UNITED NATIONS: Annan Earns Meeting with Clinton, Praise from U.S.

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 8 1997 (IPS) - New U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will meet with U.S. President Bill Clinton and his top foreign policy aides Jan 23, in the latest sign of easing tensions between the United Nations and Washington.

Annan Wednesday announced that he would meet with Clinton, and that he also intended to meet two prominent Republicans, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Rep. Benjamin Gilman of New York, who respectively head the Senate and House committees that deal with foreign affairs.

Among the topics he would bring up, Annan said, would be the need for the United States to clear up an estimated 1.3 billion dollars in arrears to the United Nations. That debt — the single largest set of unpaid dues to the world body — has made it difficult for the United Nations to pay nations who contribute thousands of soldiers for peacekeeping missions, the secretary- general said.

“We should all meet our commitments to the United Nations,” said Annan, who took office Jan. 1. He added that, in a meeting with departing U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher Tuesday, he had argued that the overdue money “doesn’t belong to the United Nations — it belongs to countries like Fiji, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.”

In a hopeful sign for the new U.N. chief, Washington — which had resisted calls from Annan’s predecessor, Boutros Boutros- Ghali, to cover its debts — has signalled its intention to pay.

“The United States wants to meet its financial obligations,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said after the Christopher-Annan meeting. “We don’t take pride that we are a debtor nation to the United Nations.”

Burns added that, although Helms and other Republicans in the U.S. Congress object to substantial U.N. funding, the Clinton administration has promised to put the arrears dispute at the top of its 1997 agenda.

For many at the United Nations, such promises are exactly what was expected to result from Annan’s selection last month to lead the world body. Washington made little secret that it wanted Annan, a Ghanaian, instead of Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian whose independent streak often angered the White House.

“We frankly felt that Boutros Boutros-Ghali did not make a sufficient commitment to the internal reform of the United Nations,” Burns said. Other U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confided that they were convinced Congress would never authorise U.N. arrears payments as long as Boutros-Ghali, a particular target of Republican attacks, remained in office.

Whether Annan can inspire more confidence among Republicans like Helms — who memorably compared sending U.S. aid to Africa to “pouring money down a rat-hole” — is an open question.

Speaking at her confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill for the position of U.S. Secretary of State, outgoing U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright told U.S. Senators Wednesday, “I hope that you all get to know Secretary-General Kofi Annan yourselves, because he is a very fine example of somebody who is dedicated to a slimmed down and reformed United Nations.”

Burns promised that the meeting between the new U.N. head and Christopher demonstrated how “the selection of Kofi Annan…is a positive turning point.” Yet although Congress has authorised the payment of all 1995-96 dues, it has yet to take up several years’ worth of arrears, and many U.S. diplomats privately worry it may still resist paying up.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS there was even some dispute as to how much money is owed. He said that, by U.S. calculations, Washington owes only 900 million dollars, or roughly 400 million less than what the United Nations claims.

The money currently in the pipeline represents all of Washington’s 1995-96 assessment as well as “a 50-million-dollar down payment” on its overdue accounts, he added.

Helms Wednesday broached the subject of arrears with Albright, who is credited with leading the fight to oust Boutros-Ghali.

“I’ve gained the impression (from newspaper articles) that inasmuch as you’ve succeeded in bouncing Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Congress ought to be sort of satisfied and pay up that big check and forget about it,” Helms said. “Well I’m not going to forget about it… The ball is in — if you’ll forgive me — your court and Mr Annan’s court.”

The main concern in Washington is whether Annan can convince Congress that the United Nations is cutting back on its own bureaucracy enough to justify the authorisation of Washington’s assessments, which pay for a quarter of regular U.N. costs.

“The United Nations should be reduced in size, and its personnel structure should be more efficient,” Burns said.

But U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard indicated that Annan, like Boutros-Ghali, is wary of having such reductions imposed by one member state unilaterally.

“The United States will need to work more closely with others,” Eckhard said in citing Annan’s conversation Tuesday with Christopher. “Sometimes a good leader must also be a good follower.”

Still, Eckhard denied any problems between the United States and Annan. The discussion on U.N. reform would proceed, he said, but the other U.N. member states would also be involved.

Certainly Annan has a tricky course to follow to avoid Boutros- Ghali’s fate. On the one hand, he has shown a clear eagerness to be more conciliatory to the United States than his predecessor, who repeatedly drew attention to the U.S. arrears as “the failure to uphold a treaty obligation”.

On the other, following the bitter dispute to replace Boutros- Ghali, Annan also needs to convince the 185 member-states that comprise the United Nations that the United States does not dominate the world body’s workings.

For now, the new secretary-general, secure in warmer words from Washington than the man he replaced, maintains that there should be no problem in upholding the world body’s independence.

“When I hear that member states are being pushed around, that they do not have a say, I am a bit surprised and disappointed,” he said recently. “The perception that they are pushed around by one or two or three member states, if that is indeed correct, is ì their own fault. Nobody can push you around unless you allow it.”