UNITED NATIONS: Third World Peacekeepers Wait for U.N. Cheques

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 14 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations owes more than 300 million dollars to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal for expenses incurred in providing troops and equipment for U.N. peacekeeping operations worldwide.

The four developing nations from South Asia are the largest Third World troop suppliers to the United Nations.

The world body says it has no money to pay these countries. In fact, the organisation has been forced to borrow about 150 million dollars from a peacekeeping reserve fund to keep afloat.

The United Nations is facing a cash crunch. The United States, its largest contributor, owes 1.6 billion dollars in arrears for both the regular and peacekeeping budget.

The United Nations, in turn, owes about one billion dollars to more than 75 countries for their contributions — both in men and materiel — to peacekeeping operations.

“The poor countries are really financing the deficit caused by non-payment of dues by the United States,” Indian Ambassador Prakash Shah told IPS.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvana Foa says describes the 75 nations as “countries sitting out there opening their mail every day, hoping for a cheque from the United Nations.”

When the United Nations says it is borrowing money from peacekeeping, Foa said, it is essentially borrowing from poor countries who are not being paid for contributing troops.

“It’s about time we gave some credit to people we are in debt to,” she told reporters.

As of Dec. 31 last year, the United States provided the largest contingent of soldiers (2,851), followed by India (2,078), Bangladesh (2,029), Russia (1,731), Pakistan (1,468), Canada (1,163), Brazil (1,143) and Nepal (1,142). The total U.N. troop strength was 31,031.

The United Nations pays 980 dollars per month to each soldier serving in its peacekeeping operations.

The Indian ambassador said the world body owed more than 90 million dollars to India alone as payment for the provision of troops and equipment.

“I believe it is the largest sum of money owed to any single developing nation,” Shah said, adding that the United Nations has not told India when it will pay. “We are in effect contributing 90 million dollars over and above what we pay for the regular budget.”

Meanwhile, the United Nations is fighting a move to drastically reduce its peacekeeping department.

Under-Secretary-General Ismat Kittani, head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, has protested a proposed 42 percent cut in his department’s 30-million-dollar annual budget.

“Unless the organisation is willing to forego peacekeeping permanently, it is evident that a core capacity is essential,” Kittani told delegates last year.

At the same time, the United Nations is scaling down its peacekeeping operations worldwide both for political and financial reasons.

The world body, which at onetime fielded about 85,000 troops in 21 peacekeeping operations, is expected to drastically reduce its commitments this year. The number of missions in 1996, according to Kittani, would be about 14 — down from 16 in 1995. The number of troops, too, is expected to drop to about 20,000.

The U.N. peacekeeping budget — which skyrocketed from about 254 million dollars in 1988 to a staggering 3.4 billion dollars in 1994 — is the biggest single growth area in a financially ailing world body.

Between 1988 and 1994, the United Nations launched 21 peacekeeping operations, compared with 13 during the previous 40 years.

Since 1988, the United Nations HAS established peacekeeping missions in several trouble spots, including Iraq, Angola, El Salvador, Kuwait, Namibia, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Mozambique, Somalia, Rwanda and Tajikistan.