Foreign Relations Authorization for Fiscal Year 1998-1999: International Organizations and Conferences

SPEAKERS       CONTENTS       INSERTS

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50–148 CC
1998
FOREIGN RELATIONS AUTHORIZATION FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998–1999: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND CONFERENCES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 18, 1997

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

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COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman
WILLIAM GOODLING, Pennsylvania
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JAY KIM, California
STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio
MARSHALL ''MARK'' SANFORD, South Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California
JON FOX, Pennsylvania
JOHN McHUGH, New York
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
ROY BLUNT, Missouri

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JERRY MORAN, Kansas
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
LEE HAMILTON, Indiana
SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD BERMAN, California
GARY ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
PAT DANNER, Missouri
EARL HILLIARD, Alabama
WALTER CAPPS, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
STEVE ROTHMAN, New Jersey
BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
JIM DAVIS, Florida
RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff

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MICHAEL H. VAN DUSEN, Democratic Chief of Staff

Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
DAN BURTON, Indiana
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
PETER T. KING, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
TOM LANTOS, California
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
GROVER JOSEPH REES, Subcommittee Staff Director and Chief Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Professional Staff Member
DOUGLAS C. ANDERSON, Counsel
ELISE M. KENDERIAN, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S

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WITNESSES

    Hon. Princeton N. Lyman, Acting Assistant Secretary of State, International Organization Affairs
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Hon. Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from New Jersey, and Chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights
Hon. Princeton N. Lyman
FOREIGN RELATIONS AUTHORIZATION FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998–99: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND CONFERENCES

TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1997
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
    Mr. SMITH. The Subcommittee will come to order. Good afternoon. This is the fifth and final hearing of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for 1997 and 1998.
    Today's hearing is on the U.S. participation in, and contributions to, the United Nations and other international organizations.

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    On behalf of the Subcommittee I am pleased to welcome Ambassador Princeton Lyman, the Assistant Secretary of State Designate for International Organizations.
    Ambassador Lyman, I believe I speak for the majority of my colleagues in Congress in welcoming your commitment on behalf of the Administration to a serious effort to reform the United Nations. I think it is important to emphasize, however, that a reform effort cannot be limited to financial and administrative matters. On the contrary, true U.N. reform must be designed to restore the vitality, the credibility, and the institutional integrity of the United Nations and its affiliated organizations.
    To put it bluntly, the problem with these organizations is not just that they do not work very well, it is that they often work badly.
    Many Americans regard the General Assembly and some of the organizations affiliated with the United Nations as hostile to democracy and freedom. It has been very hard to forget the ''Zionism is Racism'' resolution, or the domination of the General Assembly for so many years by nations that called themselves non-aligned, but that always voted with the Soviet Bloc and against the free world.
    More recently, there was the shameful refusal to let the Dalai Lama speak on the premises of the United Nations, premises that had been the host to Josef Stalin and Idi Amin, and more recently to Fidel Castro and Yasir Arafat.
    It also seems that many of the social and economic pronouncements of international organizations and conferences ignored the most important lesson of the 20th Century—that all powerful governments are bad for people, and that free societies are good for them.
    In order to win a majority support in the U.S. Congress for a billion dollars worth of payments to resolve our past funding disputes with the United Nations, the accompanying reform package must begin by ensuring that international organizations become more effective at their essential functions, such as promoting peace, coordinating international efforts to feed the hungry, and protecting refugees.

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    This reform must also put a stop to the process by which the prestige and resources of international institutions have been hijacked by elites, primarily western elites, to pursue ideological agendas that have been considered and rejected by the democratic institutions of their own countries.
    The difficulties faced by the United Nations and Congress and among the American people, who still pay by far the largest share of the bills, are only part of the problem. The U.N.'s credibility is also waning in the developing countries of the world. At a time when many countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Islamic world are striving to protect their traditional cultures, U.N. conferences and affiliated institutions support cultural imperialism in the form of aggressive population control measures, political pressure to legalize abortion, and other controversial proposals founded neither in international law nor in genuine international consensus.
    To restore confidence in the United Nations will require not only procedural and financial reforms, but also consensus building. The United Nations and other international organizations must win the confidence, not only of their own bureaucracies and of professional diplomats, but also of the conservative and moderate majorities in most nations of the world.
    The job of institutional reform and of redefining and revitalizing the core functions of the organization will be difficult enough. If the energies that should be devoted to these tasks are instead dissipated by continuing efforts to persuade sovereign nations that they have more people than the international governing class would prefer, that they are too protective of their unborn children, or that they must abandon their traditional ideas about the family and its relationship to government, the organization could collapse under its own weight.
    Ambassador Lyman, I look forward to your testimony, and I hope you will share with us your vision of a United Nations that is not only more efficient, but also more faithful to its original charter, and to the values we Americans share with the great majority of our brothers and sisters around the world.

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    At this point I would like to yield to my good friend, the Ranking Member of our Subcommittee, Mr. Tom Lantos from California.
    Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to commend you for holding this hearing. Four years ago when I served as Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights, one of our first witnesses was former Attorney General of the United States, Dick Thornburg, who served at the United Nations following his service in the Department of Justice. He prepared a report on reforms at the United Nations, which was one of a whole series of reports dealing with the reforms that many of us feel are necessary at the United Nations.
    There are several things I believe we need to underscore at this important hearing. First, Mr. Chairman, as you know, the charter was signed in the city I represent, in San Francisco, in 1945. I think it is important to pay tribute to the enormous contributions of the United Nations and its affiliated agencies, to every single aspect of human life across this globe. Whether it is a question of children's health, or women's rights, or development assistance, or peacekeeping, the United Nations has done an enormous amount of good.
    Second, I think it is important to realize that some of the criticism in this country of the United Nations can most charitably be described as lunatic. The people who talk about black helicopters taking over the United States, black helicopters run and operated by the United Nations, need a quick trip to a mental institution. And I think those of us in public service owe it to our constituents to make this clear. I do not think we can ever reach a consensus on the United Nations because some of the criticism of the United Nations is utterly irrational, totally without a factual basis, yet it is repeated ad nauseam and ad infinitum on a variety of media.
    I very much welcome the new Secretary General Anond, who has brought to the United Nations a strong determination to undertake substantive and meaningful reforms.

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    Yesterday, in New York, I had the opportunity to consult with a new Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Richardson, a former colleague of ours, who is equally determined not only to represent the United States as effectively as he can, but to work on U.N. reform in a rational and cooperative basis. One of the great achievements of Bill Richardson, so early in his term, was to agree with the Mayor of New York City on the parking violations of U.N. diplomats, which has been one of the outrages of U.N. procedures, and has soured the people of New York on the failure of large numbers of U.N. diplomats to obey the laws and the rules and the regulations of the city in which they are guests.
    Now, I strongly support the Administration's program for catching up with our unpaid U.N. dues. It is simply unacceptable for the one remaining super power to be a deadbeat at the United Nations. This dramatically diminishes our impact and influence at the United Nations, and it also calls into question our call for other nations to obey rules and regulations and procedures, when it is in our interest to do so.
    I believe that we are paying too large a share of U.N. costs, both for regular budgets and for special budgets. And I strongly support Secretary Albright's position of scaling back U.S. contributions, both to the regular budget and to peacekeeping operations and other special budgets.
    The allocations were established at a time when the relative economic weight of various countries was very different. And I think changes in these proportionate allocations are long overdue. Germany, Japan, some of the wealthy Arab countries, and others need to carry their own fair share of the load.
    But I also believe, Mr. Chairman, that our criticism of the United Nations has to be a judicious and tempered and reasonable criticism. The United Nations reflects the reality of almost 200 sovereign nation states. It cannot be the handmaiden of any one of these nation states, even of the United States of America.

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    And I think it is important also to realize that the Secretary General has an enormous job of trying to maintain at least a modicum of harmony in the United Nations with all the myriad of conflicting interests and pressures.
    In turn, I believe U.N. members need to exercise a degree of responsibility in casting their votes and designing resolutions. My judgment over a large number of resolutions relating to the Middle East, for instance, has not improved over the years. These resolutions almost invariably are lopsided, pointing to shortcomings of the State of Israel and overlooking shortcomings of her opponents. And every time we have vetoed resolutions in the United Nations, we have done the right thing. We have attempted to achieve some degree of balance, some degree of objectivity, which many of the member states could not care less about.
    I think it is important to recognize that the United Nations is an important aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Whenever feasible, we should work with the United Nations. But at all times we should remain our independence and act alone when our judgment compels the United States to act alone in the U.S. national interest.
    In sum, Mr. Chairman, I am calling for paying our overdue bills. It is humiliating for our Ambassador to the United Nations to be constantly criticized for the United States having been a deadbeat for years now at the United Nations.
    We should insist on dramatic and speedy reform, both of the administrative structure, the organizational structure, and the financing of the United Nations.
    We should not place unreasonable demands on an organization like the United Nations. The United Nations is not a reality; it is a derivative reality. It derives its reality from the policies of all the member states. It cannot function divorced from its member states. It reflects a complex, confused, and divided world. And we should give, I believe, our new Ambassador at the United Nations, Bill Richardson, all possible support, because he surely needs it, and he needs it on a bipartisan basis.

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    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Lantos. Mr. Rohrabacher.
    Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Lantos and I have worked long and hard on human rights issues, and he has my respect and admiration as a man who is of high principle. And I think that some of the issues that he just covered demonstrates that people of high principles can disagree.
    I happen to believe that United Nations and many of the other multinational approaches that we have been taking to foreign policy are exactly in the wrong direction. They are counterproductive, and they tend to pressure the United States to abandon some heartfelt principles that are very important to me as an individual, and I think very core to our presence in the international arena. And if we do not have those values, and if we do not keep those principles in mind, there is no sense in us being involved in the United Nations, et cetera.
    We now have the world's biggest human rights abuser in the Security Council of the United Nations; namely, China. We have a situation where they could, basically the Red Chinese regime could incinerate all of Tibet, and there would still be people who would believe that they should be in the Security Council of the United Nations.
    What does that mean? What is the United Nations going to do when you give a veto power to the world's worst human rights abuser, and to the world's most, what I think, threatening power?
    So while I know Mr. Lantos is totally committed to human rights—we have worked together on so many issues, whether it is Burma or elsewhere—there are some things that are going on within these multinational organizations and efforts that should cause us pause. And to make sure that we are not being sidetracked by trying to be part of organizations and efforts which we could be much more effectively doing on our own, and maintaining a higher level of principle.

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    And that is all I have to say. Thank you very much.
    Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Faleomavaega.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly would like to offer my personal welcome to Secretary Lyman for being here this afternoon at the hearing.
    I think that is the magic of our democracy, is the fact that we all have different perspectives on the same issues. And I certainly, for one, in my humble readings of the advent of what has become now the deliberative body of the world community of nations in the United Nations, I think there is a tremendous merit in some of the things that we need to do as a participant, and especially as a co-founder of this world organization.
    I think Secretary Albright's statement still rings pretty well in the halls of the Congress, that we just cannot conduct foreign policy on the cheap. And I think this is something that certainly the Administration is very sensitive about; not so much of putting an image, but certainly of substance, not only to other communities throughout the world, but to see that, as a participant, I am sure that being the biggest donor of not only the United Nations, but other regional organizations. There certainly ought to be accountability. But at the same time, we cannot just step back and expect things to take care of itself. We have to be a participant in the process.
    And I am looking forward to hearing from Secretary Lyman's statement this afternoon, with some questions.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Faleomavaega. And I would like to welcome to the Subcommittee Princeton Lyman, who was appointed Acting Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs in July 1996. From 1992 through 1995 Mr. Lyman served as U.S. Ambassador to South Africa. He was also Director of the State Department's Bureau for Refugee Programs from 1989 to 1992.

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    Prior to that assignment, Mr. Lyman served as U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
    Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Secretary, welcome. And please proceed as you wish. Your full statement will be made a part of the record, but you are free to proceed as you wish.
STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR PRINCETON N. LYMAN, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
    Mr. LYMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And thank you, Members of the Subcommittee. I am really very grateful for the opportunity to testify here, for our fiscal year 1998 request, for our contributions to international organizations, and for the chance to exchange views on these very important matters.
    I appreciate that you have inserted the full statement in the record, and I would just like to summarize some key points. But before going into those details, I wonder if you will forgive me for calling attention to a presentation I heard very recently on the Child Survival Program. This is a program that involved both multilateral and bilateral programs, and a major role by the private sector, as well.
    As you know and I know, Mr. Chairman, you have been a very strong supporter of this program, for over 10 years has immunized children and provided other support to decrease dramatically the tragedy of child mortality.
    I learned in this presentation just the other day that because of this program, today three million children each year are now saved; children that would otherwise, just a few years ago, have died in infancy.
    My wife and I know the pain of losing a child, so perhaps that is why I was so affected by this presentation. Millions and millions of children are alive today, and so much terrible family pain and tragedy has been avoided, because of this collaborative effort.

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    And it is one all of us can be proud of. It has, as you know, been a bipartisan program from its very beginning, and continues so today. It involves, on the international level, both UNICEF and WHO. USAID has been the major bilateral donor. And in the private sector, Kiwanis and Rotary have made a major contribution which is recognized around the world.
    Mr. Chairman, I think this is what you were indicating in your opening remarks, these are the kinds of results that we want from the United Nations. When we talk of things like budgets and reform and structuring, et cetera, all of us are really talking of making the United Nations a strong, effective organization that delivers results like these to our people and other peoples in the world.
    We want a United Nations now that will deliver, just as strongly as it does in child survival, in preventing new infectious diseases from spreading across the world, dealing effectively with the threats of terrorism and drugs, dealing with corruption that robs countries of development and businesses of honest profits; a United Nations which helps in conflicts which cause such havoc and humanitarian disaster, and send millions of migrants and refugees into the world. This is what U.N. reform and what our support is all about.
    There is another aspect of it that I would like to stress, and that is that we must preserve U.S. influence.
    Now, let me be very candid, if I may, Mr. Chairman, because we talk about preserving U.S. influence on many matters of international peace and security, and those are extremely, extremely important. But there are other issues that are handled in the United Nations, as well.
    Today the European union countries, for example, provide 35 percent of the U.N.'s finances, and the Japanese close to 18 percent. Together, they provide more than half the funding for the United Nations, for its specialized agencies, and for peacekeeping. They are our allies, and their contributions are a boost to our own interests.

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    But they also are our competitors in many areas. Now, many of the organizations in which we are members make decisions, and are charged with making findings, that have major impact on our trade; for example, the Food and Agricultural Organization, where the European Union Commission is a member, in addition to the member countries.
    Along with WHO, FAO sets the final sanitary standards which govern much of the $60 billion in agricultural exports from the United States. And at this very time, FAO is studying the issue of biotechnology, and whether it should have an effect on these standards of trade. It is an issue of tremendous importance to our agribusiness sector. It will affect every state in our union.
    Up to now, the FAO has responded to the best evidence, the best scientific input, et cetera. And our voice has been strong.
    But agricultural interests in the United States are worried. We are in arrears to the FAO today by over $100 million, more than a full year's assessment. And the question is, can we maintain the strength of our voice in discussions and issues such as this?
    I want the United States to maintain its influence, its presence, its place in all these discussions, in all these decisions, so that they remain scientifically based and fully fair to our trade. We cannot concede our proper place.
    That, and a dozen other examples that one might give, are the concerns that led the Administration to seek to deal with the arrears question comprehensibly this year, to remove it from the international agenda, and keep the United States in a strong position wherever its interests are at stake.
    We are thus at a critical juncture regarding future U.S. participation in international organizations, and especially the United Nations. But it is also a time of exceptional opportunity.
    We think we can accomplish three major goals over the next few years. First, continue to substantially reform and reinvigorate this system, so that it can meet the challenges of the 21st century.

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    Second, reassert and sustain American leadership. And third, reduce U.S. financial contributions to a level that is politically sustainable by the American Congress. And that is what our proposals are designed to do.
    In concrete terms, we have requested contributions to international organizations of $969,491,000. That would fully fund our assessed contributions for the calendar year 1997.
    For peacekeeping we are requesting $240 million, and that is a $66 million reduction from the request of last year.
    And for international conferences and contingencies, $4.9 million.
    Now, the Administration is seeking to fund, in addition, as you have indicated, Mr. Chairman, the arrears that we recognize over the next 2 years. We are requesting $100 million in the fiscal year 1998 request, and we are asking for an advance appropriation for fiscal year 1999 of $921 million.
    As we ask for these funds, and as we hope to have these funds through release over the next 2 years, the Administration will be continuing its very vigorous pursuit of U.N. reform. With strong Congressional support, the United States has had a major impact on this process. We have had a no-growth regular U.N. budget, and now we have the Secretary General committed, as of Monday, to reducing it further in the next biennial.
    We have the creation of an Inspector General function, and I am happy to say that we are able to report to the Congress just this week that the full number of positions will be filled in that office.
    And we have substantial cuts in staffing; the Secretary General's commitment that he will take the thousand vacancies that are now there, and eliminate those posts in the next biennial.
    We have had a dramatic reduction in peacekeeping, from over 75,000 to about 25,000 of U.N. peacekeeping. But just as important, much better criteria and much better consultation with the Congress prior to our voting for any new or expanded peacekeeping operation.

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    We have made a good start. We have got a long way to go.
    On the budgetary front, we have a very particular set of proposals this year. We want, through a combination of reduced budgets and, equally important, if not more important, a reduced share of the U.S. contribution, to bring down the U.S. costs of this system, down to the level that Congress has said, in 1996 and fiscal year 1997, this is what we are prepared to contribute—around $900 million. But at present, that $900 million leaves us short, and the arrears keep building up.
    If we get these changes, we can come back to you, Mr. Chairman, for fiscal year 1999, and say that level is OK, and it will not build up any more arrears. But to get that, we are going to need your help. Because while there is sympathy out there, there is understanding out there, not only by the Secretary General and the President of the General Assembly, there is understanding by a lot of members, that this needs to be done. But they all say the same thing. They have got parliaments and legislatures and publics to talk to, too. And they say, ''When we go back to pay more, we have to know that the United States is going to pay its arrears. That gives us the basis on which we can go forward.''
    So that is what we need as we move forward on this agenda. I think it is a doable agenda. And we have a special time line, because the scale of assessment for the next 3 years and the budgets for almost all these agencies are going to be decided in the next few months. This is the year to get those changes.
    And that is why we have asked for the advance appropriation, so we could demonstrate to the other members that the United States does plan to pay its arrears, even as we demand further reform.
    Mr. Chairman, I appreciate very much that we have an opportunity here, but I know in addition to here, a continuing consultation with you on this proposal. And we want to work very closely with the Congress to reach consensus on it.

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    Thank you very, very much.
    [The prepared statement of Ambassador Lyman appears in the appendix.]
    Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate your remarks and your thoughts.
    You know, one of your comments was about the announcement made by the Secretary General Anond. Let me just ask you if, in looking at that package that he has announced, is there anything really new in that, that was not already agreed to? Or is there something new that has skipped our notice?
    Mr. LYMAN. What is new is a decision to do things that have been recommended over the years by many, many members in many studies.
    For example, last year the G–7 countries recommended that the three different departments dealing with economic and social affairs in the Secretariat be collapsed into one. We have made that recommendation before; the Secretary General did it.
    We have said that the vacancies which have been achieved this year ought to be translated into a lower ceiling on employment next year. There was a lot of opposition in the United Nations to that. The Secretary General made the courageous decision that he is going to do that.
    We have been pushing for not only no-growth budgets or reduced budgets. Tremendous opposition to that. He committed himself to lower the budget further next year.
    He has consolidated, or is in the process of consolidating, many functions that people have believed over the years needed to be done.
    So what he has done is taken recommendations that have come from us, from the Nordic countries, from European countries, from developing countries, that have been on the table for a long time, and said, ''I am going to do them.'' And it is a very, very good message to the United Nations.

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    Mr. SMITH. You, I am sure, are familiar with the March, 1996 report by the GAO, at which time they pointed out that the incremental costs to the United States for support of certain U.N. peacekeeping operations from 1992 to 1995 was $6.6 billion. About $1.8 billion of that amount was paid by the State Department, the remaining amounts from USAID, from the Department of Defense and other agencies.
    It has been asserted by some critics of the United Nations that the whole $6.6 billion we spent in connection with these peacekeeping operations ought to be credited as a U.S. contribution to these operations. Instead, I think the number is closer to $1.8 billion.
    These critics go on to suggest that if the whole $6.6 billion is credited as a U.S. contribution, that would more than cancel out the arrearages in U.S. dues and assessments; that the United Nations might actually owe the U.S. Government billions of dollars.
    How do you respond to that? And has the United Nations fully credited the United States for its contributions to peacekeeping?
    Mr. LYMAN. Mr. Chairman, I only wish we could do that, and get the arrears settled that way.
    But the practice that we have followed, and that other countries have followed, is that we undertake operations under our own command and control, and they may be authorized by the United Nations, but they are done by us, and they are done because we feel they are very much in our interest.
    We do not bill the United Nations for that under the peacekeeping budget. The peacekeeping operations of the United Nations under which the assessments are made are peacekeeping operations normally organized by the United Nations, and they choose the command and control, et cetera. And we may contribute logistics, or in some cases we contribute troops to those efforts. And those are assessed.
    Other countries follow the same practice. Our NATO allies, for example, do not bill the United Nations for much of the supportive military presence that they have contributed to the peacekeeping operations in Bosnia. This is before I–4. Or to helping us enforce the no-fly zone over Southern Iraq.

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    So if we said, ''Well, we want to be reimbursed for all of this,'' they would put in all their amounts, as well, and I do not think we would come out ahead in the process, because then we would be assessed for a percentage of that, as well.
    I think this is a reasonable practice. It gives us a good deal of freedom to take certain military actions, even with U.N. blessing or parallel to U.N. activities, which we want to take, we want to do ourselves, with our own military, and not subject it necessarily to the United Nations having to approve it, and then assessing it.
    Mr. SMITH. It would be helpful, though, and that is why I think the GAO report was at least enlightening, when there are those who want to create a surface appearance that somehow we are, you know, the biggest deadbeat in town; are there other factors that, when fully factored into the equation, present a remarkably different picture? You may recall, I remember, when Madeleine Albright, then our Ambassador to the United Nations, sat right where you sat, and she made the observation, if my memory is correct, that the United Nations probably would owe us money. And then when GAO factored it all out, it came out that way—particularly because of airlift, and a lot of that airlift comes out of McGuire and places that are in absolute proximity to my own Congressional District. So we are well aware of the kind of assets that have been used for this.
    You mentioned in your statement—so I do not think those critics are so off-base. And even if the other countries' contributions were factored in, again, it would paint a fuller picture. And I think transparency and fullness of picture is something that at least helps the demagogue from country X, Y, or Z, who stands up and criticizes us for being a deadbeat, they might find that we are certainly participating fully.
    Let me ask you a question about the Inspector General you mentioned earlier. To whom would the IG report? Have you given thought to reporting directly to the Security Council, as opposed to the Secretary General? Or what?

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    Mr. LYMAN. Because these studies range well beyond the province of the Security Council, what the arrangement is—and it is in the resolution creating the office—is that, while he reports to the Secretary General, his reports also go to the members of the General Assembly. So we see those reports unchanged.
    And while it is the job of the Secretary General to make sure that the recommendations or the findings are acted on, we, as members, can look at those reports and follow whether they are, indeed, acted upon. And I think the General Assembly is probably the better place.
    Mr. SMITH. I understand the U.S. plans to reintroduce our resolution on human rights in China before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, notwithstanding the Commission's no-action vote on that resolution during the last session.
    Will the resolution be at least as strong as last years'? Has any language been formulated yet? And are you also perhaps going to introduce resolutions on Burma? Because obviously that is something that this Subcommittee and many Members of Congress are very concerned about. And also on the situation in Indonesia.
    Mr. LYMAN. We are working with our European allies on the exact wording of the resolution, so I do not have the details of that, Mr. Chairman.
    We have also indicated to China the kinds of progress we would expect if they did not want a resolution so introduced. We have not seen that progress yet.
    As you know, the Vice President will be going there. So we will wait to see if they do, indeed, respond positively. But we are not waiting on that; we are working with the Europeans on the text of the resolution.
    Mr. SMITH. Is there any way to, particularly with the U.N. Human Rights Commission, to weed out the ability of a member state like China to keep its record, as awful as it is, from being the subject of an inquiry? We know that the Chinese Government has tried very, very strongly in the last election cycle to influence our own politics. And we have got transparency, we think, and all kinds of disclosure laws, and laws that preclude that kind of activity. And on the international stage there is far less.

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    How can we make the U.N. Human Rights Commission more responsive to the real issues of human rights, rather than political circumstances?
    Mr. LYMAN. Well, one thing we have been able to do over the years is get individual country situations on the agenda. There was a time when we could not do that, or a lot of countries resisted. Now it is almost standard practice.
    We were disappointed in what happened last year, but we did succeed, even in that no-action motion, to get an awful lot of the substance of the resolution on the table; to have it debated; to have the world's spotlight put on the situation in China.
    If we have to go to the floor and fight this again this time, we will fight just as hard. And I think, from the Chinese point of view, although they may have won the no-action motion, they did not succeed in turning off the spotlight. And that I think is one of the reasons we put a high premium and sent a very high-powered delegation to the Human Rights Commission.
    In every one of these cases, we want a full spotlight on the situation. Now, where we can get the votes through and can send rapporteurs and get fuller reports, we certainly intend to do so.
    Mr. SMITH. Let me ask one additional question before I yield to my friend and colleague. But—and make a note—I served as delegate to the United Nations during the Bush Administration. I spent a lot of time in Geneva when Ambassador Armando Valledanes was getting his Cuba resolution through. And hopefully there has been some reform since then, because the rapporteur system seemed to me—and I followed it before while I was there, and since—seemed to be ripe for reform, because of the weakness of the system, the exchange of letters and comments between government and rapporteur. In some cases it works extremely well, in other cases you get stonewalling by a government.
    Again, I would hope that reform be pushed in a bipartisan way, because it was weak under Reagan, it was weak under Bush; it is still weak. We need to find a way for the victims to reform that system, so that the oppressed get their representation before the world body.

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    Mr. LYMAN. We certainly agree that we have to keep working to strengthen that whole mechanism and the Center for Human Rights and its ongoing activities.
    We have had discussions with the new Secretary General. And he has promised us that he is going to look very closely at those things which he controls, which is the selection of the Undersecretary, the selection of the head of the Center, and the budgeting for the Center, et cetera.
    And the Commission, as you know, we are dealing with other member countries. And we are going to just have to keep at it.
    But I think we have certainly turned the corner on putting human rights on the agenda, and putting individual country situations on the agenda. Now we have got to move to a better qualitative result.
    Mr. SMITH. Are there enough resources dedicated to that?
    Mr. LYMAN. I think there are. And we will continue to examine it. I think part of the problem has not been resources in the past; there have frankly been some bureaucratic problems within the Center and its relationship to the Undersecretary General. And I think we are going to see some improvements there.
    Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you a question with regard to the U.N. Population Fund's work in the Peoples Republic of China.
    As I think you know, I have been a vocal and long-standing critic of the one-child-per-couple policy because of its reliance on forced abortion and forced sterilization. And the UNFPA, regrettably, has been part and parcel of that. And we were right there in 1979, when the very policy was crafted; and has awarded it money, prestige, accolades each and every year, which, in my view, is aiding and abetting violations against women and babies and families.
    We are told that UNFPA is no longer committing resources to China. I do not know exactly, and I cannot get a clear bead as to what their precise situation is. We understand they still have an office in Beijing, perhaps elsewhere.

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    Are they still administering grants there? Is there any new money being allocated to the program in China? Could you give us a total and accurate assessment of what is going on there?
    Mr. LYMAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The program is terminated that they had there. They do have an office that is engaging in discussions with China, but they have not proposed a new program yet. So at this point they are not administering any new funds.
    Mr. SMITH. Is it the Administration's position that they should not be administering those funds?
    Mr. LYMAN. Well, I would say that unless a program met human rights standards and voluntary standards, we would not support it.
    Mr. SMITH. When you said the word ''yet,'' is something imminent in terms of——
    Mr. LYMAN. No, I know of no imminent proposals coming to us.
    Mr. SMITH. Do you have any insight as to the nature of those negotiations with the Chinese Government?
    Mr. LYMAN. No, only that they were preliminary and low-key.
    Mr. SMITH. Could you obtain that for us, and we will make that a part of the record?
    Mr. LYMAN. I will try and find out exactly where it stands.
    Mr. SMITH. Again, in the interest of transparency and absolute openness, it would be nice to know exactly what it is that they are talking about.
    Mr. Faleomavaega.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I have been reading a lot about the expected reforms that the new Secretary General has announced that he will take. But what exactly is he going to do by way of reforms? I mean, a lot has been said about it in the media, but I have not seen any specifically by way of cutting or what. Is he pretty much following the guidelines of our position in terms of how countries will be assessed? Or does he have a different formula? Or maybe you can help me—what is the current formula for assessments given to the different countries?

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    I am puzzled by this, because, as a voting member of the United Nations, let's say, for example, if we contribute a billion dollars, and another country sitting next to me maybe contributes less than $10,000; and yet, my vote is the same with the guy that is sitting next to me. Is this how we are being assessed right now in the United Nations?
    Mr. LYMAN. Almost, but not quite. Let me distinguish two things.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I mean, is there not a concern for that?
    Mr. LYMAN. There is concern, but we have addressed that, and again with Congressional support.
    Some years ago Congress raised this same question, because the fact is, the way the scale of assessment goes, because of the taking into account GNP and poverty factors, over half the countries together—of the poorest countries, but they constitute over half the United Nations—pay, together, less than 1 percent of the budget.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Does the world know that?
    Mr. LYMAN. I hope it does.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I would be a little tired of always getting this bashing from members of the United Nations that we are not paying our bills, we are not paying our bills. But now what you have just said——
    Mr. LYMAN. But we are talking about, of course, some of the very poorest countries in the world.
    Now, to offset the problem you raised—you are sitting next to a person, a country who has really no stake in budget discipline, because his country is getting back much more than he is putting in—we have gone to a consensus voting on budgets. In other words, we do not take it to a majority vote; there has to be consensus.
    We have used that process to push for the kind of no-growth budgets that we have had the last 2 years. And now I am pleased to see the Secretary General pledging a reduction in the next biennium.

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    So while consensus voting involves an enormous amount of politicking back and forth, it has given us much more to say than our single one vote. And that has been very important in bringing budget discipline to bear.
    The actual scale is not determined by the Secretary General; it is determined by the General Assembly. And they review it every few years. We are pushing for a major revision this year.
    It is true, as countries say to us, that the basic criteria, which is your share of the world's economy, we actually still have over 25 percent. We are saying regardless of that, given the fact that ASEAN countries, some of the OPEC countries, some Latin American countries have been coming up economically in the world, it is time to revise the scale. We should go below 25 percent.
    And we will need the General Assembly to support us on that. It is a General Assembly decision. And we are going to push for that this year, bringing us down as close as we can get to 20 percent, and bringing our peacekeeping, which is a surcharge on top of that, to the 25 percent that Congress has already capped.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Has this not been the problem? I mean, this is not just a Democratic Administration problem; it has been with the Bush and the Reagan Administrations. And for all these years, we have been just kind of nudging gently our fellow members of the United Nations. We need to straighten this thing out. We are paying most of the bills, and they keep complaining that we are not doing our part.
    And for that reason, I am just curious, what is the formula? Is there a better way to assess this country, so that when they vote in the process, they have substance to back up their vote, and not just a lot of hot air and rhetoric that goes on, with speeches made? But when the chips are down, Uncle Sam always seems to pick up the tab.
    Mr. LYMAN. We are going to go not so much to increase the poorest countries, because, frankly, even if you doubled what they did, you would only be up to a little over 1 percent. And they are very poor.

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    But there is that next tier, or two tiers, of countries, that we feel can pick up much more of this. They are doing well economically, and that is a good thing. They should have a greater stake.
    Now, I visited several of those countries; we have talked to a lot of their representatives. And they have said they recognize that, and they are prepared. But we have an obligation to pay what we were committed to pay. And they want us to at least meet the obligations we had in the past, in order for them to be able to support us in changing the future.
    And we do have a stake in that. Because perhaps no country is more concerned with the sanctity of treaties and contracts than we are. And we do not want to send the message that well, if you do not like a treaty obligation, you can ignore it. That if you do not want to pay what you owe, you can ignore it. Because we need other countries to meet their treaty obligations, as well.
    So if we can address the arrears we owe for, I think we can get the change that we are looking for.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. When you talk about treaty obligations and commitments, we have seen that happen last year, when France unilaterally decided to break the moratorium on nuclear testing. And so much for freedom-loving democracies around the world, and how much they appreciate what France did in the Pacific.
    Again, I express this concern in terms of what has been the biggest gripe here in the Congress, and whether or not Secretary Anond is literally going to do what was the very reason why his predecessor was out. Because for the past 5 years, he did not do anything to conduct these real reforms.
    The problem I see sometimes in meeting with some of the officials of the United Nations, being the employment agency of many of these countries, I question the validity of their qualifications when they go around the world saying that I am Doctor so-and-so, and find out they are not really qualified in what they set out to be. But the fact that they have the umbrella of representing the United Nations, I really wonder what kind of a scale had seen that these people who are employed there are really qualified with what they are doing.

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    Do we have a measurement process in that, as well?
    Mr. LYMAN. Two things. First, I would like to point out that a lot of these reforms are not within the jurisdiction of the Secretary General by himself. He has taken steps that he had the authority to take. But a lot of the problems that you are raising, the members have to vote on it. He cannot do that alone.
    But what I am pleased about is that he is supporting this process, and urging them to do so.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Have we pretty much cleaned up UNESCO?
    Mr. LYMAN. UNESCO has changed a lot since we pulled out. It has done a lot of things. And if we were in touch at stringent budget times, we might consider going back, but we have not put that on the table. But they have improved a lot under the present Director General.
    But on staffing, we have asked for better personnel evaluations. And one of the things he has just announced, and they should have had before and now will have, is a code of conduct with financial disclosure. And this is, again, a step forward.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Well, we sure ought to give as much help as we can to our good friend, and former colleague, Secretary—Ambassador Richardson, now, I guess is the new title that we have given him.
    Just one more question, Mr. Chairman, if I could. What is the President's mark on my favorite international organization, the South Pacific Commission? I do not see it on the notes here.
    Mr. LYMAN. Wait a minute. My understanding is——
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. It is probably not even a——
    Mr. LYMAN. No, no. I know it is here. And our request for this year is $1,337,000.

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    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Well, sir, I really commend you for that. Because we are in arrears, too, with that.
    Mr. LYMAN. Yes, we are.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. We met with the Secretary General recently, and I think we are going to come up with some good programs coming out of that regional organization.
    Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    Mr. LYMAN. Thank you.
    Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. Let me ask you some final questions. And thank you, Mr. Faleomavaega. If you have any additional questions, we will go to those, as well.
    The President's request includes $50 million for the African crisis fund, a $30 million increase over fiscal year 1997 levels, which the Administration has said will be used to pay for large-scale peacekeeping efforts in the Great Lakes Region of Africa during fiscal year 1998.
    I wonder if you can tell us if a mission has been established for those funds. Is this a contingency? What is this?
    Mr. LYMAN. First of all, I want to say that I regret we put the term large-scale in there.
    What we are looking at is a situation that is evolving, and there are no specific plans or even projections of what a peacekeeping mission would be in that area.
    We felt we needed to have funds, looking ahead over the next year, to deal with this. Congress was extremely supportive in providing us $20 million in last year's appropriation, against possible crises in Africa. We have not spent any of that, because the conditions were not right to put peace-keepers into the situations. There was not the political framework. And we did not want to make the mistakes we had made earlier, in Bosnia and elsewhere.

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    In Eastern Zaire and the Great Lakes Region we have a rapidly changing situation. You saw that the rebel alliance has taken Kissingani. There is real concern about what will happen next in Zaire.
    First and foremost, we are engaged with the United Nations, with our European friends, with African allies, to get a diplomatic effort underway to stop the fighting, and start a political process.
    Only in that framework can one consider a peacekeeping operation. And I think we have to look very, very carefully at the scope and the mission of any. And when we start doing that, and it comes to that, we will want to consult with the Congress before we take any decisions.
    Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that. In looking at the Administration's request for $12.5 million for the Rwandan and Bosnian or former Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal, I note that it comes out of the peacekeeping account rather than voluntary contributions to international organizations. You might want to comment as to the why of that.
    But also, whether or not that is enough, I mean, in the last Congress I held three hearings in the Helsinki Commission, which I also chair; and we heard from a number of experts, who told us that the amounts that the international community were pledging at the time fell far short of what would be done, what was needed to effectively prosecute, gather evidence, provide witness protection, and the list went on.
    I tried to increase the amount of money when we came to mark-up last year on H.R. 1561, and failed, primarily because the argument was made that the Administration did not want any more, and that there was kind of like a ceiling on what our assessment should be on that.
    I felt, if you are losing evidence by the moment, if witnesses are evaporating, for the purpose of front-loading the War Crimes Tribunal, there seemed to be a modest expenditure of funds.

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    Mr. LYMAN. The tribunals are funded in a very strange way. It derives from the history in which they were created.
    There are two sources of funding for the tribunal, regular funding. Part of it comes through peacekeeping, and part of it comes through the regular U.N. budget. That was the compromise that was made at the time.
    So you will see it in our peacekeeping budget. But in the general U.N. budget there is also funding for the tribunal.
    In addition to that, we have provided voluntary funding. And I will get you the figures on that. But in addition, we have also made staff available. We have put staff on detail there at our expense: prosecutors, experts, et cetera.
    My understanding with just a number of discussions recently with the Chief Prosecutor, et cetera, is that the biggest problem now is not funding. The biggest problem is getting the people who have been indicted brought to trial.
    But we will stay very close to that. I meet with our people on this regularly to make sure that if there are further things we ought to be doing, we will do them.
    And I will get you the figures on the voluntary contributions we have made over and above these figures.
    Mr. SMITH. I would appreciate that. Let me ask you a question on the World Health Organization. A February, 1997 GAO report indicates WHO trails other agencies in management and budgetary reforms.
    For example, it notes that despite financial difficult times, a number of senior level positions have increased at the organization over the past 4 years. And there has also been an ongoing concern that I share with many people that WHO is involved in abortion research and testing, especially of RU–486, the French abortion pill, which I happen to believe is just the newest form of chemical abortion, the newest form of baby poison.

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    Could you tell us—and again, you might want to go back and provide us this, so it is absolutely precise for the record—what WHO's complicity has been in this whole area of abortion?
    I mean, when you are talking about checking the spread of infectious disease, that is a consensus; all of us want to do that. But when you get to how do we eliminate more kids, that is a consensus-breaker.
    Mr. LYMAN. Mr. Chairman, let me check and see if there is any active WHO involvement in the French pill.
    Mr. SMITH. Active in the past, as well, if you could.
    Mr. LYMAN. Yes. I will find out. I do not have that information now, but I will get it for you. In general, as you know, our policy is not to have U.N. organizations promoting or participating in abortion.
    I will check on that specifically, and get back to you.
    Mr. SMITH. I would appreciate that. Because they have to know, too, as we look at a $36 million arrearage at WHO, that all of that weighs very heavily on many of our minds, when we are talking about more money that could then be used for those anti-child purposes.
    In 1996, the U.N. Voluntary Fund for the Victims of Torture provided grants to 96 countries, 96 countries, with a budget of less than $2.5 million.
    In 1996 the fund was only able to meet about half of the $5 million in requests that it received. We tried to increase—you might recall last year I offered the amendment that was in H.R. 1561—to get that number up to $3 million.
    Can you tell us whether or not you think more money would be justified for that voluntary——
    Mr. LYMAN. I think more money is needed. And what we have pledged to do—and I know Bill Richardson has made this one of his priorities—is to get more donors to contribute to this fund. We think it is doing an excellent job; it is doing a very important job.

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    We have been substantial contributors. We think others could contribute more. And I know Ambassador Richardson is putting a lot of emphasis on that.
    Mr. SMITH. There is a request for additional money for the ILO, especially the arrearage money, I guess.
    Mr. LYMAN. Yes.
    Mr. SMITH. Would it be your vision and your hope that that money would be used for the eradication of child labor?
    Mr. LYMAN. This is now one of the priorities that the ILO can really go after. And WTO, as you know, is charged by ILO with this. So this is the priority we want to press in the ILO, going after this, which is not only a human rights issue, but it is also a fair trade issue. It is both.
    Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you just a couple of final questions. The U.N.'s credibility is waning, as I indicated earlier, in some quarters of the United States, in part because it spends millions of dollars on things that our own government would never be able to get away with.
    For example, the U.S. Government would never undertake a project that, among its policy deliberations, suggested adding contraceptives to the water supply or adopting the Chinese incentives to family planning—that is, the one-child-per-couple policy—or changing Catholic social teaching by provoking schism within the Catholic church.
    Yet that is exactly what has been done by the Millennium Project of the U.N. University, which receives tens of thousands of dollars, U.S. tax dollars, via support from the UNDP and the Environmental Protection Agency, which it hopes to amass a project endowment of some $30 million.
    Are you familiar with the Millennium Project? And do you support the expenditure of tax dollars for these kinds of things?

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    Mr. LYMAN. We are not direct contributors, as you know, to U.N. University. I am not familiar with the Millennium Project. And I will look into that, counsel, and get back to you.
    Of course, there is a difference between programs and projects that look at, treat, discuss, even propose various actions, and decisions by operational or political bodies in the United Nations to adopt them. And none of the positions that you have mentioned in that project have been adopted by intergovernmental bodies of the United Nations, or, to my knowledge, by any program.
    Mr. SMITH. Although the UNFPA has adopted the one-child policy, and has been its main cheerleader for many, many years.
    Mr. LYMAN. Well, I will look at that. But certainly some of the other things you mentioned I have not seen in any official U.N. decision.
    Mr. SMITH. OK, I would appreciate that. And as much information as you could provide to us for that, because again, we contribute to the United Nations——
    Mr. LYMAN. I will—OK, I knew that. Because we have not been directly involved in U.N. University, but let me check on that Millennium Project for you.
    Mr. SMITH. And we all know that crazy ideas have a way of making their way into the mainstream—and that goes for Congress, as well.
    Let me ask one final question. The Administration's 1998 budget request includes $46.3 million for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the organization that would be charged with administering and enforcing the convention of chemical weapons.
    What elements of the OPCW's mission would have the greatest potential for cost escalation? If the United States ratifies the CWC, what actions can it take to forestall or mitigate significant cost growth? Because I know that is maybe startup money, or are we looking at larger outlays in future years?

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    Mr. LYMAN. This particular request relates largely to startup funds, if we ratify and go forward, as we certainly hope we will.
    It is hard for us to get the longer-term projections. And one of the reasons the President has emphasized ratification before the date in April is that we will be in those discussions, and can do something about the scope and rapidity of costs.
    But at this point, we are not in a position to project them, because the treaty is really just getting itself together. These are our best estimates of startup costs in the first year.
    Mr. SMITH. You know, I do have one final question, then I will yield to my good friend, Mr. Payne. When Assistant Secretary Patrick Kennedy was before us earlier in the month, we had asked him—and he will get back to us, I am sure, very shortly—about the U.S. cost of some $14 million to host an ITU Conference, half to be paid by the state, the other half by the Commerce Department.
    And you might recall the language in the Appropriations Bill last year suggested that the Department exhaust every source of private funding for the Conference, because they are going to be the net beneficiaries, I think we all can agree.
    What has been done to exhaust that avenue of funding? Again, that would free up more money that you could use for other things.
    Mr. LYMAN. There has been extensive discussion with the private sector, and the private sector is going to be contributing a good deal to a trade show that goes on next to this conference.
    What the private sector really cannot do, and should not do, is pay the intergovernmental costs of the conference. Because this is a meeting of the intergovernmental board. And the way these things work is when a country hosts, it pays the incremental costs of moving that meeting from Geneva to wherever the host country is.

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    Now, we think there will be tremendous benefits to the United States. This is a big, big thing in the telecommunications industry. But they cannot pay the intergovernmental costs. And we have been in extensive discussion with them, and we think that what we are putting to the Congress are the intergovernmental costs only, and the private sector will carry all those costs that have to do with trade shows—trade promotion, et cetera.
    Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mr. Payne.
    Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Let me apologize. I had a series of meetings in my office, unanticipated. But I would like to certainly welcome you as you prepare to leave, Secretary Lyman. And I am certainly aware of the outstanding job that you have done in South Africa and other areas in your career, and expect that you will bring that ability into the United Nations.
    I saw a front-page story today—I did not get a chance to read it too well, but it indicated that Secretary General Anond had recommended the elimination, reduction of 1,000 employees, and several millions, number of millions of dollars—I forget the amount of money. But then I saw where the Senate Chairman of the International Relations Committee there was not impressed.
    The reform that is going on, could you just indicate quickly to me what this new proposal was, and what it means in dollars?
    Mr. LYMAN. I think it is a very important step by the Secretary General. There is often confusion between vacancy rates and actual posts.
    What the United Nations has been doing over this current biennium is, with largely an employment freeze, has allowed vacancies to rise. And there are now over a thousand vacancies.
    What the Secretary General is proposing is that when they go into their next biennium budget, which starts on January 1, 1998, they cut the staffing pattern by 1,000. In other words, they are no longer vacancies; those posts no longer exist.

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    And that, to us, is a very significant step. It brings the official employment level of the United Nations, covered by the regular budget, from 10,021 to 9,021. And then if they have a vacancy rate beyond that, it will be below the 9,000 level.
    So this is a major step, and I know that the Secretary General had a lot of opposition within the United Nations to doing it, because those are a lot of jobs that people were counting on. And we think it is an important step. I think when we meet with our Senate friends, I think we will try and explain that eliminating the posts is a very significant step.
    Mr. PAYNE. Yes, I was rather impressed, but was sort of shocked that, as Mr. Helms said, it seems like the same old thing. Now, a 10-percent reduction in a number of positions in one fell swoop, I do not know how that is the same old thing, when the criticism was that the previous Secretary General had not reduced it. Here a person comes up with eliminating a thousand jobs out of 10,000, and they say this is not enough.
    Now, either there is going to be a United Nations or not. And, although it may not be as much as my colleagues over on the Senate side think, I think that it is ludicrous to say that that is not a step in the right direction. It does not make sense at all to me—and let me make it clear, I am saying this—I think that it is a step in the right direction. If you are going to have a limit of 9100, that means that continued vacancies, the process would continue where, if possible, they would not be filled. And those that you can actually move forward without filling would be left unfilled, and therefore you have a lower threshold. I mean, to me it is probably the only way you can go about it.
    But I certainly am very pleased with what I have seen. Of course, my views are usually out of touch with everyone else, because I supported Butros-Butros Ghali for a second term, so, you know, please do not put much stock in what I say.
    Mr. LYMAN. I always put a lot of stock in what you say.
    [Laughter.]

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    Mr. PAYNE. The question in Zaire—I know it might have been touched real quickly, and I am not going to prolong this. If I came on time, I would; I would not feel guilty. But since I came late, I am not going to do it. But about a month ago I went to eastern Zaire and met with Mr. Kabila, and we had a several-hour meeting where we talked about the prospects of elections, and so forth.
    What do you see as the U.N. approach to the situation in Zaire at the present time?
    Mr. LYMAN. Congressman, as you know, the Secretary General did something which I thought was very good. He appointed an envoy who was both the, jointly, the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity envoy, bringing together two international organizations, so we did not have competing envoys.
    Mr. Saknoon is in the area now, and we are, and others, supporting his efforts to bring about a negotiation. A lot of countries are involved. And this goes to what you need the United Nations for. Because when you have so many different countries with sometimes very different interests, one thing they will say is, ''OK, we will support a U.N.-led negotiation.'' And so we are supporting Mr. Saknoon.
    There is a meeting tomorrow in Nairobi, which he is helping to organize, and President Moi is organizing, to bring together some of the leaders of the region and try and set the stage for negotiation.
    It is tricky. It is difficult, because there is no cease-fire on the ground, and it is hard to organize one. Mr. Saknoon has laid out a five-point plan that includes a cease-fire, but that has not been accepted by both sides.
    But we think that you have to get a negotiation under way; you have to get a structure or a transitional structure in place; and then you have to move to elections in Zaire. There is no other peaceful way to bring about an end to this conflict. And we are working, and others are working on this, but we are trying to work in conjunction with the U.N. envoy.

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    Mr. PAYNE. While we were there, before going in and meeting with Mr. Kabila, we met with Mr. Moi, who had gone on to see Mr. Mobuto earlier. We met with Mr. Kugami in Rwanda, and we spent a lot of time with President M'Sivini in Uganda, all of them concerning the Great Lakes Region.
    Now, the United Nations seems to have a plan, that is the French Peace Plan, that would attempt to move into elections under the Mobuto regime. When we met with Mr. Kabila, he made it very clear that he did not, he would certainly like to participate in elections—and this was long before he moved as far as he had—said he would be willing to end the fighting, but that there was no way that the current Mobuto Government, which he considered an illegal government, could be the government to run the elections.
    Now, it seems that the United Nations or the French Plan would be—and, of course, he certainly had some comments about the French—but the plan would be that the current Administration would run the elections. And that, if I were a person who 30 years had been out in the bush against the current regime, I would be a little reluctant to allow the Mobuto regime to conduct, even though it would be supervised by international organizations. I would be reluctant to participate in an election that is being managed by the current government.
    Is there any thought about attempting to see if some, if a new government, if some new players, if some people other than Mobuto's hand-picked people, who are in the government administration now, if there could be some other group that—and how this group would be selected, I have no idea. But I could understand the reluctance of participating, therefore, in elections by the current Mobuto Government.
    Have you all thought about that?
    Mr. LYMAN. The original election plan, actually the plan for elections in Zaire preceded the civil war. So it was underway and talked about, and there was a lot of work going on with the Government of Zaire, to plan. The United Nations had been out there, and others. So that election plan had its origins in a very different political situation than exists today.

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    Without trying to project what might be the outcome of the kind of negotiations that are now being proposed, I think we really can have elections without a consensus among the major parties as to how those elections would be carried out. I am not sure what modalities they would reach, but obviously plans that were made under very different circumstances would have to be reevaluated under the new circumstances.
    Mr. PAYNE. Well, I guess I should end my line of questioning. But the elections in Liberia, I think Cote D'Ivoire and Guinea are not allowing the Liberian refugees in their countries of asylum to vote. Have the United Nations urged them to allow—there are 750,000 of them, you know, outside the country. And it would be unfair if they were not allowed to vote. Has that question been brought up? And is there any pressure being brought to bear, or could it be handled by the United Nations to let the people in exile participate in the election?
    Mr. LYMAN. There is still resistance. We continue to raise that question for the very reasons that you have raised. And want those countries to reconsider that point.
    Trying to get all the people back across the border to be able to vote in time for the election might be almost impossible. And if there was going to be a run-off, you would have to do it twice.
    Mr. PAYNE. Right.
    Mr. LYMAN. So we are continuing to pursue that question, although up to this point it is my understanding those countries are still resisting.
    Mr. PAYNE. Yes, we understand that, I guess the prognostication from those countries is that the vote might be anti-Taylor, and both of these countries seem to be sort of pro-Taylor, is one of the notions that is going around. But I would hope that we could urge, and I have even sent a letter to our Administration asking them if they could exert some pressure. As a matter of fact, every Member of the Congressional Black Caucus signed a letter last week, and we sent it off on Friday, to urge that the Liberians in exile really be allowed to participate in their right to vote where they are.

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    I could go on, but I do not think it is fair. And I will yield back the balance of my time.
    Mr. LYMAN. I just might say, Congressman, we will keep you informed on this. You know Ambassador Jeter is our Special Envoy on this, and I will make sure you get the information you need.
    Mr. PAYNE. Thank you.
    Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Payne. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for your testimony. We look forward to hearing back from you on some of those questions that were raised, that really do require an additional response. And I look forward to working with you as we move into U.N. reform and other related issues. And I thank you again for coming.
    The hearing is adjourned.
    Mr. LYMAN. Thank you very much.
    [Whereupon, at 3:23 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

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