Second Chance for the United Nations

...Pointing out that "since the creation of the UN in 1945, over 100 major conflicts around the world have left some 20 million dead," it calls for the creation of a permanent UN military force...

...Because as I say, one Assembly function is to act as a kind of parliamentary body, and that means having a very wide agenda...

...Sreenivasan, sitting in his United Nations Plaza office near the UN's rose gardens, offered a different perspective...

...Still, at the end of the speeches you have a picture of how the countries feel...

...He has reason to care, since Greece sits at the dismantled Yugoslavia's back door, and the chaos there already has raised tensions over Macedonia...

...For his country, the Ambassador stressed, disarmament is a top priority, "particularly the complete elimination of nuclear weapons from all over the world...

...Have you seen any vetoes over the past two years...

...This gives the impression that it is somewhat unreal...

...What of the irrelevancies of the Assembly agenda, like item 42...

...In addition, he emphasized the interaction at the General Assembly every year: "That is invaluable...

...Despite Desert Storm and the difficulties that Saddam Hussein has been giving UN inspectors trying to determine his nuclear capabilities, an annotation continues to cite an unsatisfied resolution declaring that "Iraq is entitled to compensation for the damage it suffered as a result of the Israeli at tack...

...It is to debate a number of issues and take decisions, as given it under the Charter...

...Haino Ainso, counselor in charge of political affairs at the Estonian Mission, told me: "The General Assembly has been divorced from the real problems of the world...

...But the delegates, and the discussion taking place, are very much influenced by what's happening in the world...

...There's some rhetoric," he conceded...

...In this Assembly we will express ourselves on Yugoslavia, even though its troubles are before the Security Council...

...His view seemed to reflect his position as the representative of one of the five permanent, veto-empowered Security Council members (the others, of course, are the United States, France, China, and Russia...

...The two institutions and the Secretary General have got to try to work together...

...At the rate countries are now fragmenting, by the year 2000 the UN is expected to have 200 members...

...We have been given a second chance to create the world of our Charter that they were denied...

...The net result is weak, ineffective resolutions...

...What of the criticism that the Assembly has done so little in the past 'to stop the bloodshed?'" "I have some difficulty coping with your questions,'' said Sir David...

...His ongoing restructuring of the Secretariat has already eliminated several departments as well as almost a third of the under- and assistant-secretary posts...

...At the same time, the shirtsleeved, bespectacled 50-year-old career diplomat, who has served in the old Soviet Union, Albania, Europe, and the United States, vigorously rejected the notion of the Assembly as merely a "talk shop...

...And we are trying in the Security Council at the moment to deal with a large number of these issues...

...But the trouble is, countries are very unwilling to drop some issues...

...A number of countries are not prepared to give up issues that they hold very dear and important...

...The Serbian concept of 'ethnic cleansing' must be declared a crime against humanity...

...Of course, my country's suffering must impact on the Assembly," answered the 36-year-old Sarajevo-born American investment banker, who has a degree in business administration from Columbia University and a law degree from Tulane University...

...The Assembly's job is not to compete with the Council...

...One reason why Estonia was kept out of the UN for so many years was that it did not want to deal with the issue of Soviet aggression against the Baltic states...

...And in a sense, it's right that they should have an opportunity to air them...

...Is that because the Charter inhibits its actions...

...Then he pointed to the Earth Summit, the UN-sponsored conference in Rio de Janeiro last June, and the need for follow-up actions: "Now the Assembly has to give legal form and shape to that work...

...Under the provisions of the Charter, it may "discuss...

...The Assembly is supposed to be the forum for the entire world," he observed, "yet South Korea and North Korea were kept outside the UN for 45 years because of the Cold War...

...The Assembly discusses items that have been part of its agenda for a long time, session after session...

...As for the Assembly not being called upon to handle questions of peace and security, Ambassador Sreenivasan argued: "That's only one aspect of the UN...

...Whatever the short-term outcome of the debate on revitalizing the General Assembly, for the long term Secretary General Boutros-Ghali has, in the early months of his tenure, thrown down the gauntlet: He has made it clear that past procedures will not suffice if the United Nations is to be an important force in shaping the post-Cold War international order...

...An international organization cannot abolish them...

...Boutros-Ghali's concept of the World Organization's future is perhaps most sharply revealed in his "Agenda for Peace," prepared in response to last January's Security Council request for an "analysis and recommendations of ways of strengthening and making [the UN] more efficient...

...One would be hard pressed to know this from the Assembly's own agenda, a list of 145-odd items based on members' requests that includes numerous carryovers from previous years...

...It will come up again," he said firmly, "because the Council is only made up of 15 countries...

...On the administrative level, he has himself begun "streamlining the chain of command...

...That is no comfort to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a new member whose very existence is being threatened by a devastating civil war right now...

...It gives others to the Council...

...The Charter gives certain functions to the Assembly...

...Throughout most of the session Ganev will be flanked by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the 69-year-old Egyptian scholar who started a five-year term as Secretary General in January...

...It is not expected that the Assembly will become a much stronger force, so that when it passes a resolution it will be heeded...

...I don't expect dramatic things??but changes are in the making...

...With such a diversity of nations, it's difficult to take a common course of action...

...Sir David cited the financing of peacekeeping operations as one example...

...Gertrude Samuels reports regularly on the United Nations for this magazine...

...We need to remove trade barriers so developing countries can export their goods...

...Currently the UN is fielding a dozen peacekeeping operations??as many as in the past 40 years combined ??and they have required the piecemeal recruitment of almost 50,000 troops...

...Important, too, is the "sharing of prosperity, because you cannot have islands of prosperity while there is poverty elsewhere...

...The process of broadening the Security Council's representation, he implied, would be accompanied by reforms giving the Assembly more responsibility for maintaining peace and security...

...This will be crucial...

...Ontheother, you have the General Assembly, which has to be reinvigorated...

...We need to wake up the world, to make it aware of what 'ethnic cleansing' really means...

...On one side you have the Security Council, which is almost the heart of the UN, the engine that drives it...

...A sampling of delegates reveals that feelings about the prospects for change range from downright pessimism to guarded optimism...

...Those things happen because of human beings...

...Take last year: We heard the views of the Africans, and we identify with their major problems...

...It must be stopped...

...At the United Kingdom Mission, hung with portraits of the royal families, Ambassador David Hannay, 57, impeccably tailored, crisp, Oxford educated, exhibited little patience with critics of the division of labor prescribed by the Charter...

...Addressing the Bosnian crisis in his modest office at the Greek Mission, decorated with scenes of 19th-century Greece and the Acropolis, Ambassador Adamantios Th...

...While acknowledging that the Security Council has primary responsibility for peace, the "Agenda" adds: "In the broadest sense, this responsibility must be shared by the General Assembly...

...In the case of Yugoslavia, the Assembly has not stopped the bloodshed...

...The Assembly can demand that steps be taken by the Security Council to prevent the execution of this philosophy...

...From the layman's point of view, the General Assembly seems to be out of touch,'' conceded the 48-year-old diplomat and author, who has taught at the University of Kerala...

...In that context, it further notes: "The General Assembly soon will have before it a declaration on the rights of minorities...

...Several of the present world crises "will be frequent themes" in the Assembly, he agreed, but he dismissed the suggestion of the General Assembly asserting itself on them...

...Not until last year were we admitted, along with the Baltic countries...

...I'm sorry," Sir David said, "but I find the words' assert itself very odd...

...With the end of the Cold War, the Council's power has increased...

...Again, the Security Council has the primary responsibility for peace and security...

...Nonetheless, in the corridors on Turtle Bay some diplomats are beginning to question whether the Assembly's role in the post-Cold War era should not somehow be expanded...

...In his concluding chapter, the Secretary General observes: "The nations and peoples of the United Nations are fortunate in a way that those of the League of Nations were not...

...consider...

...It hasn't got amagic wand...

...But he warns: "Even as we celebrate our restored possibilities, there is a need to ensure that the lessons of the past four decades are learned and that the errors...

...It will make the difference between whether Rio was just an event, in which case it will be rapidly forgotten, or the beginning of a process, in which case it will be of fundamental importance to the world's environment...

...I don't happen to think that's true...

...Unfortunately, they may or may not be respected...

...He was nominated for election as Assembly President by the East European bloc, whose " turn" it is to fill the largely ceremonial, regionally rotated post...

...AFTER THE COLD WAR Second Chance for the United Nations BY GERTRUDE SAMUELS United Nations Thirteen new United Nations members are taking part in the three-month 47th General Assembly, slated to run until December 20...

...With the Cold War ended, we have drawn back from the brink of confrontation that threatened the world and, too often, paralyzed our Organization...

...After a pause, the Ambassador replied: "You will see changes this year...

...It cannot conjure away strife, aggression, ethnic struggle...

...His recently issued 51-page "Agenda for Peace"??urging, among other things, more General Assembly involvement in resolving the world's crises??has served to focus attention here on revitalizing the UN...

...That brings the total number of countries in the World Organization to 179...

...And the question of the Security Council's composition has been on the Assembly agenda for 10 years," Dae went on, "but last year marked the first time there was a substantive debate on the issue...

...For my Foreign Minister to come to New York during the General Assembly is like visiting 179 countries...

...People are thinking about having a more genuine balance between the two major organs of the UN...

...It also deals with such issues as refugees, development, human rights ??the whole vast canvas of economic and social issues, where the Assembly has been assigned a dominant role...

...It has to deal with them...

...are not repeated...

...We will also express ourselves on Cyprus, on the unity of the European Community, on the Middle East...

...Although the Security Council is "seized" of the matter, it is not on the Assembly's agenda...

...India's Ambassador T.P...

...On the issue of the Assembly's role, he said: "It does set standards for international behavior...

...For example, item 42, retained since 1981, concerns "Armed Israeli aggression against the Iraqi nuclear installations and its grave consequences...

...I think the Assembly would be a more effective place if it could learn to prune its agenda...

...Absolutely, it's a talk shop...

...They have got to try and produce a united effort...

...Beyond expressing, how can the Assembly assert itself on the subjects you've mentioned...

...The Charter is not designed just to stop war...

...At the Republic of Korea's Mission, 43-year-old Minister Dae Won Suh, a career diplomat, said he thinks the end of superpower confrontations might hasten a new look at the composition of the Security Council and the importance of the General Assembly...

...I know that many in this country think that all institutional activity has to be confrontational...

...Vassilakis said, "It's very difficult to tell you what effect such world problems will have on the 47th Assembly...

...For example...

...Do you think that if 100 or more members agree on the handling of a problem, the Security Council can ignore or disregard that vote...

...Presiding from the high dais at the head of the impressive domed Assembly chamber will be Stoyan Ganev, the 37year-old Foreign Minister of Bulgaria...

...In this atmosphere the Assembly can play a more positive role," he insisted...

...Yes, I'm afraid that's always been the case," Sir David replied...

...a dramatic contrast to the 51 "original" signers of its Charter in 1945...

...For there may not be a third opportunity for our planet...

...I asked Bosnia's Ambassador Muhamad Sacirbey if he thought it should be...

...It may become more effective one day, but not during this session...

...On the policy level, he has aggressively demanded that civil war-torn, famine-stricken Somalia receive the same attention from the industrialized Western nations that they have been giving to Yugoslavia...

...make recommendations," but the 15-nation Security Council has "primary responsibility" for peace and security...

...The Assembly is universal, with equal footing for all 179 countries...

...It's the lack of political will to make tough decisions...

...It's not the Charter...

...So when people are concerned about, say, Bosnia, the Assembly is discussing, for example, outer space...