DIPLOMACY : Congressional Mood Swing Puts U.N. Officials in a Panic

A British diplomat and a German diplomat left their U.N. missions in New York a week ago and made a rare appearance on Capitol Hill in Washington in hopes, they said, of talking some sense into Congress about the United Nations.

Their mission was low-key--they met only with congressional staffers, not with senators and representatives--but they left as troubled as they came.

“The perception in Congress is different, and it is very difficult to change that perception,” the German diplomat said. “Somehow the distance between New York and Washington is greater than the geographic distance.”

The unusual trip reflected the panic in U.N. circles these days about the Republican-controlled Congress’ campaign to cut funding to the United Nations, especially for peacekeeping.

Various bills are moving through Congress that would reduce the U.S. share of U.N. peacekeeping costs to practically nothing, eliminate funds for such U.N. agencies as the International Labor Organization and reduce contributions to all others except the popular U.N. Children’s Fund, or UNICEF. None of the bills has yet passed Congress and reached the desk of President Clinton.

The United Nations is most worried about a bill that would require using the U.S. peacekeeping assessment to pay for operations that the U.S. conducts on its own in support of U.N. missions.

Under this proposal, the cost of policing the “no fly” zone in Iraq--which is not a U.N. operation--would be deducted from funds that the Americans owe the United Nations as their share of peacekeeping costs. U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Samuel Berger has said that “this is a killer provision, make no mistake.”

The United States now pays a little more than 30% of U.N. peacekeeping costs, a percentage that a previous Congress ordered reduced to 25% by October. According to the White House, the Republican proposals would reduce that percentage to almost nothing.

There is a good deal of uncertainty at the United Nations about how best to build its case with the American people and Congress.

Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has made some speeches extolling the importance of the United Nations: He told the Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston this week, for example, that there are conflicts in the world that must be addressed.

“For if not dealt with, they can lead to wider disorder,” he said. “Working with, and through, the United Nations, the United States can address such conflicts at an early stage. . . . Acting alone, the United States bears all the cost; acting with the U.N., the cost to America can be one-third or less of the total.”

The Egyptian-born secretary general, however, is a poor public speaker in English and makes little impact on television. Moreover, there is a fear that too much campaigning by Boutros-Ghali might backfire; members of Congress might resent his interference.

Most U.N. officials believe that the real defense of the United Nations must be made by Clinton and U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright. As a last resort, they hope, vetoes by Clinton may rescue the United Nations.

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In their visit with staffers on Capitol Hill, the British and German diplomats carried a sheaf of arguments. They contended that cuts in U.N. payments strain American relations with allies and reduce U.S. influence.

They also said the cost of joint peacekeeping is far less than the cost of mounting operations alone. They noted that the United Nations pays 70% of the cost of the mission in Haiti; if the United States mounted the operation alone, it would have to pay the entire cost itself.

But their arguments did not prove persuasive. “It’s quite clear,” the British diplomat said, “that the U.N. is not at the top of priority, and there’s a feeling that the U.N. does not lie in the United States’ best interests.

“We ran into the view,” the diplomat said, “that funding the U.N. is a discretionary item. . . . In Europe, we regard it as an international obligation.”

Although polls show that Americans have a positive view of the United Nations, the diplomats reported that they were told by staffers: “People in my part of the United States don’t like the U.N.”