UN warns Congress withholding dues hurts reform
By Evelyn Leopold
Reuters
Friday, May 20, 2005; 8:17 PM
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes congressional proposals to withhold U.S. dues to the United Nations unless certain reforms are enacted would be counter-productive and hinder his ability to bring about changes, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Republicans on the House International Relations Committee on Thursday circulated preliminary proposals for a measure that would cut funding for at least 17 programs, demand reductions in staff for others and seek new U.N. positions, such as a chief operating officer and an ethics office.
If some of the proposals, like reform of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, are not enacted, 50 percent of U.S. dues would be withheld.
The State Department opposes linking U.S. dues to reform.
The United States is the largest single contributor and pays nearly 25 percent of the annual administrative U.N. budget of $1.5 billion. In addition, all member nations contribute to a peacekeeping budget of about the same amount, plus funds for specialized agencies. Japan pays close to 20 percent.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric warned that withholding dues would hinder Annan from carrying out his own reforms.
Annan is seeking the right to close down programs that have outlived their usefulness among other changes, many of which the 191-member General Assembly needs to approve.
The secretary-general's position on the use of withholding as a tool for reform is pretty clear, Dujarric said. He feels it is counterproductive, particularly at a time when reform is such a primary agenda item.
At a Congressional committee hearing on U.N. reform on Thursday, Catherine Bertini, the former head of the World Food Program, said that agencies and some programs were better off with voluntary rather than assessed funding because they would be more financially responsive to donors.
But Timothy Wirth, a former U.S. Senator from Colorado and head of the U.N. Foundation funded by media mogul Ted Turner, disagreed, contending that some popular programs would be funded but other necessary ones, like translation, might not.
Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican on the House International Relations Committee, said it was his experience that reforms could only be accomplished if they were linked to money or else no one really listened.
In response, Democrat Tom Lantos, also a Californian, said was no quick fix for an organization composed of 191 member states.
Refusing to pay dues in order to force reform violates our international obligations and makes a mockery of the doctrine of accountability and ethical conduct that we are pressing upon the United Nations, he said.
In the 1990s, the United States delayed payment of over a $1 billion in debt to the United Nations in an effort to force reform at the world body.
The U.S. debt prompted British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind to tell the General Assembly in 1995 that Washington's policy amounted to no representation without taxation, reversing a slogan popularized by 18th-century American colonists against Britain's King George III.
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