Tomorrow's Leaders on the UN
SAMUELS, GERTRUDE
GUARDED OPTIMISM Tomorrow's Leaders on the UN BY GERTRUDE SAMUELS UNITED NATIONS ON June 26, 1945, representatives of 50 nations gathered in San Francisco to sign the United Nations Charter. Its...
...Jahangir V Kakharov, 27, holds a graduate degree in economics from the State Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent...
...to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights...
...But I continue to be interested in the UN, so I've decided to study more, particularly international economics...
...This summer Tladi interned in South Africa with the Ford Foundation, which was studying how inexpensive labor could be employed by the new Parliament and its committees...
...Its Preamble solemnly declared the signatories' determination "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war...
...earlier she had established and directed a volunteer program in Hungary for some 1,500 refugees from the former Yugoslavia...
...In many places people are dying of hunger because of an inability to cultivate their fields...
...Such situations can only be sorted out through international mediation...
...Why isn't Brazil...
...Someone from Mozambique, the same...
...Sure, if you go to other parts of the world, like Japan, there haven't been any situations that warranted UN participation...
...So from 1945 up to now there has been steady progress...
...We have a budget-cutting Congress in Washington that is unhappy about all of the money going to different projects...
...I think UN conferences are necessary to draw up guidelines for involving South Africa in helping southern Africa...
...It has to be done by outside professionals who know how to cut out the bureaucracy—cut it right out...
...In the second half of its first century the UN will, I hope, revitalize itself...
...the rest come from 75 different countries...
...In fact, what is already happening is that the Council usually takes its decisions by consensus...
...Indeed, the UN's failures have tended to overshadow its successes...
...Tladi, before coming to sipa, studied political sociology at Georgetown University on an African National Congress (ANC) scholarship...
...It could have a much smaller contingent supervise low-cost refugees, with the added advantage of creating jobs...
...That would be an honorable task...
...I have no illusions that I can influence it in any way...
...Christina Sandidge agreed that the UN's serving as a forum for bringing nations together is a significant achievement in itself...
...Tall, beardedand self-assured, the 30-year-old Francisco spoke bluntly: "The problem with the UN is one of perception...
...genocide, euphemistically called ethnic cleansing, has become a common tool of war...
...In Japan I became fascinated with the idea of the UN," she went on...
...Germany and Japan should also be on the Security Council...
...This 50th anniversary is an occasion to think about what we want the UN to be by the year 2045...
...Francisco added, "It's the only organization we have that is able to bring 185 nations together for a common goal...
...Finally, I asked why, with all of his experience, he was now engaged in more studies at sipa...
...In response to a concluding question about reshaping the UN, Maxine declared: "I wouldn't mind devoting myself to reforming and restructuring it...
...This is not an organization that measures only size and riches...
...Overall, the group seemed to agree that the central problem facing the United Nations is its lack of credibility...
...We in South Africa had a very positive relationship with the UN," he said...
...When people in a poverty-stricken area see all those staff members driving flashy four-wheel-drive cars they say, 'Look, you're not doing enough for us.' I speak from experience?I'm a one-time refugee myself...
...My hope is that there will be a rethinking of the UN's role, especially about the refugee program and such agencies as unicef, whose activities are more important than the resolutions of the Security Council...
...Yes, the Security Council has to change to reflect different international relations...
...Moeen says he will probably "work with some international organization" upon the completion of his sipa studies next year, perhaps one dealing with political affairs and nuclear proliferation...
...Why isn't Argentina represented on the Council...
...As the talk turned to the World Organization's life after 50, Tladi noted that "ethnic cleansing is going on all over the world and the UN must help eradicate it...
...I would further point out that pessimism is fashionable...
...He chose to pursue a master's degree at sipa, he explained, "because I wanted to learn more about international affairs?what with the Berlin Wall coming down, the Cold War ending, and my country remaining in conflict with India...
...I think about Bosnia a lot, and human rights does not appear to be at the top of the list of priorities, even though many people claim GERTRUDE SAMUELS reports regularly on the United Nations for this magazine...
...After spending this summer working for the minority rights of Serbs with the Helsinki Committee in Zagreb, Croatia, however," Christina said, "I see much cause for pessimism, particularly if the lessons of the failures in Somalia and Bosnia are not learned...
...We benefited a lot from its participation in eliminating apartheid...
...World War II ended 50 years ago and the status quo at the UN hasn't changed...
...Scores of regional conflicts rage...
...Students have interned locally at UN headquarters as well as in the field...
...It was given specific tasks?for example, protecting every person's human rights—but not the tools to accomplish them...
...Ambassador Comissario (as he prefers to be called) personally persuaded Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to bring the UN into the peace process...
...How do those who are likely to be among tomorrow's diplomats and technocrats view the once august body...
...And the UN has a role to play in educating women...
...Nelson Mandela, who was in jail—for life...
...We need to address such concerns...
...it has to do with the rebelliousness of the young...
...some of the original faculty members participated in the UN's creation...
...At the UN we work and we debate a lot," the Ambassador said...
...Natsuko earned her Bachelor of Laws at Keio University in Tokyo, then worked as a journalist in Matsue for the Kyodo News Service...
...We need an organization that can effectively marshal the will of the member states to solve its problems...
...What value, if any," I asked, "would you say the United Nations has now...
...Ours is an interdependent world," Ambassador Comissario replied...
...that pressured the UN into the Persian Gulf War, for its own objectives...
...A few days later, I met with two more sipa students at the UN Correspondents Club...
...Russia, for instance, does not want Serbia to suffer from UN actions, so it impedes the strong steps taken against Serbia...
...to help shape and serve in the new post-Cold War world...
...It promises to do certain things," Maxine said, "then doesn't follow up—like creating peace, like stopping all the wars...
...And what of the UN's future...
...You don't have 185 nations represented in the UN, you have a Security Council with five permanent members since 1945...
...In the case of Mozambique, following independence from Portugal it found itself engaged in a protracted battle with rebels infiltrating from neighboring countries...
...Still, it was a successful operation—even if people are fed up with the dominant role the United States has always had...
...MY LAST student interview took me to the office of Ambassador Pedro Comissario Afon-so at the Mozambique mission on Manhattan's East 79th Street...
...Similarly, the UN uses hundreds of its staff to distribute food to the refugees...
...Today it boasts 185 members...
...Mexican-American Rene Celaya, 26, a Harvard alumnus who has been an intern at unesco, spent the past summer in Nazareth assisting the Arab Association for Human Rights, which coordinates its efforts with Jewish organizations...
...Moeen, who was a philosophy major at Bard College, spent the summer of 1994 as a UN Development Program intern...
...Now I see its limitations...
...Yet Serbia is the main instigator of the Bosnian conflict...
...The veto is another thing many don't look upon favorably...
...Natsuko Sato, 26, was critical as well...
...With the cooperation of Associate Dean Robin J. Lewis, who directs the international affairs program, I sought out a cross-section of potential interviewees...
...The failures of the UN have to do with how it was created...
...it is...
...That is not true...
...terrorism is on the rise...
...Moeen Lashari is a slender, thoughtful 27-year-old from a small village in Punjab Province, Pakistan...
...He worked with the Peace Corps in his native Uzbekistan, and was a translator for the BBC Central Asia Service...
...Is it supposed to be a peacemaker or a peace-broker...
...Francisco de Figueiredo, a Brazilian business administration graduate, has interned with the U. S. Department of Commerce...
...There are people who fought for each achievement, who struggled for it...
...And if you meet an Angolan, he'll tell you the same thing...
...My first session, with three men and three women, took place in a private room on the school's 14th floor as the fall semester was about to start...
...It could assign one public information officer to each conflict area for the briefings, instead of incurring the expense of a seemingly endless parade of them...
...Okay, you can argue it was the U.S...
...I'll give you examples...
...I felt the need to have time for reflection, to read, to examine the many aspects of international questions...
...If that happens, it will have a place in the world...
...On January 10, 1946,51 nations convened in London for the first General Assembly...
...Every day, we discuss the composition of the Council, and not merely with respect to the big countries?Germany, Japan, Brazil—but also other countries...
...She recalled traveling with her father in India and Egypt as a child and witnessing terrible poverty...
...The 42-year-old diplomat—who earned degrees in philosophy and law in his own country, and a Master of Laws from Columbia University—has had extensive international experience...
...Speaking more broadly about the evolution of the World Organization the Ambassador observed: "Some people appear to believe that development, human rights, and the like [are] God-given gifts...
...hunger, disease and human rights violations plague the globe...
...Numerous courses address the UN's concerns, while several deal directly with the organization...
...A lot of people say the UN failed in Somalia, but that was because the United States hijacked the process there...
...To me," she continued, "gathering the nations together to speak to one another is a very important and valuable concept...
...Three are currently UN ambassadors—from Cambodia, Sierra Leone and Mozambique...
...Every day the UN brings in a different spokesperson to brief ABC or CNN in Zaire—just to brief the media...
...But I am disappointed with the treatment of human rights issues...
...For his part, he felt "most of the money is well spent...
...The UN helped negotiate and implement an agreement between the government and the rebels...
...Previously, in Russia, he established a volunteer teaching program...
...He chaired the African Group at the UN (1990) and the Sixth (Legal) Committee (1991-2), and was Vice President of the 1991 General Assembly...
...He was never jailed himself, he told me, but "everyone in South Africa knew there was this guy...
...We can't accept that the world we had in 1945 is the same one we have 50 years later...
...Besides monitoring the cease-fire, said the Ambassador, it enabled Mozambique "to put in place machinery for the elections that took place last October...
...An antiapartheid activist, he joined the ANC "after being pushed and chased around by the police...
...I don't feel as strongly as Francisco does about the UN's failures," he said, "but I do feel the decision-making process in the Security Council is too bureaucratic...
...Moeen cited another unfinished job for the UN: "There's the terrible food situation...
...That's a big question," replied Maxine Marcus, 25, a cum laude graduate of Barnard College...
...Told of the negative comments concerning the UN made by some of his fellow graduate students, Moeen responded: "Those who are from Third World countries, where there are serious conflicts, have different ideas about how the UN should function than those who grew up, say, in America...
...In sipa's catalogue Dean John Gerard Ruggie notes that the school's mission is to "educate future analysts, activists and leaders...
...We're in 1995 now...
...Tladi, too, dismissed the negative views of the UN that I recounted...
...But the UN should be able to bring peace with a well-defined mission that includes the developing countries...
...A short, stocky, cheerful man, he spoke fervently of the UN's accomplishments in Mozambique and Cambodia: "It not only played a great role in bringing about peace in these two countries, but it helped establish a durable harmony with its peacekeeping operations...
...to practice tolerance and live together in peace...
...I hope my generation will be able to do something about that...
...Characteristically, Francisco took anar-rower stand: "I don't think anyone can change the UN from within...
...Until that issue is resolved, I think all it will be is a big bureaucracy...
...So that's something that should be given a higher priority—not in words but in actions...
...That was a major UN achievement—absolutely, absolutely...
...Tladi Ditshengo, 35, is an intense and emphatic native of Pretoria, South Africa...
...We also have a very different opinion of the UN's achievements...
...I'm more interested in entering public service and changing the future of my country, selfish as that may be of me...
...Yes, development is critical," Tladi interjected...
...Relatively few of the Charter's high-minded ideals, however, have been realized...
...To get at least a glimpse of the answer to that question I visited Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (sipa...
...Located in a modern high-rise building on 118th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, a short subway ride from Turtle Bay, it happens to be marking its 50th anniversary too...
...The veto is a real obstacle to the effectiveness of the UN's role in solving conflicts...
...This October heads of state, foreign ministers and other dignitaries are gathering at UN headquarters on Turtle Bay in New York City to launch a year-long celebration of the organization's 50th anniversary...
...I think the displeasure with the UN in the United States is a political matter...
...So many nations lack the means to advance themselves...
...to promote social progress...
...No consideration is given to the level of a country's development...
...I used to have an idealistic view of the UN, but it's chilled," she lamented...
...The UN has been affected by its recent failures, but it can accomplish what its sovereign members want it to accomplish...
...She has interned at various development programs in Europe and expects to go on to law school...
...In the past he was President Mandela's international affairs coordinator, and he plans to return to South Africa after getting his degree...
...It's stymied by the five permanent members...
...We have the Charter, but what is the UN's role today...
...A little over half of its 600 graduate students are Americans...
...The UN became a reality that October 24, following the Charter's ratification...
...The native New Yorker had just completed 10 weeks of research in the Ivory Coast for the London-based International Center Against Censorship...
...but if you go to Cambodia, Pakistan—the Third World—you'll see how differently they feel...
...Echoing my initial group of interviewees, Tladi continued: "The huge UN bureaucracy has to be changed...
...An American born 27 years ago in Germany and raised there, she graduated with honors from the University of California at Berkeley...
Vol. 78 • September 1995 • No. 7
