INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS : U.N. Cuts Back Despite Signs U.S. Will Repay Debt

In the midst of its worst financial crisis, the United Nations is firing 800 civil servants and cutting $250 million from its budget, even as the United States--the world body’s largest debtor--appears ready to pay back some of what it owes.

The combination of the slashing by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in New York and the second thoughts of the U.S. Congress about bringing the U.N. to its knees may ease the crisis for the international organization.

But it is far from free of trouble.

At the end of 1995, the U.N. was owed $2.3 billion by its members. The United States was the most notorious offender, owing $1.2 billion. The American debt, in fact, was almost as much as the entire regular U.N. budget for a year. The United States’ refusal to pay, largely induced by Congress, has provoked mounting anger among U.N. members, even close allies of the United States, such as Canada and the European Union.

The secretary-general has warned in interviews, news conferences and articles over the past two months that he will be forced to start closing programs in June if the U.N. continues to be deprived of adequate funding. “We are practically bankrupt,” he lamented in a session with The Times’ Washington Bureau in late February.

While he has not withdrawn the warning, there are two tentative signs of relief:

* The Senate passed an omnibus appropriations bill in mid-March restoring almost all the cuts that Congress had made in the Clinton administration’s request for U.N. payments in the 1996 fiscal year. But there was a condition. If the House accepts the bill, the administration can make the payments to the U.N. only if it compensates for them by reducing spending elsewhere.

There’s a possibility, however, that President Clinton may veto the appropriations bill because it does not provide enough for education and job training programs.

* In his budget for fiscal 1997, Clinton asked Congress to start a program of paying the American arrears to the U.N. in five annual installments. So far, however, Sen. Jesse Helms (D-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has given no signal that he will accept such a program.

To complicate matters more, the White House has said that the arrears payments “would be contingent upon the achievement of specific reform measures.”

The secretary-general has been forced already to streamline his organization because the General Assembly, under U.S. leadership, cut his two-year 1996-1997 budget to $2.56 billion.

Because of the cuts, Undersecretary-General Joseph Connor, an American, told the General Assembly earlier this month that 800 staff jobs would have to be eliminated.

In a document submitted to the General Assembly, U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright listed more reforms that America wants the U.N. to implement.

The U.S. called for: restructuring the secretariat with appointment of a deputy secretary-general and elimination of many undersecretary and assistant secretary posts; the end of extravagant conferences like the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro; a sharp reduction in staffs and activities of various U.N. regional commissions; and consolidation of aid agencies.

Under U.N. rules, the U.S. is supposed to pay 31% of the cost of peacekeeping operations, but Congress has passed legislation refusing to pay more than 25%. And the administration is trying to reduce the U.S. assessment for the regular U.N. budget from 25% to 20%.

By comparison, the 15 European Union members, who have a combined gross national product that is not much greater than America, pay more than 34% of the U.N. regular budget and 37% of its peacekeeping costs.