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R 141648Z NOV 08
FM UNESCO PARIS FR
TO SECSTATE WASHDC
AMEMBASSY AMMAN
AMEMBASSY CAIRO
INFO USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
USMISSION GENEVA

C O N F I D E N T I A L  PARIS FR 002103 
 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR IO/UNESCO, IO/MPR, IO/UNP 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/14/2018 
TAGS: UNESCO AORC
SUBJECT: DG CANDIDACY 
 
CLASSIFIED BY AMBASSADOR LOUISE V. OLIVER, reason: 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY:  As instructed, Ambassador Oliver met with the 
Ambassador of Egypt to UNESCO to inform her that the U.S. would be 
unable to support their candidate for the position of the next 
Director General of UNESCO.  Ambassador Oliver also had conversations 
on this matter with the UNESCO Ambassadors from Japan, the UK, 
Hungary, France, and the Czech Republic.  There was complete 
agreement among all these individuals that the Egyptian candidate, 
the Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, is not the right individual to 
lead UNESCO, and that some way must be found to prevent him from 
being elected as Director General.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2.(C) As instructed by IO, Ambassador Oliver met on 
November 13 with the Egyptian Ambassador to UNESCO, Dr. Shadia 
Kenawy, to tell her that the United States would not be able to 
support the Egyptian candidate for the next Director General of 
UNESCO, Egyptian Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni.  The election 
will be held at UNESCO's next General Conference in October, 2009. 
Ambassador Oliver said that although the U.S. understood the desire 
of Egypt and the other Arab states to have an Arab Director General, 
we had decided that Mr. Hosni was not the right individual for the 
position.  The Egyptian Ambassador seemed slightly surprised, and 
asked whether this message had been communicated to Cairo. 
Ambassador Oliver said that she did not know.  The Egyptian 
Ambassador was gracious but clearly very disappointed.  In response 
to a question from Ambassador Oliver, the Egyptian Ambassador said 
that Egypt had not yet sent a letter to UNESCO formally designating 
him as a candidate for the Director General position at UNESCO.  The 
Egyptian Ambassador then told Ambassador Oliver that she would 
immediately report their conversation to Cairo. 
 
¶3. (C) Ambassador Oliver also met with the Japanese Ambassador to 
UNESCO, Mr. Tadamichi Yamamoto, to share the U.S. position with him. 
The Japanese Ambassador was very pleased, and said that they also did 
not support Mr. Hosni, but because of the desire of Director General 
Matsuura to be perceived as neutral, Japan could not take the lead in 
opposing Mr. Hosni.  He added that Japan would insist on identifying 
the strongest individual for the next Director General position, 
regardless of what region that individual came from. 
 
¶4. (C) Ambassador Oliver also met with Ambassador Peter Landymore, 
the UK Ambassador to UNESCO, to inform him of the U.S. position.  He 
said that he agreed that Mr. Hosni was not a good candidate.  He also 
said that the UK was not very engaged at the moment with UNESCO, and 
would probably not take an active role in the Director General 
campaign. 
 
¶5. (C) Ambassador Oliver also met with Ambassador Andras Lakatos, the 
Ambassador to UNESCO from Hungary.  Ambassador Lakatos congratulated 
Ambassador Oliver for having spoken to the Egyptian Ambassador.  He 
said that he hoped this would slow down or end Egyptian pressure on 
other states to support Mr. Hosni.  He mentioned that the Egyptians 
were methodically getting support for Mr. Hosni from UNESCO's member 
states.  In addition to the statement by the Arab foreign ministers, 
he reminded Ambassador Oliver that the Egyptians have already 
obtained support for Mr. Hosni from the African Ministers of Culture. 
 He said that he expected that they would try to get the African 
heads of state to endorse Mr. Hosni at the African Union meeting in 
mid-January, after which they would go after the IOC states and the 
G77 states.  When Ambassador Oliver asked whether he thought that the 
Egyptians would continue to move ahead with Mr. Hosni in the face of 
U.S. opposition, he said that he thought it was possible.  He added 
that he thought that in the event the U.S. refused to pay their dues, 
that the Saudis or some other rich Arab state could easily make up 
the difference. 
 
¶6. (C)Ambassador Oliver also met with UNESCO Ambassador Catherine 
Colonna of France.  Ambassador Colonna complimented the U.S. for 
having made its position known to the Egyptian Ambassador, as she 
thought it would have been a big mistake to have waited and allowed 
the Egyptians to have time to get more endorsements for their 
candidate.  She said that France also had serious problems with Mr. 
Hosni, and that they had deliberately not endorsed the Egyptian 
candidacy, despite the informal remarks made by Present Sarkozy one 
year ago.  Since France is UNESCO's host country, the French support 
is very important to the Egyptians.  Ambassador Colonna disagreed 
with the Hungarian Ambassador, and said that she thought that the 
lack of U.S. support might make the Egyptians change their mind about 
Mr. Hosni. 
 
¶7. (C)Ambassador Oliver also talked with Ambassador Petr Janyska, the 
Ambassador of the Czech Republic to UNESCO, concerning the Director 
General race.  The Czech Ambassador said he had grave concerns about 
Mr. Hosni and that we needed to find some way to stop his candidacy. 
Ambassador Oliver agreed to meet with the Czech Ambassador to talk 
about this issue, but decided not to tell him of her conversation 
with the Egyptian Ambassador at this time, as she felt that it was 
necessary to keep this information confined to a small group so that 
it would be easier for the Egyptians to withdraw their candidate if 
they decide to do so, as they will not want to do that if it is 
perceived that they did so as a result of U.S. pressure. 
 
¶8. (C) Comment:  Having had all these conversations at UNESCO, and in 
view of the fact that all these conversations have been reported by 
the Ambassadors to their respective capitals, it is vital that the 
U.S. reinforce this message in Cairo.  Each of the Ambassadors that 
Ambassador Oliver spoke to agreed that the U.S. position should stay 
confidential for the moment since Mr. Hosni is not yet an official 
candidate, in the hope that Egypt will decide to find some 
face-saving way to end the Hosni candidacy.  If instead Egypt 
continues to promote Mr. Hosni's candidacy, it was agreed that the 
U.S. position would be "leaked" throughout UNESCO, so that other 
countries would understand that Egypt had not sewn up the Director 
General race.  It was agreed that should be done in order to 
encourage other high-level candidates to enter the race, something 
that at the moment countries are reluctant to do.  If no other 
candidates enter the race, UNESCO's member states will have to choose 
between Mr. Hosni and the Ambassadors of Bulgaria and Lithuania to 
UNESCO.  Many other countries, including several of the Arab 
countries have expressed great concern about Mr. Hosni's candidacy, 
but are too nervous to defy Egypt.  It is clear that many of UNESCO's 
member states would be very relieved to see Mr. Hosni's candidacy 
end. 
 
OLIVER