U.N. Chief Warns of Possible Shutdown
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali warned Wednesday that the United Nations’ financial crisis, contrary to what doubters think, is so real and dangerous that he may have to start closing the organization down next summer if the United States and others refuse to pay what they owe.
The U.S. failure to pay has induced many other countries to hold back, the secretary-general told reporters and editors in the Los Angeles Times’ Washington Bureau. As a result, Boutros-Ghali said, the United Nations is now owed $3.2 billion by its members, half of it by the United States.
The secretary-general derided the idea advanced by optimists that something will turn up soon to save the United Nations.
He said he would be forced to start closing down programs in June, July or August and anticipates controversy in the United Nations about the programs selected for the first cuts, because countries have different favorites.
The Washington “apparatchiks,” he said, using the Russian word for bureaucrats, keep promising that the United States will soon do something to pay its debt, but nothing is ever done.
Boutros-Ghali said he still has not made up his mind whether to seek a second term. His current tenure lasts until the end of the year.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
