March 31, 1998
During debate on the conference report on H.R. 1757, "Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998," New York Representative (22nd District) Gerald Solomon made the following statement on the floor of the House of Representatives (Congressional Record, March 26, 1998):
"I also have trouble handing out any more money over to an organization whose Secretary-General Kofi Annan has just cut an appeasement deal with Saddam Hussein, said that Saddam Hussein is a man he can work with, and called U.S. weapons inspectors cowboys. That is what this head of the U.N. said? He ought to be horse whipped for saying it."
Solomon, who is Chairman of the House Rules Committee, was co-sponsor of the 1985 Kassebaum-Solomon amendment, which was the first of several congressional withholding actions that have brought the U.S. to its current $1.6 billion in arrears to the United Nations. As a result, the United States is in jeopardy of losing its vote in the General Assembly by year's end.
The United Nations Association of the USA regrets the comment by Representative Solomon, and notes that the role of the Secretary-General in the Iraq crisis--as in so many areas--has been recognized by the Administration and the vast majority of the Congress as a service to the long-term goals of the United States. "Whatever the motivation of Congressman Solomon, the comment is clearly out of step with popular American opinion," said Ambassador Alvin P. Adams, President and CEO of UNA-USA. "Such a personal attack has no place in the serious debate over matters of fundamental national interest."
[GPF Editorial Note: Though UNA was too polite to mention it, the concept of "horsewhipping" can be seen as profoundly racist. Slaves were horsewhipped when they misbehaved or tried to run away. This Congressmember seems to see the Secretary General as a fugitive slave, caught trying to escape his master, who must be given a lesson.][In reaction to charges that his statement was racist, the Congressman subsequently issued a denial, saying that he got the phrase from his grandfather who was from Scotland. In Scotland, he said, they horse whipped horse thieves.]
