Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 22, 1995                   TAG: 9510230137
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TERRY ATLAS CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

AT 50, U.N. FEELS WOE OF MIDLIFE

Born amid the ruins of World War II and maturing with the Cold War's end, the United Nations begins its second half-century hobbled by a financial crisis, bureaucratic fat, and midlife doubts about achieving its lofty ambitions.

Kings, presidents and prime ministers from more than 150 nations flew here Saturday to take part in three days of gala festivities at U.N. headquarters. But, said French foreign minister Herve de Charette, ``We cannot hide from the fact that the celebration ... will not be as joyful and as optimistic as we would have liked.''

President Clinton kicks off the historic gathering this morning with a speech hailing the U.N.'s past efforts but also urging it to shape up.

He will be followed in the General Assembly hall by such leaders as Russia's Boris Yeltsin, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Jordan's King Hussein and the PLO's Yasser Arafat, who reflect the often divergent politics and passions that are both the U.N.'s strength and its weakness.

Though the tributes to the United Nations will flow as liberally as the champagne at black-tie evening receptions, the reality is quite different.

The U.N.'s finances are a mess, in large part because the U.S. lags in paying its share of the bills - more than $1 billion. Failures in Bosnia and Somalia, as well as inaction in Rwanda, have starkly exposed the limits of U.N. peacemaking. And a bloated, often unresponsive bureaucracy leaves even U.N. supporters sputtering in frustration.

``During the years of Cold War neglect, the U.N. bureaucracy grew to elephantine proportions,'' remarked Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. ``Now, in the absence of Cold War divisions, we have been asking that elephant to do gymnastics.''

The U.N. Charter, which entered into force Oct. 24, 1945, gave the world body what now seems the impossibly ambitious task of maintaining international peace and easing global suffering.

It has accomplished much in helping to end colonialism and apartheid, slow the arms race, aid refugees, eliminate disease and further human rights. But that is often overshadowed by the shortcomings of an organization mired in bureaucracy, hindered by the conflicting aims of its member nations and denied the resources needed for its assigned tasks.

The current financial crisis is so severe that Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali is pulling out troops from Bosnia, where peacekeeping operations are costing $5 million a day, and is warning he will begin shutting down some U.N. operations if member countries don't soon pay the more than $3 billion they owe.

``There is not enough cash to pay for what we have to do,'' Boutros-Ghali complained a few days ago.

The regular U.N. budget for its 14,000 secretariat employees is about $1.2 billion a year, or about a third the size of the city of Chicago's budget. U.N. peacekeeping costs, with some 60,000 troops in the field, exceeded $3 billion last year, largely because of the Balkan operation, which had 40,000 peacekeeping troops.

Starting this month, under 1993 legislation, the United States is unilaterally reducing its share of U.N. peacekeeping expenses from 31 percent to 25 percent, in line with Washington's 25 percent share of the regular U.N. budget.

But Congress, reflecting the budget crunch and Republican hostility toward the United Nations, isn't coming up even with that much.

The United States, the biggest delinquent, owes about $1.3 billion. The Clinton administration calculates the U.S. debt as closer to $1 billion but, even so, appropriations bills awaiting final action in Congress fall short of meeting this year's U.N. obligations, much less the outstanding debts.

The White House had hoped that the president would be able to give some new assurance about U.N. funding in his speech, but officials said they have been unable to work out a deal with Congress.

Clinton recently told an audience at Freedom House, a human rights group, that he is uneasy about going to the New York gathering as the ``biggest piker'' in the United Nations. ``I will go give this speech, and they will say, `Thank you very much, Mr. President. Where's your billion dollars?''' he said.