Boutros-Ghali Has Final Message For U.S. Departing U.N. Chief Scolds Nation Over Holding Back Dues, Demanding Reform

Departing Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali bore the American veto that forced him from office like a medal of honor Tuesday in a farewell address that gently scolded the United States for failing to fully support the world body.

The speech, alternately defensive and defiant, did not specify America.

But Boutros-Ghali reflected a common complaint about the United States among member states by criticizing governments that would impose reforms on the United Nations while failing to meet their financial obligations to it.

As if anticipating the attack, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Princeton Lyman, who oversees relations with the United Nations, told a news conference in Washington, D.C., Tuesday that the Clinton administration is working on proposals to pay the United Nations back dues of at least $1 billion.

The United Nations estimates the U.S. arrearage at close to $1.4 billion.

Lyman warned that “a great deal of resentment and anger” was building at the United Nations over U.S. failure to pay its dues.

The unpaid dues, part of more than $3 billion owed by member nations, have brought the world body close to financial collapse.

The U.S. arrearage has been accumulating since the Reagan administration starting holding back dues to force reform at the United Nations.

Boutros-Ghali, 74, has become a symbol of a reluctance to reform for many Republican members of Congress, which must appropriate money for the back dues.

The U.N. fiscal crisis, Boutros-Ghali said bluntly, “is not the result of mismanagement. It is the refusal (of members) to fulfill a treaty obligation.”

Further, he said in his 20-minute address to the General Assembly, “Extensive reform of the United Nations can only emerge from a consensus among member states on the goals of reform. Until such a consensus exists and until the political will emerges to take hard decisions … major institutional reform is impossible.”

His speech, in English, French and Arabic, preceded the General Assembly vote, by acclamation, confirming Kofi Annan, 58, of Ghana as the new secretary-general, effective Jan. 1, 1997.

Annan, in contrast to Boutros-Ghali, stressed cooperation, change and “healing” in his acceptance, saying the 185-member United Nations, “along with the rest of the world, must change. … Let every member state welcome this change, not resist it. Let us make change our ally, not our enemy. …

“If all of us in this hall,” he told delegates, “can make this organization leaner, more efficient and more effective, more responsive to the wishes and needs of its members and more realistic in its goals and commitments, then … will we serve both this organization’s high purpose and the planet’s best interests. …

“Applaud us when we prevail, correct us when we fail. But above all, do not let this indispensable, irreplaceable institution wither, languish or perish as a result of member states’ indifference, inattention or financial starvation.”

Boutros-Ghali had hoped to serve five more years, despite his promise on election in 1991 that he would serve just one term.

But the United States, using the veto it has as one of five permanent Security Council members, blocked his re-election last month.

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