Diplomatic Discord

Another conflict has broken out requiring fast action by the United Nations Security Council. Alas, this one is in the council's own chamber. The row between U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the U.N.'s center of power turned even more acrimonious when the Secretary-General suggested, in an interview published in the New York Times, that racism might be a factor behind a torrent of criticism from the British press. "Maybe," surmised ) Boutros-Ghali, it was "because I'm a wog." Western diplomats were shocked at the insinuation and the epithet; but many Third World envoys quietly nodded their assent, reflecting the deep North-South rift within the U.N.

Boutros-Ghali and the Security Council have been on a collision course since he took office last January. Though thoroughly cosmopolitan and a graduate of universities in Cairo and Paris, the Egyptian, the first Arab and first African Secretary-General, sees himself as a champion of the Third World. He is demanding that the political chaos and famine in Somalia be given as much attention as the carnage in Yugoslavia, which he would put largely in the hands of the European Community. Some council members grumble that he is arrogant and inattentive and that he too often goes over their heads to directly contact foreign ministers and heads of state, many of whom are old friends. At the moment an uneasy truce prevails, but like cease-fires elsewhere, it may not hold.