U.N.-U.S.: Hackles Rise Over U.S. Conditions on Overdue Payments

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 12 1997 (IPS) - The United States and the United Nations are heading for a showdown over a U.S. proposal to impose benchmarks, including budgetary, as a condition for payment of outstanding dues to the world body.

“Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s views on benchmarks remain the same,” U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters Wednesday.

Annan has repeatedly said he is opposed to any form of benchmarks or conditions. He has insisted that it is the legal obligation of every country to pay its dues — “on time, in full, and without conditions.”

Asked for his response to the new proposal, Eckhard said he really did not want “to say anything on a process that is yet to be finalised.”

“The Secretary-General would like to see governments follow the rules,” Eckhard told reporters earlier.

The 15 members of the European Union (EU) and the 132 members of the ‘Group of 77’ developing countries have also opposed the attachment of any conditions on the payment of dues by any country.

Even though the United Nations says Washington owes some 1.3 billion dollars in outstanding dues, the Bill Clinton administration reached agreement with Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate Tuesday on a plan to pay 819 million dollars to the world body over the next three years.

And the proposal lays down rigid conditions for the United Nations, including a demand for a U.S. seat on the United Nations’ budgetary committee.

The plan also calls for a “sovereignty certification” that recognises the supremacy of the U.S. constitution and an assurance that the world body will not impose any global taxes or establish a standing U.N. army.

The plan calls for a ceiling of 22 percent on U.S. payments to the regular budget and all specialised agencies of the United Nations, followed by a reduction to 20 percent over three years. Under the current arrangement, Washington is supposed to pay 25 percent of the United Nations’ annual, 1.3-billion-dollar budget.

Bill Pace of the New York-based Institute for Global Policy expresses outrage over the plan, saying he is greatly disappointed that the Democrats have joined hands with the Republicans in the Senate “to destroy the United Nations.”

He charges that the United States is creating a bad precedent and is undermining rule of law by laying down conditions for an institution where members have charter obligations. “It is a disaster,” he told IPS.

The bipartisan package requires a cap of 25 percent on assessments for the peacekeeping budget as against the 31 percent the United States is expected to pay now. Congress last year unilaterally decided to reduce the U.S. assessment to 25 percent over strong protests from developing and developed nations.

There is also a call for an inspector general to investigate fraud and waste in three specialised U.N. agencies: the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The package also insists that the United Nations give the Washington-based Congressional watchdog, the General Accounting Office (GAO), authority to audit U.N. programmes, and it requires a reduction in the overall budgets of all specialised agencies.

Other conditions include a moratorium on U.N.-organised global conferences outside of New York, Geneva, Rome, and Vienna, and a requirement for reimbursement for all U.S. assistance, mostly equipment, provided to peacekeeping operations.

The package calls for the United Nations to obtain full notification and consultation with Congress on peacekeeping operations. It also seeks to cut the foreign aid of nations whose U.N. diplomats owe parking fines.

Pace pointed out that the financial crisis at the United Nations — blamed on the non-payment of dues by the United States — is also undermining the ongoing reform process at the world body. The U.S. taxpayer, he said, spends about 6,000 dollars per capita on running the federal governments and 3,000 dollars per capita on state governments. The per capita cost for running the United Nations, on the other hand, is only 1.50 dollars per capita, he said.

If Washington does not support the United Nations, “it is in the long run going to cost enormously — both financially and in American lives,” he noted. “As an American citizen, I am extremely embarrassed by the lies and disinformation on the United Nations,” he said. “I cannot see other members accepting the conditions.”

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, while acknowledging the Senate plan as “a step forward”, has in recent days said that the White House was pushing ahead with efforts to repay the United Nations. He has noted that the current U.S. budget sets aside money needed to pay slightly more than one billion dollars of U.N. arrears.

“Of course, we are not finished with our work,” he said recently. “Congress must first authorise and then appropriate these funds.”

“This is going to be a process of peaks and valleys, good headlines and bad headlines,” Richardson said.