*EPF510 03/31/00
U.N. Security Council Members Visit Key U.S. Senators at Capitol
(Helms says goal is to improve relations with world body) (1160)
By Ralph Dannheisser
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- One phrase echoed repeatedly at an unprecedented meeting in Washington March 30 between the members of the United Nations Security Council and leaders of two key U.S. Senate committees:

The United Nations needs the United States, but the United States also needs the United Nations.

One after another of the Council's 15 members expressed that sentiment at the meeting in the Foreign Relations Committee's hearing room -- a session to which they had been invited by the committee's chairman, Senator Jesse Helms (Republican, North Carolina).

Helms, a long-time critic of the international organization, arranged the session as reciprocation for an equally extraordinary visit that he and his committee had paid to U.N. headquarters in New York in January 2000.

The meeting, billed as a roundtable discussion of two issues -- U.N. reform and peacekeeping efforts by the world body -- was the centerpiece of a day that included a discussion of Senate history, a tour of the Capitol building, and a luncheon in the historic Russell Building Caucus Room. All these events were bracketed by morning and evening meetings at the State Department between the visiting ambassadors and Secretary of State Albright.

Helms said he had arranged the Capitol Hill session "in the sincere hope that, through increased dialogue and increased understanding, we can avoid a breach in the U.S.-U.N. relationship."

But he also sought to make a related point -- to stress the Senate's clout in setting foreign policy. In welcoming remarks in the Old Senate Chamber, where the Senate met until 1859, he observed that "for those coming from countries with different systems, it is sometimes difficult for visitors to appreciate the unique role the United States Senate plays in setting our nation's foreign policy agenda."

While both the senators and the visiting diplomats avowed their support for reforms in U.N. operations, many of the Security Council members made it equally clear that they did not care for the way in which the United States has sought to ensure reforms. They questioned the procedure mandated by Congress, which ties phased payment of the huge U.S. debt to the U.N. to accomplishment of a specific series of reforms set up as "benchmarks."

One of the U.N. visitors, Ambassador Arnold Peter van Walsum of the Netherlands, told Chairman Helms and the others that "my country supports all your insistence on reform at the United Nations, but...we do not like to do so under the pressure of the Helms-Biden legislation." And, van Walsum added, "We would do so even more enthusiastically if at some time in the future the Helms-Biden legislation were repealed."

Van Walsum's reference was to the legislation, sponsored by Helms and Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the committee, that links payment of back U.S. dues to accomplishment of the benchmark reforms -- including a cut in the percentage of U.N. funding provided by the United States.

Citing his country's own heavy contributions to the United Nations, which some in the Netherlands consider disproportionately high, van Walsum suggested that the Netherlands "would surely consider leaving the United Nations" if it followed the same reasoning as the United States.

Doing so, he acknowledged, would not have much impact on the organization. But in contrast, he said, "The United Nations cannot survive without the United States," and that is the reason that U.S. demands are being taken so seriously.

Biden summarized van Walsum's comments and similar ones by other Security Council members at the conclusion of the meeting, saying, "You understandably don't like what we did, but you know what we did would have to be done even if we didn't do it."

Expressing his own view of the United Nations, he told the visiting diplomats, "You are the essential institution in the world today."

Ukraine's Security Council representative, Volodymyr Yel'chenko, expanded on van Walsum's point. "We cannot imagine the United Nations without the United States," he said, but "the United States needs the U.N. no less than other members of this organization."

And a similar theme was struck by China's representative, Yingfan Wang. "The United Nations needs the United States," Wang said. But, he added, "We should stress another point: The U.S. needs the U.N. very much."

"In this interdependent world," Wang continued, the United States "cannot manage everything without the support of other countries in the world," even though it is "the only superpower left." Countries "have to work together through the differences for the common interest," he said.

Canada's representative, Robert Fowler, acknowledged that the U.N. "will never be perfect. It will never be Microsoft." Fowler told the senators, "We have overlap and duplication, and so do you." Now, he said, "we must all assure that efficiency is the order of the day."

Fowler expressed concern that the strained U.N. relationship with the United States means much more than the loss of money, as "we are deprived of your energy and your commitment...and your engagement."

Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of the United Kingdom harked back to the American Revolution when he said that the United Nations is looking to the United States for the same thing the U.S. did not get from King George: "the right balance between representation and taxation."

Declaring that "the U.N. without the United States is a limbless organization," while the United States without the U.N. lacks the reach to produce needed change, Fowler asked, "Is the U.S. prepared to invest in the U.N.?"

Again, Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia declared that reform must be accomplished, as "the U.S. needs the United Nations and the U.N. needs the U.S." But he stressed that "reform must accentuate the needs of millions of people around the world," who must not be put "in positions where their aspirations are compromised."

A shorter discussion of the United Nations' peacekeeping function was led by Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Warner deemed peacekeeping to be a vital U.N. role. But he questioned the number of current and projected peacekeeping operations and urged the delegates "not to take on more than you can do, and do effectively."

This drew a response from Ambassador Jean David Levitte of France. While peacekeeping operations may be multiplying, Levitte asked, "Is it morally possible to say 'no' to populations that are desperately in need of help?"

Attending the meeting, along with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke, were the Security Council representatives from China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom -- the four other permanent Council members -- and from Argentina, Canada, Malaysia, Namibia, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Jamaica, Mali, Tunisia, and Ukraine.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)
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