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Who is Going to Reform the UN, Anyway?

by Ekram Kabir
***Initially, Annan S reform programme failed to meet US demands. And now, a few months later, the secretarygeneral is receiving eulogy by the US President. And
reports revealed that, at a September 19 briefing at the State Department, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright emphasised, in dictating terms, that the US
Congress was willing to pay the nearly $1 billion America owes the UN if the world body adopted financial and management reforms.***
Conceived m the cauldron of war, the UN s first task must remain tfw pursuit of peace and security, says the North, especially the unisuperpower US But some households of the global village may not like US-called for agenda, just as America plays its role in international affairs An unmistakable question looms large: which course the world body might be taking off? TTie developing and underdeveloped inember-states are still sceptic reports suggest, whether the Kofi Annan's — and for that matter the US's, they surmise — blueprint will benefit them, although Bangladesh delegation has given its extensive support iveedge.
No doubt, for 50 years the UN has helped prevent world war and nuclear holocaust. But. incidentally. conflicts between nations and within nations had continued. From '45 until today. these have cost 20 million lives. And again, during the Bost-cold war period, there ave been more than 30 armed conflicts each year in each of which more than a thousand people have lost their lives, including. very recently, a quarter of a million killed in the former Yugoslavia and more than half-a-million in Rwanda. Yet. after all this. UN still continues to keep many nations away from bloodshed: in El Salvador and Mozambique, in Haiti and Namibia, in Cyprus and Bosnia, where so much remains to be done but can still be done because the bloodshed has ended. It is presently keeping the peace in 16 countries, often in partnership with regional organisations like NATO. ASEAN etc., avoiding wider conflicts. The UN. however, cannot build nations. but it can help them build themselves — that's what the decision makers think of it.
But money is the only essence that seems to be the animated strength in the UN corridors where the 52nd session of General Assembly is appraising secretary-general Kofi Annan's reform package disclosed in July last — the nation which contributes more becomes the powerful fist. Japan, for example. whose economy is half the size of the America, pays 16 per cent of the UN budget, and wants to pay more when it comes to get a permanent membership in the UNSC. In this regard. the Japanese foreign minister Keizo Obuchi quoted to have emphatically said to the press that his country already pays more than the other four, except the US. permanent members.
On the other hand. America is seeking to cap its contributions to UN peacekeeping opera-
tions at 25 per cent (down from the current 33 per cent) of the total UN budget The Washington wants to limit its share of the UN regular budget to 20 per cent, down from the current 25 per cent The secretary-general has suggested the Assembly a shift to a process of "budgeting for results" under which it would specify the results it expects within a specific budget. Then there will be agenda for achieving greater goals
Initially. Annan's reform programme failed to meet US demands. And now. a few months later, the secretary-general is receiving eulogy by the US President. And reports revealed that, at a September 19 briefing at the State Department. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright emphasised. in dictating terms, that the US Congress was willing to pay the nearly $1 billion America owes the UN if the world body adopted financial and management reforms.
But some Americans have argued that in fact the UN owes the US billions of dollars. These are based on the assertion that the UN should pay the US for all the peacekeeping activities that are authorised under UNSC resolutions. The US credits itself for contributions to all formal UN peacekeeping operations.
The Clinton Administration is determined, suggest wire agencies, to work with the US Congress to meet the US's financial obligations to the UN and. simultaneously wants to ensure that the UN meets its obligations to the US. And. reportedly. legislation nearing completion that would allow the US to pay its arrears is proof of America's abiding interest in a strong, effective UN. The US interest is clear when Albright said: "The US needs the UN. and the UN needs the US." (Indeed, the secretary-general has a very tough job ahead.)
America's Iron lady went further as saying: "Our crusade for reform is not Just an effort to save money, but an effort to fo-nis the UN’s limited resourc es on the priorities we share."
Quest|orHs: why is the Reform
has to be a "crusade" unless there's an impending setback for America al the international level?
Another "core mission" of the UN, Clinton said, "must tie to defend and extend universal human rights'" and to "help democracy's remarkable gains endure." “Fifty years ago." he reminded, "the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated the international community's conviction that people everywhere have the right to be treated with dignity, to give voice to their opinions, to choose their leaders: that these rights are universal — not American rights, not western rights, not rights for the developed world only, but rights inherent in the humanity of people everywhere."
This idea sounds like an eyewash. for what is most significant about America s legislation is that it recognises its abiding interest in a strong, effective UN. Given a choice between giving up on the UN and making US investment work, between retreat and reform. Congress is choosing the responsible course. It is choosing to keep America engaged more than ever before which is an expression of American pragmatism. According to the US. it is aimed to keep UN inspectors in North Korea and Iraq so that it can prevent those nations from building weapons of mass destruction. to keep UN war crimes prosecutors on-the-job so that it can deter genocide and hold killers accountable, to keep peacekeepers in some of the most strife-torn places where America needs them to be. where no nation would wish to go alone, and in favour of programmes that immunise < hildren and prevent the spread
With Annan's far-reaching programme, supported by almost all Ilie memixir-states. the world may lie off to a promising start. For the first time in history. according to slap-bang West, more than half the people represented in the UNGA freely choose their own governments. Free markets arc growing, spreading individual opportunity and iijcre>ising national well-being Early in the 21st century, more than 20 of the Assembly's memliers may be able to lift themselves from the ranks of low-income nations.
The UN must play a leading role in this effort, filling in the fault lines. The pivot it has pursued during its first half-century should lx- just as relevant during the next half-century: the pursuit of peace and security, promoting human rights, and moving people from poverty to dignity and prosperity through sustainable development.
The US is asking the UN to be prepared to respond, not only by setting standards but by implementing them. To deter abuses. US will strengthen the UN's field operations and early warning systems. To strengthen democratic institutions, the ■ 'best guarantor of human rights'. America intends to pursue programmes to help new legal. parliamentary and electoral institutions get off the ground. To punish those (Lybians and Iraqis?) responsible for crimes against humanity and to promote justice so that peace endures, it must maintain its strong support for the UN's war crime tribunals and truth commissions.
But progress perhaps is not yet everyone's partner. Tens of millions lack the education, the training, the skills they need to make the most of their natural abilitie... The UN has a special responsibility to make sure that as the global economy creates greater wealth, it does not widens the growing disparities between the 'haves' and the have-nots', or threaten the global environment.
The reforms will be nothing Earth-shattering, because the point of US foreign policy is to keep the Earth from shattering, since it has become the global policeman after the Soviet demise. This will simply be the opportunity of doing America’s business what they call bread-and-butter diplomacy. But on the top of everything, the weighty question remaining is whether the developed countries have the vision and the "heart-necessary to imagine a future — by not making the developing their scapegoats — that is truly different from the past.
Al 11 le dawn of a new century, apparently so full of hope, but frowning with peril, more than ever the world needs a "more than a-definite" body to ensure a world where people can work with shared problems and take action to confront them, where nations with goodwill can join in the struggle for prosperity, and shape logether a future of progress.