No Dues Is Bad News for U.S. Influence Over World Body

UNITED NATIONS — Police stopped traffic for nearly a mile in the rain, a flock of Secret Service agents were ready to take a bullet, and the secretary-general of the United Nations stood at attention, all for the man who leads the world’s biggest deadbeat nation.

President Clinton still has plenty of political capital at the United Nations. But it has been 13 years since the U.S. began withholding its dues here in an attempt to force the U.N. to cut costs--and in ways large and small, the mounting debt is eroding U.S. prestige and leadership in the organization of the world’s nations.

“There’s no reason to hide it,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said last week after meeting with several foreign ministers at the opening sessions of the U.N. General Assembly. “They resent us deeply because we are not paying--and we are the backbone of the U.N.”

Diplomats here bridle at the suggestion that their countries pay more to let the wealthy U.S. off the hook. One quip heard in the halls last week: “No representation without taxation.”

By the U.N.’s calculations, the United States owes $1.67 billion in back payments and must pay at least $350 million by the end of the year to keep its vote in the General Assembly. If it doesn’t pay, it will be sidelined with company that the U.S. doesn’t usually keep: 25 poor or war-torn countries, including Iraq, Somalia and Burundi.

Already, the U.S. has lost its seat on the world body’s key budgetary committee, forfeiting its chance to shape policy or negotiate a reduction in dues. It can no longer rally other countries behind reform efforts. Some housekeepers in the U.N. building have even groused that they shouldn’t have to clean U.S. organizations’ offices until Washington coughs up.

“I feel it’s very difficult for the United States to assume a leadership role as long as we don’t pay our bills,” Albright said.

In 1986, Washington started withholding payments as a tool to urge the sprawling bureaucracy to reform. Congress added other restrictions on funds to protest the U.N.’s support of family planning programs and “terrorist” organizations. And in 1994, Congress widened the gap with a vote to reduce the U.S. share of peacekeeping programs from 30.5% to 25%, a unilateral action the U.N. never recognized.

Washington says it owes only a little more than $1 billion, but either way, the arrears make up nearly half the U.N.’s operating budget. Without Washington’s money, said Joseph Connor, the U.N. finance chief, the organization can barely keep the lights on.

“We’re very slow in paying our bills,” said Connor, who left his post as head of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to take charge of the U.N.’s books last year. “The gas and electric companies haven’t shut us down yet, but we have a little bit of a check float going on.”

More significantly, the U.N. doesn’t have the funds to compensate host nations for ongoing peacekeeping operations, much less pay for new ones in East Timor and Kosovo. And few countries want to contribute even more money, with little chance of being paid back until the U.S. settles its bill.

“It’s like starting on a cross-country drive with the gas tank on empty,” Connor said.

Clinton says he’s doing the best he can to persuade a stubborn Congress to approve the money without strings attached. In his speech last week to his toughest audience, the 188 members of the U.N., Clinton said the United States “has the responsibility to equip the U.N. with the resources it needs to be effective.”

But some diplomats here doubt he has the influence or the interest to pull it off.

The roadblock is a congressional contingent that thinks the U.S., if it remains in the U.N. at all, should have a greater say in how its money is spent. Congress actually appropriated most of the funds in 1997, but with conditions.

The stickiest is a demand by Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) that no U.S. money--related to the U.N. or not--be used for programs that lobby for population control or abortion overseas. Clinton vetoed the bill rather than bow to a controversial issue that is unrelated to the U.N. assessment.

Now, with the clock ticking, Congress is searching for a compromise. One solution might be for Smith to drop his antiabortion rider or stick it on another bill, something he has said he won’t do. Another scenario is that, like last year, a minimal U.N. payment is included in an end-of-the-year omnibus bill, handing over just enough cash to keep the General Assembly vote. Or the clock just might run out.

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Times staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this report.