in attempting to build a base for negotiations.”

One of the suggestions made to Baker, they said, was the reopening of the PLO information office in Washington that was closed by congressional order in 1987.

They said that Baker, however, resisted reopening the Washington office as well as suggestions that he press Israel to adopt a more liberal stance toward the PLO.