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Show T DtCEMbtR WedNEsdAy, I 9, 1987 ChRONicle LOREEN ERICKSON I Bureaucratic mess typifies The Reagan administration has pledged to give the United Nations at least $90 million this month. The government promise is a result of Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar's threat of United Nations' bankruptcy. The United Nations will cease to operate by early December, de Cuellar said, unless the United States pays some of its arrears. The Reagan administration pledge to bail out the sinking United Nations is idiotic and imbecilic. The. organization's history shows only minimal results at extravagant costs. For example, the United Nations hired 1,546 employees when it began in 1946. Today the number is 13,000, with more department, offices and divisions being created daily. It's not that the number of member nations has increased over 40 years as much as the bureaucracy never seems to cut back. A department that oversees "decolonization," for instance, still lingers on, although there are only a handful of such dependencies in the world today. at Furthermore, some of the employees earn exorbitant amounts. An undersecretary-gambles away after 30 years with eneral The United Nations employs 28 of these $350,000. super-diplom- undersecretary-general- s. One employee, three years ago, received a retirement bonus of $450,000 with a guarantee of almost $50,000 a year for the rest of his life. Later, he was rehired as a consultant for $125,000 a year. Actually, the hiring of outside help is not uncommon. Over $8 million a year is paid in consulting fees to help United Nations' with super pay accomplish their jobs. So, to justify their pay and even their jobs, these seasoned bureaucrats create paperwork and lots of it. In turn, the printing of this paperwork costs megabucks because documents must be translated into the six official United Nations' languages. By the super-diplom- Paqe TWrteen ats time a document is deemed worthy of translating, printing and distributing to the general membership, a single page costs $558. The United States has supported such bureaucracy for years, paying 25 percent of the $4.5 billion U.N. budget. That's more than twice the amount the Soviet Union pays and equivalent to the amount the entire Third World pays. Despite these large budgetary payments, America casts only one vote out of 159 in the U.N. General Assembly, while the Soviets have two. amendment aimed In 1985, a Kassebaum-Solomo- n at ending this abuse and waste in the U.N. budget by giving major contributors weighted voting in the budget process. The previous U.N. budget process allowed the General Assembly to pass any budget they pleased, and since the General Assembly is controlled by a bloc of countries that contributes little to the budget, the assembly had no incentive for restraint and discipline. Six months after the Kassebaum amdendment, the U.N. budget procedure changed. Now a budget committee, made up of the major money powers, decides how to set and spend the budget by consensus. In essence, this gives the United States and other major donors veto power. Victory was hailed by Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, Sen. Daniel Moynihan and Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Alan Keyes. The Reagan administration, happy at this deathbed conversion, doled out $100 million in 1986 to save the fate of the 41st General Assembly. This budgetary process reform means nothing. First, the budget committee consensus is not the same as weighted voting, as Kassebaum originally demanded. Second, the 21 members on the committee are still controlled by the General ber U.N. failure Assembly since the assembly chooses and votes in the committee members. Third, if the budget committee cannot reach a consensus, the General Assembly, with its majority of decides. Historic reform was not achieved. Nor will it ever be. For the problem at the United Nations is more than its excessive and irresponsible spending. It fails at fulfilling its responsibility as an institution for improving international relations via fair decisions and laws. For example, in the midst of all "historic reform," the United Nations showed its true colors when the General Assembly voted $73.5 million for a conference center in Addis Ababa, while Ethiopians were starving to death from the country's last famine. Currently, the General Assembly is considering a Syrian resolution calling for a U.N. conference to redefine terrorism. Syrians believe the indiscriminate use of violence against innocents is not terrorism, if practiced by national liberation movements such as theirs. But resistance and retaliation by "racist" and "colonial" states, Syrians say, is terrorist. Thus, the massacres at the Rome and Vienna airports and the blowing up of a nightclub in Berlin is not terrorism, while the U.S. retaliatory raid on is. Libya A year ago, the General Assembly condemned the U.S. raid as a violation of international law and called for the U.S. to pay "appropriate compensation." No mention was made of the provocation, namely the Libyan terrorist attacks. In sum, the United Nations does not fulfill its original purpose of improving international relations. Its decisions are biased and unfair. For the United States to save this faltering organization once again is sheer folly. It is a failed, inefficient institution. non-dono- is rs, Loreen Erickson, a senior majoring in communication, the Chronicle assistant feature editor. University of Utah Blood Donor Program -- SUPPORT THE LOBBY EFFORT-Le- t local merchants know the buying power of of U U students. Free stickers available at: ASUU Offices Union Main Desk Marriott Library University Bookstore hooked on giving and you'll receive a FREE Movie Ticke- tGet Discount Ski Tickets at Brighton -- or you can enjoy a on the Uof U Food Service. FREE meal BLOOD DRIVE TODAY! December 9th Marriott Library 2nd floor Conference Room 10:00 pm am-4:0- O NEXT DRIVE: December 10th 9 am- - 3 pm UNIVERSITY OF UTAH BLOOD DONOR PROGRAM Call 581-268- 6 for information |
