Clash by Diplomats at U.N. Over Reform Bares Divisions
By WARREN HOGE
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 - Diplomats working on a pivotal document on the management overhaul of the United Nations and updated approaches to terrorism, development and human rights have locked horns just days before it is to be presented to more than 170 world leaders for their endorsement.
Deep divisions persist despite crisis talks involving 32 ambassadors chosen to try to reach consensus, and there is looming embarrassment for the United Nations in having another failure on the heels of this week's report by the commission investigating the Iraqi oil-for-food program. The report, by a commission led by Paul A. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, called for the kind of fundamental changes that the document puts forward.
Once imagined as a visionary statement of the most far-reaching changes since the United Nations was created in
"Trying to reach the ambitions we had for it back in January as San Francisco II has rapidly become unrealistic," Mark Malloch Brown, Secretary General Kofi Annan's chief of staff, said in an interview Friday.
"Now people are crimping it out of shape; they're emptying it of a lot of content," he said. "If this is just brinkmanship, we can still pull it out, but if not, my deepest fear is that we'll end up with a summit of empty words and broken promises."
That would be a great setback for Mr. Annan, who first proposed the changes, and whose future is increasingly being tied to whatever success he can have with pushing them forward.
Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican who has repeatedly called for Mr. Annan's resignation because of the oil-for-food scandal, came to the United Nations on Friday to reiterate his position.
"The secretary general is in no position to let that reform happen," he said. "If the guy leading the charge is stained with a record of incompetence, of mismanagement, of fraud, it's going to make it very hard for him to do the very heavy lifting required."
Representative Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, rejected the notion, however, saying that Mr. Annan "is the first to recognize the need for the fiscal and administrative reforms at the institution that Congress has called for. Therefore, calls for him to step down are misguided and do him an injustice."
Stalling progress is a basic disagreement between nations that want to see more power vested in the office of the secretary general and the 15-member Security Council and others, from the developing world, who want to retain power in the 191-member General Assembly.
Abdallah Baali, Algeria's ambassador, said, "On management reform, you have one side basically saying that the secretary general should be empowered and should have all flexibility as a kind of C.E.O. and the other side saying that it is not ready to give up the prerogative of the General Assembly and would like to keep a close eye on the work of the secretary general."
Also in dispute are measures to define terrorism as action against civilians that can never have any political justification, to enable the United Nations to take action in countries that do not protect their citizens from genocide.
A clash over development was defused Tuesday when the United States withdrew an earlier demand to eliminate all mention of the so-called millennium development goals and compromised on language covering the Kyoto Protocols on climate change and the goal of devoting 0.7 percent of gross national product to development aid.
The original document went through refinements in the spring and summer and appeared headed to general acceptance. In late August, though, the new
Other nations saw that as an opportunity to bring their wishes to the table, and the ensuing talks have sometimes sharpened the divisions.
A senior United Nations official, speaking anonymously because of the need to maintain neutrality among member states, identified the principal spoilers as Cuba, Egypt, India, Jamaica, Pakistan and the United States.
"There is progress on a lot of small stuff, but no deals on the big stuff," he said. "Clearly everyone is waiting, and the game is for very high stakes. The spoilers are taking hostage the rest of the world, because
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/politics/10nations.html?pagewanted=print
Mihai Zodian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit :
Pe cele oficiale (ODA), fiindca acestea fac obiectul declaratiilor politice despre asistenta din ultimii 60 de ani. Donatiile private in US sunt cel putin egale cu cele ale guvernului federal, toate criticile din articol se refera la administratie. Cetatenii americani trebuie laudati.Asistenta aceasta este un instrument de politica externa, nu prea are treaba cu generozitatea, cu exceptia catastrofelor, urgentelor civile etc. Are mai mult scopuri politice si economice.Una dintre sursele disputei este ca toata lumea a fost de acord cu un prag al ajutorului oficial, dar nu l-a respectat prea multa lume. Chiar America a promovat, mai demult, un nivel de 1%.O a doua ar fi faptul ca periodic, de obicei la inceput de deceniu, vin politicienii la New York, promit in cadrul Adunarii Generale a ONU ca vor rezolva cu saracia si apoi cam uita. A existat, in anii `60 ceva numit Deceniul Dezvoltarii, care s-a transformat in prima decada. A urmat a doua, a treia ...Ajutorul in sine nu este atat de important pe cat pare. Nici o tara nu se poate dezvolta numai cu bani din afara. Coruptia adesea distorsioneaza realizarea obiectivelor formale ale asistentei. De exemplul, planul Marshall a fost un catalizator a relansarii economice europene postbelice, nu singura cauza.Nu in ultimul rand, investitiile straine au devenit, din anii `70, mai importante decat transferurile oficiale.Cat despre scandalul de la ONU, no comment, era inutil.
Alan Rosca <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit :statistica reflecta donatiile facute de americani, sau
doar cele facute de guvernul american? mare
diferenta...
a.r.
--- Mihai Zodian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> September 8, 2005
> U.N. Report Cites U.S. and Japan as the 'Least
> Generous Donors'
> By CELIA W. DUGGER
>
> UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 7 - A week before world
> leaders gather here to set a course for combating
> global poverty, a United Nations report released on
> Wednesday names the United States and Japan as among
> "the least generous donors" and says American and
> European trade policies are hypocritical and
> contribute to impoverishing African farmers.
>
> The report also highlights shortcomings in
> developing countries. It notes that India's and
> China's progress in reducing the easily preventable
> deaths of children has slowed even as their economic
> growth has surged. India has 2.5 million deaths of
> children a year, while China is second, with
> 730,000.
>
> The new document, the annual Human Development
> Report, calls on India and China to tackle health
> inequalities aggressively. It also maintains that
> rich countries must significantly increase aid if
> the goals they agreed to five years ago - to halve
> extreme poverty and reduce deaths of children by
> two-thirds by 2015, among others - are to be met.
>
> The report was unusual for the United Nations in so
> specifically describing the deficiencies of rich
> countries' policies. It was commissioned by the
> United Nations Development Program and written by a
> team of experts led by Kevin Watkins, former
> director of research for the charity Oxfam.
>
> While crediting the United States with being the
> world's largest donor, the report points out that
> among the world's richest countries, America is
> second to last in aid as a portion of its national
> income, with Italy bringing up the rear. Japan was
> third from the bottom. Aid per capita from donors
> ranges from more than $200 in Sweden to $51 in the
> United States and $37 in Italy.
>
> Richard Grenell, a spokesman for the United States
> at the United Nations, disputed the idea that the
> United States is stingy. "Let me remind the authors
> that President Bush has increased overall
> development assistance from the United States by 90
> percent since he took office," he said.
>
> The report notes that rich countries trumpet the
> virtues of open markets and free trade, even as they
> put up protectionist barriers against goods from
> poor countries and spend hundreds of billions on
> subsidies that benefit large-scale farmers,
> landowners and agribusiness.
>
> "Industrial countries are locked into a system that
> wastes money at home and destroys livelihoods
> abroad," the report says.
>
> It singles out the European Union for a policy "that
> lavishes $51 billion in support on producers." It
> also criticizes the United States for paying an
> estimated $4.7 billion to 20,000 cotton farmers in
> 2005, more than the total of American aid to Africa,
> a policy that the report contends gives American
> producers an unfair advantage over small farmers in
> Burkina Faso and Mali.
>
> The report also criticizes China and India for their
> policies. In China, the erosion of public health
> care has worsened the situation of the rural poor,
> it says. In India, it adds, inadequate public health
> services mean most children are not fully immunized
> against diseases in the hugely populous northern
> states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
>
> "Were India to show the same level of dynamism and
> innovation in tackling basic health inequalities as
> it has displayed in global technology markets, it
> could rapidly get on track for achieving" the
> targets set in 2005, the report says.
>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/international/08nations.html
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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