Helms to U.N.: Shape Up or U.S. Will Ship Out

Sen. Jesse Helms, one of the United Nations’ severest critics, told the Security Council exactly what he thought of the U.N. and its place in the world in a speech Thursday that he admitted was not in “the elegant and rarefied language of the diplomatic trade.”

The North Carolina Republican, who in the past has called the U.N. community “dysfunctional” and “crybabies,” said he came to extend a “hand of friendship.” But that genial gesture quickly turned to finger-pointing as he launched into an extended criticism of the organization.

Helms declared the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina “a disaster,” efforts to disarm Iraq “a failure” and warned that the U.S. would withdraw from the world body if it didn’t serve America’s interests well.

Helms, the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which controls U.S. purse strings for U.N. funding, is the first U.S. senator ever to address the 15-member council.

The meeting was arranged by U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke--whose nomination as U.N. envoy Helms held up for 14 months over alleged ethics lapses--to help repair rocky U.S.-U.N. relations. After years of refusing to pay its U.N. dues in an effort to force reform, Congress late last year allocated $926 million of the $1.6 billion the U.N. says it is owed.

Helms sought to sweeten his speech with a little North Carolina charm, joking, “I hope you have a translator here who can speak Southern.” But the message was clear: He regards the United Nations as a tool to serve U.S. interests, not the other way around.

Ambassadors from around the world watched with faces fixed in diplomatic inscrutability as Helms emphasized that the U.N.--”some of whose members are totalitarian dictatorships”--has no power over U.S. national interests.

“A United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people without their consent begs for confrontation and, I want to be candid with you, eventual U.S. withdrawal.”

Sitting at the head of a horseshoe-shaped table in the Security Council chamber, Helms said he resents the U.S. being labeled a “deadbeat” nation. Washington may have withheld its dues, Helms said, but in 1999 alone, the U.S. contributed more than $10 billion in military and other support of U.N. operations and peacekeeping efforts around the world.

“Now, I grant you, the money we spend on the U.N. is not charity,” he said. “To the contrary, it is an investment--an investment from which the American people rightly expect a return. They expect a reformed U.N. that works more efficiently and which respects the sovereignty of the United States of America.”

Today, across the street from the U.N., Helms will chair the first session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be held outside Washington, with the topic being U.N. reform.

Helms reminded the Security Council that the world body must meet two dozen conditions created by Congress in order to receive the remainder of the allocated U.S. funds over the next two years, including a reduction of the U.S. share of the U.N. budget from 25% to 20%. The conditions are part of legislation crafted by Helms and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) to enable payment of the arrears.

As part of the deal on payment of the U.N. dues, the White House was forced to accept GOP-sponsored legislation reimposing Reagan-era restrictions on providing foreign aid to international family-planning organizations that lobby abroad for abortion rights laws. President Clinton had repeatedly vetoed such legislation in the past.

Many U.N. members criticize the stringent unilateral demands as arrogant and unfair. Dutch Ambassador Arnold Peter van Walsum said, “It is a nightmare to envisage the U.N. without the U.S.,” but he warned that a member state cannot attach conditions to its dues.

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock stressed that the U.S. helped design the rules of the U.N. and supplies a quarter of its resources and power, so Washington shares the credit for its successes and the blame for its failures.

When the mutual lecturing was over, Helms was asked if he learned anything from his session in the heart of the organization he has criticized for so long. “Not really,” he said before walking away.