Going for Broke?

"The problem is serious,"said U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, as the organization's financial crisis that has hamstrung the 19th Assembly dragged into still another week. The U.N., he had only $14.6 million cash on hand needed $9,000,000 a month simply to meet payrolls around the world and normal operating expenses. As for accounts payable, some $136 million in overdue assessments were on the U.N.'s books, and U Thant issued for the first time the names of the 16 delinquents: Russia and eight other Communist nations, France, Belgium, Haiti, Paraguay, South Africa, Yemen and Bolivia.

Under Article 19 of the U.N. Charter, any nation more than two years in arrears automatically loses its vote in the General Assembly. Though Haiti promptly paid its tardy $31,979 and Bolivia and Paraguay coughed up some $30,000 each after U Thant's blacklisting last week, the other 13 stand to lose their votes, and the issue has turned into a major tug-of-war between the U.S. and Russia, which owes the most: some $63 million.

Arbitrary & Illegal. At issue are not regular dues but special assessments voted for General Assembly peacekeeping operations in the Congo and the Gaza Strip. The delinquents argue that the Assembly never had the legal authority to vote the operations in the first place, and therefore they are not bound by Article 19 to pay for them.

U Thant's citation of the Russians by name as debtors brought the harshest criticism of the Secretary-General since he took office in 1962: the reference, they insisted, was "illegal," and his approach "arbitrary and one-sided."

The U.S., which carries the largest part of the U.N.'s expenses anyway, insists that Article 19 must be invoked, and that there be no voting in the 19th Assembly until Russia pays at least one-third of its arrears. As a result, the Assembly has so far been idly discussing matters requiring no vote, while behind the scenes a search for a compromise goes on--thus far with scant success.

Promissory Note. The Afro-Asian bloc of some 50 nations, insisting that the whole matter is only part of the exasperating cold war between East and West, demands that the deadlock be ended and the Assembly's normal processes resume. In the process they are willing to let Article 19 be bypassed and voting begin, after which Moscow might kick in a "voluntary" contribution with the clear understanding it would not be considered as payment for the "illegal" peace-keeping operations. Moscow generally favors this formula, but has not committed itself as to how much this vague promissory note might be.

If the Russians did indeed contribute, it might alleviate the U.N.'s financial problem, but the precedent would probably mean the end of the Assembly's power to take active steps to quell future little hot wars around the globe. Clearly, Moscow would like nothing better; and for just that reason the U.S. was standing firm as the crisis moved toward a showdown this week, when President Quaison-Sackey has indicated that voting must begin.

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