United Nations

WASHINGTON -- Some conservatives on Capitol Hill are using votes on U.S. payments to the United Nations to scorch President Clinton on abortion policy. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Western Maryland has a different target in mind: He questions whether the United States belongs in the United Nations at all.On the House floor and on several dozen conservative radio talk shows, Bartlett has emerged as one of the most vocal of a band of populist Republicans who are deeply skeptical of the United Nations, of free trade, and of any involvement in foreign affairs that does not concern a direct threat to national security.

THE SENATE vote Tuesday to pay $819 million of what the United States owes the United Nations is welcome and overdue but imperfect.It comes in a deal to confirm the nomination of Richard C. Holbrooke to be ambassador to the United Nations, also overdue. But a string attached would reduce U.S. contributions from one-fourth to one-fifth of the U.N. budget. That is a worthy goal of negotiations but not something Congress should try to legislate as if the United States unilaterally decides.The worst aspect of the bill is that this is only the Senate.

UNITED NATIONS -- Three years after the United Nations established an inspector general's office to combat waste and fraud, a clearer sense of the scope and style of corruption within the organization is beginning to emerge. So is an understanding of why it is often difficult to detect and stop.On Thursday, Undersecretary General Karl T. Paschke, the German foreign service officer who has directed the anti-corruption office since its founding, released his third annual report.It reveals a pattern of sloppy management in which contracts are awarded and money disbursed without reference to the organization's financial regulations or accepted rules of accounting.

UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan will unveil his much-anticipated reforms for the United Nations this week, but his plans for realigning and reorganizing some agencies might not satisfy the organization's toughest critics, including influential members of the U.S. Congress.Sources familiar with the proposal said it will merge and dismember some agencies, recommend the appointment of a second-in-command and consolidate sprawling administrative, financial and purchasing practices.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's movement of troops toward Kuwait came after the head of the United Nations weapons inspection team surprised President Saddam Hussein with what he considered new demands before his country again would be allowed to sell oil.Mr. Hussein had expected to hear a positive report last week from U.N. official Rolf Ekeus that would help lift the four-year embargo on Iraqi oil sales, according to sources here corroborated by Mr. Ekeus.The meeting was "very gloomy and depressing," Mr. Ekeus told the Swedish newspaper Aftenbladet.

UNITED NATIONS -- Not long ago, diplomats and bureaucrats had looked forward to the 50th anniversary of the United Nations as a time of celebration and congratulation. They expected reappraisal and reform as well, but counted on dealing with this event in upbeat fashion.Yet now, as more than 150 presidents, prime ministers and kings converge on New York this weekend for a huge birthday party, a deep depression has descended on the world organization.Incessant critics deride the United Nations as toothless, incompetent, bloated and useless.

President Bush's appearance before the United Nations this month to seek its approval for action against Iraq might have been an affirmation of the importance of this international institution or a confirmation of its irrelevance - important because Bush bothered to seek its approval; irrelevant because he pretty much said the United States would do what it had to do, with or without the U.N. What's an international organization to do in a world dominated...

THE 2001 Nobel Peace Prize to both the United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan is a vindication of that body, but also of its critics. It rewards Sen. Jesse Helms and the Reagan and Clinton administrations, which forced reforms on the U.N. and dumped former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali for Kofi Annan. This prize says the reforms worked. It honors Mr. Annan for whipping up world concern about AIDS and for holding the chaotic U.N. Conference on Racism, but also for making the U.N. the center of a global coalition against terrorism.

NYALA, Sudan - Hawa Muhammad, 15, lost almost everything when the men on horseback came. They took her family's horses, donkeys and small herd of goats and sheep. They took her cooking pots and her clothing. They took her mother and her father, too. "The men on horses killed my parents," she said, referring to the Janjaweed, loose bands of Arab fighters. "Then the planes came." Now it is she to whom her six younger sisters turn when their bellies rumble. She recounted her tale as if in a trance.

NOW THAT the U.S. has used up precious political capital vetoing a second term for United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, it should stick to its guns. That means resisting blandishments and arm-twisting to back down.Instead, the United States should expand its rationale for this unpopular deed by crusading to change the tradition that secretaries-general serve two five-year terms. Where was it written in stone that Mr. Boutros-Ghali, 74, had to serve 10 years beginning in 1992?