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NY Times Editorial
Don't Capsize the U.N.
Editorial, The New York Times
1 April 1996, page A16
The United Nations is in financial straits that are deep, dangerous and only partly deserved. As of the beginning of this year, half its members had not paid last year's dues in full, with the United States leading the pack. The deadbeat total has swelled to $3.1 billion. According to Joseph Connor, the Under Secretary General for the Administration, the U.N. faces a cash crisis that could curtail or even shut down its operations by November.
The U.N. is out of fashion these days, and alarms about its financial problems have been raised before. But this time the crisis is acute. While the organization still needs much reform, it should not be allowed to wither for lack of money.
In past years, the U.N. kept afloat by borrowing from separate peacekeeping accounts to cover shortfalls in its $1.3 billion operating budget. But a reduction in peacekeeping has eliminated this option. America's debt, which represents a default on a treaty obligation, is an inexcusable embarrassment. Washington owes $699 million for this year's regular budget and $909 million for peacekeeping operations. No country has a worse record.
Americans rightly ask whether the U.N. has done its share to cut costs. Mr. Connor, who has applied rigorous American accounting standards to the U.N. bookkeeping, maintains that financial management demands by Congress have been met. The U.N. budget has not increased since 1994. A new inspector general, Germany's Karl Paschke, is aggressively investigating waste and fraud.
Some abuses persist. Senior echelons of the U.N. are clogged with patronage appointees. Trade, trusteeship and development agencies overlapwith other U.N. offices. The American share of the budget needs to be cut to 20 percent from 25 percent.
Over the decades the U.N. has unquestionably helped end wars and preserve the peace in many regions, mediating and monitoring cease-fires. It has helped put human rights, including women's rights, on the diplomatic agenda. Its specialized agencies track epidemics, provide shelter for millions of refugees displaced by war and disasters and perform other indispensible tasks to which little attention is paid or credit accorded.
Congress has agreed to a foreign affairs budget that meets the Administration more than halfway with a five-year plan for paying back dues. It provides $823 million instead of the requested $934 million for dues, and the full $445 million for peacekeeping sought by the White House.
Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina insists in return that Mr. Clinton agree to fold any one of the three now-independent Federal agencies dealing with arms control, information and foreign aid into the State Department. It is not a pleasant choice, but Mr. Clinton should settle on one, preferably the Agency for International Development, and end the deadlock with Mr. Helms.
If Washington fails to come up with money solemnly promised by three successive Presidents, not only downsizing but capsizing the U.N., it would be a moral and financial default by the organization's pincipal founder.
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