PRESS CONFERENCE BY INDEPENDENT TASK FORCE, SPONSORED BY UNITED STATES
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE BY INDEPENDENT TASK FORCE, SPONSORED BY UNITED STATES
19960819
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
The major powers in the United Nations should agree on when, how and where to use the Organization wisely and the United States should work with other nations to improve the United Nations capacity to conduct peace-keeping operations, correspondents were told this afternoon at a Headquarters press conference by members of the Council on Foreign Relations' independent Task Force on United Nations Reform. The event was sponsored by the United States Mission to the United Nations.
The press conference dealt with the findings in the official statement and report of the 26-member Task Force, entitled "American Nations Interest and the United Nations", which was released today. Correspondents were briefed by Task Force Chairman George Soros, financier and Chairman of the Soros Foundations; and other Task Force members John C. Whitehead, Chairman of the United Nations Association of the United States (UNA-USA); and Morton H. Halperin, Senior Fellow at the Council.
Opening the press conference, Mr. Soros described the Task Force as a broad coalition of Americans which included United Nations critics and supporters, Democrats and Republicans as well as liberals and conservatives. It had considered whether the United Nations was useful to United States national interests and concluded that it was, indeed, useful to United States policy. For example, he said, United Nations sanctions were more effective than those imposed unilaterally by the United States as exemplified by the impact of those against Iraq and Haiti, in comparison to United States sanctions against Iran and Cuba.
While the Task Force had only discussed such a narrow question, he said that he personally felt that the United Nations had been set up to safeguard the collective interests of all countries of the world, which transcended those of any separate State. He said that the Task Force had concluded that, since the end of the cold war, the United Nations had served United States interests well when American presidents had a clear and firm position. While those interests could have been served through ad hoc coalitions, such remedies would have lacked the legitimacy conferred by the United Nations.
The Task Force had also concluded that the Organization was in crisis mainly in the United States and partly because Member States -- including the United States -- had failed to pay their dues. It was also in crisis because Member States had given it responsibilities without the power to carry them out and then blamed the Organization for the failures of national policies. He explained that it was harmful to blame the United Nations for the failure of the United States and other countries.
Thirdly, he continued, the Task Force had concluded that the principal way to make the United Nations a better organization and to serve United States interests better was to have a proper understanding of what it could and could not do. While reform was needed, what the United Nations needed most was for the major powers to agree on when, how and where to use it well.
Mr. Halperin, the Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, traced the development of the Task Force. He said that the goal had been to create a diverse group of people who would discuss the United Nations. Several meetings were then held in New York and other cities to prepare and discuss the report. Before reaching its conclusions, the Task Force had studied the occasions in which the United States had sought United Nations support for its policies. For example, the Organization had facilitated the use of force to expel Iraq from Kuwait and then maintained the sanctions imposed on that country. The United Nations had similarly proved to have been useful in restoring democracy in Haiti. The Task Force had spent a great deal of time studying the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina. "The basic conclusion was that the failure in Bosnia was largely the failure of the major powers to know what they wanted to do and there was an attempt to give to the United Nations assignments it could not perform with the resources and the authority that it had been given."
The Task Force, he went on, had also concluded that the United Nations played a critical role in other international peace and security issues such as terrorism, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the management of elections and the settlement of internal conflicts. It had also agreed that the Organization played an important role in global issues such as narcotics, the environment, disease control, the promotion of democracy, respect for human rights, and humanitarian affairs. The group failed, however, to agree on the role of the United Nations and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in development. While some held that it complemented the work of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other institutions, others felt that it was either superfluous or counterproductive. However, the Task Force agreed on the recommendations in the report.
Mr. Whitehead, Task Force member and Chairman of the UNA-USA, stressed that the recommendations of the report were very significant and then drew particular attention to a statement that reads: "Whatever may be the case in earlier periods, in the post-cold war period, the United Nations can be a useful and effective means to advance United States interests in the world. As such, it deserves the support of the American people and the American Government."
As for the recommendations, the first calls on the United States administration and Congress to resist the temptation to turn tasks over to the United Nations when it lacked the capacity or authority to accomplish them and then blame the Organization for Member States' failures. Mr. Whitehead said
Task Force Briefing - 3 - 19 August 1996
that the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an example of a situation in which the major powers, not knowing what to do, had dumped the problem on the Organization's laps without giving it the support it required.
The Task Force's second recommendation states that the United States President and Congress should establish a process for approving peace-keeping missions that would give that legislature a role commensurate with its responsibility to fund the operations. Once the United States votes for an operation, it should pay its assessments. The third called on the United States President and Congress to reach an understanding on the role of the United Nations that would lead to the appropriation of funds to clear United States arrears. Commenting on that recommendation, Mr. Whitehead said that it was not proper for the world's only super Power and leader of the free world to remain the Organization's largest debtor.
Asked whether the Task Force report was addressed to the United States public or its policy-makers and Congress, Mr. Halperin said it was mainly aimed at the latter. Opinion polls had shown that the United Nations had widespread support in the United States, sometimes more than Congress had. The report was intended to help Congress make a realistic appraisal of the United Nations, support it and pay the United States dues owed.
Mr. Soros, the Task Force Chairman, added that the data showed that support for the Organization was strong among the young who saw it as a means to tackle collective concerns that transcended national interests. Those include the environment, humanitarian issues and the war crimes tribunals. "This is a problem in Washington more than it is a problem in the United States."
In response to a question as to whether there were negative repercussions for the United States' campaign against Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and refusal to pay its dues, Mr. Whitehead, the Chairman of UNA-USA, said that those actions had created animosity and resentment around the world for the United States. Mr. Soros added that the United States was damaging its own national interests whenever it refused to pay its dues or to tried to exploit the United Nations in its domestic politics.
Asked whether the large amount of American misinformation about the United Nations could be countered, Mr. Halperin said that the Council will take the report to the members of Congress before the election and on their resumption of work after the November elections. The Council on Foreign Relations will use the report to educate members of Congress on the Organization in the hope it will lead to understanding and Congressional support.
Task Force Briefing - 4 - 19 August 1996
In response to a question as to whether the persistent talk of reforms in the Organization were fundamental or a mere diversion, Mr. Halperin said that the Task Force agreed that waste and fraud should be tackled, but the United Nations should be strengthened to deal with the problems it would be assigned to tackle. The Task Force had stated its support for efforts to improve intelligence, training and other aspects of peace-keeping operations.
Mr. Soros added that the report had called for a modernization of its peace-keeping missions.
Asked for examples of instances in which the United Nations had been overburdened by Member States, Mr. Halperin said that the "safe havens" of Bosnia and Herzegovina readily came to mind. They could not be protected as the United Nations was never given an adequately sized and equipped force. Similar arguments could be applied to the situation in Somalia, he said.
In response to a question as to how effective Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had been in carrying out his pledge to reform the Organization and "its bloated bureaucracy", Mr. Halperin said that the Task Force suggested that the United Nations should seriously consider the recommendations of Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management Joseph E. Connor on the reform of United Nations procedures. It had also stated that the Organization must continue to operate on a zero-growth regular budget. There had been different views on that.
Mr. Soros said that, while there had been a general feeling that things should be changed in the Organization, that could not be accomplished without a change in United States policy towards the United Nations.
"So, all this talk about reforming the United Nations, as if it is something `out there', is really baloney because the United Nations is, in fact, an association of States, in which particularly the permanent Members of the Security Council play a very prominent role. Unless they put their minds to it, there cannot be any meaningful reform in the United Nations."
Asked for comments on the statement in San Diego, California, by Robert Dole, the presidential nominee of the United States Republican Party, that he would not force American personnel to serve under United Nations insignia, Mr. Whitehead, Chairman of the UNA-USA, expressed regret that a candidate for President of the United States would speak like that and even make fun of the Secretary-General's name. "It is very unfortunate and not in the spirit of America."
As for the issue of serving under the United Nations flag, he said that, as the commander-in-chief of United States forces, the President could withdraw United States troops whenever he was not satisfied with what they were doing for the United Nations. There had been nothing wrong with American troops serving under a British general as they did in the former Yugoslavia.
Task Force Briefing - 5 - 19 August 1996
Mr. Halperin added that, should Mr. Dole be elected United States President, he would learn that among the strongest supporters of flexibility on that question were the members of United States armed forces themselves. They believed that there were a number of circumstances in which it would be appropriate to put American forces under the operational control of an allied commander, while they remained under the command of the United States President. The clearest example of that arrangement had been in Somalia, where some United States forces were put under the operational control of a Turkish general in an arrangement that was worked out among the military forces involved, including the American military who were the leading proponents of that set-up.
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