Private Ise, London, 27 August '93

from Our Own Correspondent

Nothing has gained more sympathy for the United Nations than last week's exposé by the 'Sunday Times' Insight team, whose gaffes made obvious that it did not have an inside team. As a Canadian journalist said: "Four Brits worked three months to make this? No wonder no one buys British!"

Its inherent improbability was summed up when it said that the Secretary General's friends called him Bou Bou. Not if they want to remain on his Christmas card list, they don't! It is on a par with the malicious advice to German tourists in New York, that the appropriate way to greet black people on the subway is by staring them in the eyes and shouting: "How are yah doin', Niggah?"

However, the problem with Murdoch-type stories on our house is that they never put the blame where it belongs - which is usually with their best friends. So the 'Sunset Times' blamed the plight of little Irma on "the UN". But the UN is a timorous bureaucracy taking orders from over 180 states, from Andorra to Zimbabwe - and Britain is one of the most important. After all, who appointed Lord Owen as mediator? Anyone else could have told you that this was like making Dr Guillotine a consultant brain surgeon. And it is the ineffable Sir David Hannay, John Major's ambassador to our Org, who, with the aid of his equally supercilious Gallic counterpart, has blocked all attempts in the Security Council to lift the siege of Sarajevo. Indeed, the United Nations troops 'enforce' the siege by stopping Sarajevans from fleeing across the airport - unless of course they pay big enough bribes.

There is not much honour amongst diplomats. The British and French are widely reputed to have secured the sacking of Venezuelan Ambassador Diego Arria and New Zealand's Terry O'Brien for their temerity in raising principles, international laws, humanity and similar un-European concepts, especially after they had led a Security Council mission to Srebenica earlier this year. There they had squared off against the ineffable Bible thumping British Brigadier General Vere Hayes, who now seems to have rewritten the history of siege warfare by deciding that Sarajevans are besieging the Serbians outside. (Not since all those Brits in Singapore besieged Japan has there been such a memorable encirclement!) On the indignant return of the Ambassadors to New York, the Venezuelan government was asked to sack Arria, and the Kiwis were asked if they seriously wanted to sell butter to the EC - which meant no guns for the Bosnians when the vote came up. O'Brien's replacement was confirmed shortly afterwards.

Boo Boo has made plain his lack of sympathy for most people, who he thinks are much less clever than him - but the Bosnians have always been among his least favourite people. In a bizarre speech in Sarajevo last year he made it plain that he hasn't forgiven the Bosnians for not being in Africa. And it may be significant that he has appointed half the former Yugoslav foreign ministry to UN sinecures. So it was an especial triumph for old world diplomacy to get soft Bill Clinton to accept Boo Boo's veto on airstrikes against the Serbs.

He is, anyway, somewhat nervous about bombs. Ever since the FBI-inspired bomb plot against the UN, Boo Boo has been getting jumpier and jumpier. Far from the mass invasion of Egyptian staff that we - and Egyptians - expected on his accession, it is easier for a Palestinian deportee to get back to Israel than for an Egyptian to get a job in the UN. Unless they are close family friends, he thinks that they will be undercover fundamentalists with a contract out on him, so no Egyptian security guards or cleaners are allowed in his vicinity.

Indeed, it is getting increasingly difficult for 'anyone' to get in. The restriction on journalists and staff bringing in people are tighter and tighter. Soon, even staff will not be allowed in, and Boo Boo will have what he always secretly wanted. A sealed pyramid on the banks of the East River where he can rule for eternity, undisturbed by reality. If the Gods are seriously malicious, they will lock Britain's Sir David Hannay in with him. They entertain a severely limited respect for each other.