UN Official Pleads for US Support, Dues

The United Nations needs and deserves both America's support and its unpaid dues, a senior UN official told an audience of 80 at the Yenching Auditorium last night.

Shashi Tharoor--the UN's director of communication and special projects, and a senior aide to Secretary-General Kofi Annan--was scheduled to speak on "The United Nations in the New Millennium," but instead, as he freely admitted to his audience, he chose to focus on the current state of the organization.

More specifically, the Indian diplomat concentrated his efforts on debunking what he considers myths about the UN, painting the multinational body as more efficient and effective than many Americans believe.

Many editorial columnists, said Tharoor, think "the letters UN stand for 'unproductive nuisance.'"

"What's the difference between Jurassic Park and the UN?" he asked the crowd, repeating a joke he said he once heard.

"One is a theme park run by dinosaurs," he said, "and one is a Hollywood movie."

On the contrary, Tharoor argued, the UN has done many things that few people in America know about--from regulating air travel to ridding the world of smallpox to preserving tourist attractions throughout the world.

And the organization, with 188 member-nations, has been successful in bringing peace and democracy to a number of countries throughout the world--such as Mozambique and El Salvador.

But Tharoor said the organization only receives attention for its diplomatic failures, leading many Americans, particularly those in positions of power in Washington, D.C., to be vocal critics of the UN.

"It's good to confront the negative stereotypes head-on," he said.

For instance, said Tharoor, the notion that the UN is a huge bureaucracy is untrue.

The UN employs, in total, about 51,000 people--1,000 less than the number employed by The Walt Disney Company, he said.

Another stereotype is the idea that the UN is not cost-effective. To resolve the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the UN spent money equal to the value of two tankers worth of crude oil, he said.

Throughout his speech, Tharoor stressed the need for the United States to pay the $1 billion it owes in unpaid UN dues.

Not only is the United States the "only developed country to get a break" in UN dues--its dues are capped at 25 percent even though it constitutes 29 percent of the world economy--but the placement of the UN headquarters in New York City pumps $3.2 billion into the American economy each year.

There is a deep ideological belief in Washington, said Tharoor, in "U.S. exceptionalism," and therefore, in "U.S. unilateralism."

Though he disagrees, Tharoor said he understands the belief.

"Where you stand depends on where you sit," he said.

But Tharoor, who has worked for the UN for over 20 years--ever since he received his Ph.D from Tufts at the age of 22--maintained that although he thinks some of the American critiques of the UN are on target, it is necessary to support the UN more, not less.

After all, he said, "it is better to have representatives bore each other to death than shoot each other to death."

Students had mixed reactions to Tharoor's presentation.

Kishan Putta, a student at the Kennedy School of Government, called Tharoor "a really good spokesman for the UN."

"He addressed criticisms [of the UN] and turned them on their head very nimbly," he said.

But Huma Yusef '02, while she called Tharoor "very eloquent," said she was disappointed by the rudimentary level of the speech, citing the sophistication of many members of the heavily international audience with regard to UN issues.

"Some of the people here are laughing," she said after the speech.