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Show The Salt Lak e Tribune OPINION Sunday, April 2 1997 U.N.’s Failure to Respond Continues in Standoff With Congress States and thefailure of the organization’s other members to re- BY JOHN R. BOLTON FC R HE LOS ANGELESTIMES LES LOS ANGE spond. Second, the answer to the — o In the midst United Nations’ crisis is not to be st escend about the of the late l cr financs,ia crisis’ of an thte United Nation port two im . found in exhortations about points a crisis of legiti not of money, andit was caused by a combination of grave doubts about the reform would sweep the United Nations. crisis of legitimacy exacerbate the crisis of legitima- Failure to understand these points — the central problem of the Clinton administration'sposi- United Nations within the United ministration asserts, America’s supposed legal obliga tions or a quick rush of payments butin a political resolution of the First, the Unit- have been missed lem today is ed Nations’ realmaprcyob , tion — leads inevitablyto viewing the crisis as a bean-counting exercise. If only Congress would appropriate enough money, the ad- not the only and perhapsnot even the central cause of congressional issatisfaction Thereal issueis the feeling that the United Nations is a great, rusting hulk of a bureaucratic su- agement failures, budgetary ex- perstructure, enmeshed in governing bodies, councils and conferences, dealing with issues from the ridiculous to the sublime, brightened only occasionally by indecipherable work, though, are War. This is the United Nationsin But this facile “solution” would cy. The administrative and mancesses and unaccountable and moments like the Persian Gulf the minds of many Americans. The root of this legitimacy cri- sis is that the United Nations ‘one-nation, one-vote” system for financial matters again has collapsed. First under assault in the mid-1980s, this system escaped congressional efforts to allocate voting weights to the shares of U.N. financial contributions. Accordingly, administration ef- forts to rush through supplemental appropriations or to reach agreement with Congress on management benchmarks and targets ultimately must fail to resolve the questions of U.N. legitimacy. There simplyis no magic number of staff cuts, no blood oath to swear on permissible budgetary increases and no perfect measurement of efficiency that can answer the legitimacy doubts. John R. Bolton, senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, was an assistant secretary ofstate in the Bushadministration. No More Civil War, But Guatemala Still Deep in Poverty and Corruption of San Carlos, noticed that the president of Guate- BY ALFPRATTE mala hadraised $1.8 billion in aid from countries CHIQUIMULA, Guatemala — Althoughit’s been more than a year since treaties were signed ending 36 years of Guatemalan civil war, the after-effects of around the world to help war-torn Guatemala, “but the work provided byprivate groups such as yours will benefit the people of Guatemala just as much as decades of conflictstill linger in this Central Ameri- that $1.8 billion.” can country, once at the center of the Wan culture and the cradle of the American press. Armed guards with semi-automatic rifles and pistols patrol the parking lots at fast-food stores or scowl at tourists in banks; officers in military uniforms are recognized along with elected officials at public events. Kidnaping and hostage-taking still are Hereida was referring to the educational assistance of a medical team from Utah, headed by topicsin the news. The mountainous country about the size of Ohio Blayne Hirsche of Provo and Michael Chandler of Orem, which each year spends a week working with patients who have special surgery needs. During a four-dayperiod this month the Utah team, including nurses Blanca Holt, Maria-Elena McRae, Mary Witte, Vickie Wixom and Julie Musselman, performed 66 operations ranging from scar removal to cleft- also servesas a transfer point for cocaine and heroin palate surgery. the UnitedStates. Last year, with the help of the Provo City Council and the Provo Fire Department, an ambulance was donated to the people of Momoestenago after a Utah shipped to Mexico, Asia and South America,then to But the most serious heritageof the civil wars that caused the deaths of 50,000 people is poverty, environmental despoliation, and lack of public funding for such basic necess: as education and health for all but the wealthiest among the nation’s 11 million people Morethan half of primary-age schoolchildren do not attend school. The adult literacyrate is 54 percent. Life expectancy is between 62 and 68 years. Although real gross domestic product per capita is $3,330, wealth is concentrated among the upper dentist heard that 25 womenand children had died merly imposed bythe ruling military. Chiquimula live in poverty. Another broadcast journalist, Rudy Lobo, noted that although direct criticism of the military still is still virtually unheard-of, attacks on politicians are concentrate on correcting the deficiencies of the sy fem,” explains Jose Antonio Rodriguez, a longtime broadcast journalist in the Chiquimula area, about 130 miles northeast of the capital city of Guatemala. Thereis a terrible lack of vision in the municipal- ities. But the real problem is the poor use of public funds. A large amount of the moneyis eaten up through corruption. Many of the peopledon’t seem to care.” If progress is made, Rodriguez sisted by Guatemala’s free press it will be aswell as an in- creasing numberofprivate agencies and humanitar- increasing as journalists begin to feel more confident. Thereis no censorship and nopresslicensing, Lobosaid. And oneinternational survey gave Guatemala top ranking in 10 categories used to define a free press. Valdez attributes the country’s high ranking to the fact that Guatemalan journalists are proud of their countryas the location of the first news report in the Americas — in 1541 — and their reputation for professionalism and couragein trying to do their job. “There are many crosses [of journalists] on the hill,” explained Rodriguez, referring to journalists ian agencies in the U.S., Japan and Europe which successfully help inexperienced civilians fill a vacuumleft by previous military governments. killed for their criticism of government. Hereida, of the Chiquimula branch ofthe University Young University, The point was emphasized recently when Gabriel YOU'VE INSULATED YOU HOUSE BIG ene oN sa rd raet te set eC aceeen Creel Sema Put CUR Meee mee ee On Oraeranela Veetoeay emeran Ler aeBate Peart ae Beten tg. 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In addition to private groups, Rodriguez and Elias Valdez, a journalist and prominent Guatemalan novelist living in Chiquimula, heralded the role of radio and a free pressasvital tools in upgrading the Guatemalan standard of living. But Rodriguez is concerned about the return of government censorship similar to restrictions for- class. Three quartersof rural residents like those in “The main problem now that the waris overis to A ypecial newspaper auppll AND PAY NO COSTS OR AN CLOSING ANNUAL FEE FOR. THE FIRST. YEAR: erat tee ee oeoe ; : |