The Bottom Line at the UN
SAMUELS, GERTRUDE
MEMBERS' CHOICE The Bottom Line cit the UN bygertrudesamuels United Nations Last spring, while answering questions from students at Atlantic College in Cardiff, Wales, Javier Perez de Cuellar...
...If that happens, it cannot be as responsive to the needs of countries...
...It simply hasn't been able to pay its bills...
...If you want to keep it afloat, the bottom line is that you have to pay your dues and institute the reforms proposed by your own experts.'" Soon after the 41st Assembly's proceedings got underway, the People's Republic of China (0.79 per cent, and in arrears) handed a check to controller Foran for $4,392,856, "being the total amount of thesewithholdings" according to the letter of transmittal from China's Permanent Representative...
...And it's not clear how much the U.S...
...Moynihan on the UN," NL, May 5-19...
...passed in June 1985, it threatens to limit the U.S...
...he asked rhetorically...
...annual contributions to 20 per cent of the total UN budget (instead of the traditional 25 per cent) starting in 1987, unless the organization adopts a system of weighted voting for budgetary matters...
...The UN is labor-intensive—servicing 159 member states...
...But the reality is, if we don't get a certain amount —an absolute minimum of $ 120 to $ 130 million before the end of the year—we'll be bankrupt...
...Shortly before the 41st Assembly opened, the Administration apparently decided that the UN's fiscal crisis was becoming too destabilizing...
...Although savings of around $60 million are hoped for, Perez de Cuellar was hardly sanguine in his address before a packed UN Staff Day audience on September 12: "Our solvency will depend on the payments of outstanding assessed contributions received in the next three months...
...Only 52 member states have paid their assessments in full at this writing...
...Reagan has reportedly even been weighing personal intervention with Congress to restore some of the money cut by law, but how much and when remains uncertain...
...The Secretary-General has tried to make do by ordering economies where possible—a freeze on personnel recruitments, cuts in travel and conferences, a reduction of the suffocating flow of documents...
...owed the UN some $247 million, including monies withheld from previous years...
...J. Richard Foran, the UN's controller, shares those worries...
...We probably have enough money in sight to get through October...
...As of August 31 of this year, the U.S...
...That being the case, one UN official who preferred not to be identified suggested "thebest 'contingency plan' would be for the Secretary General to go before the Assembly and tell its members: 'This is your organization, your creation...
...Lastyear, with White House blessings, Congress cut its current allocation for the organization some $70 million below the United States' $210 million assessment...
...What happens then...
...The Group of 18 report is being "considered" by the General Assembly, which has itself been asked to cut three weeks from its session as an economy measure...
...Most previous crises have been related to the peace-keeping operations...
...Yet shortly after the September 16 opening of the41st General Assembly, he tolda New York Times reporter who asked whether he would be a candidate again upon completing his term of office this fall: "I don't see any reason why I should preside over the collapse of the organization...
...Nowhere else in the world, it is recognized, can nations of all sizes and political persuasions meet and talk to each other despite their antagonisms—and not only in the debating society of the General Assembly but in the corridors, delegate lounges and dining rooms where the real business is transacted...
...Trite as the paraphrase of Voltaire sounds, the overriding belief is that if the UN didn't exist, it would have to be invented...
...So far, I don't see that they're running out of money...
...I don't have to make a sacrifice and die with my ship...
...What does Japan intend to do...
...Then the bearded diplomat, shaking his head, continued: "I just believe—I hope—they're working on some sort of contingency plan...
...The issue, ultimately, is not one of cash but of credibility...
...My mission feels the solutions are in the Group of 18 report, which should be approved...
...And cutting this Assembly by three weeks would save substantially...
...President Reagan declared in his welcoming speech to the Assembly, "We can turn this 'crisis' into an opportunity...
...West Germany is another major donor (8.26 percent) that is up-to-date with its payments...
...It also recommended a 25 per cent reduction in undersecretaries-general and assistant secretaries-general (these well-paid and highly political posts now number an excessive 87...
...The 45-year-old counselor of its mission, Jobst Holborn, taking time out from a Fifth Committee session (budget and administration), bluntly commented: "If the contributions the UN needs for meeting its payroll don't come in, it's a real crisis...
...Nebutake Odane, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman for Japan—a major donor at 10.8 per cent of the total budget, and one of the countries that is completely paid up—told a press gathering: "There's a belief that the current operations of the UN create the deficit...
...Without reserves, we are living from hand to mouth...
...And under a law sponsored by Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan...
...I have no assurance how much will be forthcoming...
...The changed tone of the popular 66-year-old Peruvian diplomat is less a reflection of his personal doubts about seeking a second five-year term (he underwent a quadruple-bypass heart operation in July) than of his exasperation, if not desperation, with the financial plight of the UN...
...See "Kassebaum vs...
...Many of the heads of state, foreign ministers, ambassadors, and lesser diplomats gathered here have thus taken note in their pronouncements of the Group's recommendations and Perez de Cuellar's warnings...
...I don't know...
...How has the UN coped...
...will contribute.' "Is the UN facing bankruptcy, as many say...
...At the same time, agreement that the organization is worth keeping alive is virtually unanimous...
...he was asked...
...The situation is serious...
...That's why Japan supports reforms now...
...My country, which has always given the UN generous support, will continue to play a leading role in the effort to achieve its noble purposes...
...The General Assembly is in session," he said grimly, "and it's been well forewarned...
...The United States in particular has long criticized it for its hostility to the West, its ideologizing of special programs, a bloated bureaucracy, and general mismanagement...
...Prominent in the minds of delegates, if not actually on the General Assembly's 146-item agenda, is the question of what the Reagan Administration's intentions are vis-avis the UN...
...The World Organization is unable to meet its $830 million annual budget, largely because its constituents have failed to honor their fiscal commitments...
...It called for sweeping cuts in personnel (leading to possible layoffs of 1,700 individuals out of a total staff of 12,205) and the streamlining of management...
...During this General Assembly, will they have to close down the building, fire all the translators or cut off the water and electricity...
...Our expenses are $65 million a month, with about 80 per cent going for staff and related services...
...The Secretary-General is not overreacting," said the 52-year-old rumpled Canadian in his office on the 27 th floor of the building overlooking Manhattan's Turtle Bay that is headquarters for the UN staff...
...The slight, bespectacled man, looking a mite flustered, responded, "Temporarily at least, help the UN from going down the drain...
...The U.S...
...We have met our obligation...
...Others in the West are similarly unhappy with the Communist-Third World dominance of voting on important issues...
...Member states, in particular the big ones, have found it convenient to keep it on a short string, delaying payments...
...Next...
...has not...
...107 are in arrears, some going back several years...
...MEMBERS' CHOICE The Bottom Line cit the UN bygertrudesamuels United Nations Last spring, while answering questions from students at Atlantic College in Cardiff, Wales, Javier Perez de Cuellar voiced wry confidence in the United Nations by telling a skeptical student: "Those who would like to see the UN collapse will have to be patient...
...The important reforms proposed by the Group of Experts can be a first step toward restoring the organization's status and effectiveness...
...Back in August, a high-level intergovernmental group of diplomats known as the Group of 18—including representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union—submitted a 40-page report to the Secretary-General criticizing the direction of UN operations...
...There is no doubt, however, that the UN's "credibility" is a major problem...
...If this trend continues, the UN faces severe crises...
...The UN has always had financial problems," Foran continued...
...Gertrude Samuels reports regularly on the UnitedNationsforthis magazine...
Vol. 69 • September 1986 • No. 13
