Serving Notice

From the very beginning, the U.S. has been the chief support and supporter of the United Nations. Franklin Roosevelt steadfastly pursued the vision of a world organization during World War II. When the fighting stopped, the U.N. was given a home in New York City. Many private U.S. organizations promote the U.N. cause, and the U.S. still puts up 25% of the world body's budget, far more than any other country.

But the receding tides of colonialism have altered the U.N.'s size and character. Founded in 1945 with 51 charter nations, the U.N. now has 138 member countries. The advent of so many fledgling Third World nations has caused a kind of transmogrification of the U.N., which now seems bent, as U.S. Ambassador John Scab' said last week, on establishing a new "tyranny of the majority."

In a speech to the General Assembly that scalded many delegates, Scali voiced Washington's concern over "the growing tendency of this organization to adopt one-sided, unrealistic resolutions that cannot be implemented ...

Added to this, there is now a new threat --an arbitrary disregard of U.N. rules, even of its Charter." Though he did not specifically mention his complaints, Scali's concerns were clear, for the U.S.

has been greatly disturbed by U.N. actions that have suspended South Africa from the General Assembly and barred Israel from a regional group of the U.N.

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Beyond that, Washington was dismayed at the blatantly unfair rulings made from the chair by this year's Assembly President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria's Foreign Minister. When the Assembly debated the Palestine question, Bouteflika, abandoning the principle that the presiding officer is neutral, obviously favored the Arab in his handling of the time allotted for debate.

"The U.N., and this Assembly in particular, can walk one of two paths," Scali said. "The Assembly can seek to represent the views of the numerical majority of the day, or it can try to act as a spokesman of a more general global opinion. To do the first is easy. To do the second is infinitely more difficult. But if we look ahead, it is infinitely more useful. The most meaningful test of whether the Assembly has succeeded in this task is not whether a majority can be mobilized behind any single draft resolution, but whether those states whose cooperation is vital to implement a decision will support it in fact. "Each time this Assembly makes a decision which a significant minority of members regard as unfair or one-sided, it further erodes vital support for the U.N. among that minority. But the minority which is so often offended may in fact be a practical majority, in terms of its capacity to support this organization and implement its decisions.

When the rule of the majority becomes the tyranny of the majority, the minority will cease to respect or obey it."

General View. "I must tell you honestly that [U.S.] support is eroding --in our Congress and among our people. The decisions of the past few months are causing many to reflect and reassess what our role should be."

While few delegates were in the hall when Scali spoke, Jordan quickly responded, expressing what seemed to be the general view of the Third World.

"The U.N., which absorbed the radical international challenge posed by decolonization, must also absorb radical social and economic changes," said Jordan's Ambassador Abdul Hamid Sharaf. "The world power elite which no longer has the majority here should not translate its anachronistic frustrations into an anti-U.N. view."

But supporting the U.S. position, French ambassador Louis de Guiringaud also charged that "a private club seems to be emerging, monopolizing certain areas" of U.N. decisionmaking. It was, in effect, fair warning and a plea for more fairness from the older nations to the newer ones if the U.N. is to survive, let alone prosper as a force in world affairs.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.