GENERAL ASSEMBLY APPOINTS INDIA, JAPAN TO FILL ACABQ VACANCIES

Press Release
GA/9215

GENERAL ASSEMBLY APPOINTS INDIA, JAPAN TO FILL ACABQ VACANCIES

The General Assembly this morning, acting without a vote, appointed candidates from India and Japan to the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), as it resumed its fifty-first session to consider two agenda items. The Assembly also paid tribute to the late President of the Marshall Islands, Amata Kahua.

Syed Akbaruddin (India) and Fumiaki Toya (Japan) were appointed to complete the three-year terms of Vijay Gokhale (India) and Yuji Kumamaru (Japan), both of whom resigned from the Committee. The appointments, effective today, will expire on 31 December 1998. The nominations were contained in a note by the Secretary-General (document A/51/101/Add.1).

Addressing the Assembly before it took action on the appointments, Pakistan's representative cautioned that the ACABQ could evolve into a "semi- exclusive and quasi-permanent club". Members could serve for two decades and "acquire astronomical expertise and unchallengeable tribal memories". Elections to the ACABQ should be adjusted and the tradition of having unfinished terms filled by the nominees of incumbent States examined. The principle of reasonable rotation should be applied and there should be a decent interval between vacancies and elections, so that all States had the opportunity to present qualified candidates. "Rotation is not a device for distributing leftover slices of the cake among Member States", he said. "It is an essential principle which enriches and diversifies our experience at the United Nations."

Before taking up the elections, the Assembly reopened the sub-item "Appointment of members of the ACABQ" and decided to consider it directly in plenary. According to normal procedure, the item is allocated to the Fifth Committee and should have been dealt with in that Committee.

The 16-member ACABQ is responsible for expert examination of the United Nations regular and peace-keeping budgets of the United Nations system on behalf of the Assembly. The two newly appointed members will join members

from Barbados, Brazil, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, Mali, New Zealand, Romania, Russian Federation, Syria, United Republic of Tanzania and Tunisia.

Also this morning, the Assembly added to its agenda a new item on the financing of the Military Observer Group of the United Nations Human Rights Verification Mission in Guatemala. Acting without a vote, the Assembly allocated the item to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary). The military observers were authorized by the Security Council on 20 January by resolution 1094 (1997) for a three-month period, at a cost of $3.4 million. The 155 observers will verify the implementation of the cease-fire agreement signed on 4 December 1996 by the Guatemalan Government and the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG).

Introducing the item, Assembly President Razali Ismail asked the Assembly to waive rule 40 of its rules of procedure, which would require a meeting of the General Committee to make recommendations on the matter. The Assembly's action was taken in response to a note by the Secretary-General (document A/51/236).

Also this morning, the Assembly began its meeting by observing a minute's silence and paying tribute to the late President of the Marshall Islands, Amata Kahua.

The representative of the Marshall Islands said the late Amata Kahua was the first President of his country and had been elected to that office for five consecutive terms. As the highest traditional leader of the Marshall Islands and Father of the modern Marshallese Nation, he had been at the forefront of the movement to regain independence in 1979 and had institutionalized democracy. The late President had been one of the great leaders of the Pacific Island countries and, at the time of his death, was the Chairman of the South Pacific Forum and the Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific.

Also paying tribute to former President Amata Kahua were the representatives of Cote d'Ivoire, on behalf of the African Group; Myanmar, on behalf of the Asian Group; Romania, on behalf of the Eastern European Group; Nicaragua, on behalf of the Latin American and Caribbean Group; and Denmark, on behalf of the Western European and Other States. The representative of the United States spoke on behalf of the host country.

The Assembly President informed the Assembly that 41 Member States were in arrears on payment of their dues to the Organization under the terms of Article 19 of the Charter. By Article 19, Member States in arrears shall have no vote in the Assembly if their arrears equals or exceeds their dues for the preceding two years.

General Assembly Plenary - 3 - Press Release GA/9215 90th Meeting (AM) 31 January 1997

The Member States in arrears as of 21 January (document A/51/780 and Add.1) are: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Georgia, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Panama, Republic of Moldova, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Yemen, Yugoslavia.

The Assembly will meet again at a date to be announced.

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