U.N. panel to look at changes

Press, 26 May 1984, Page 10

U.N. panel to look at changes

NZPA-‘N.Y. Times’ Paris U.N.E.S.C.O.’s 51-nation executive board appointed a special committee to draft proposals for changes in how the agency functions. The move came in the aftermath of the United States announcement that it will withdraw unless the organisation curbs what the Reagan Administration regards as politically objectionable activities. In drawing up its plan yesterday the 13-member committee was specifically mandated to consider criticisms levelled at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation by the United States when it decided to leave, and by Britain, which has given a warning that it will reconsider its own membership at the end of this year unless there are big changes in the way the organisation operates.

The new committee will present its plan to the next meeting of the executive board, in September. President Ronald Reagan has said that the United States Vrill reconsider its decision to withdraw at the end of this year only if U.N.E.S.C.O. agrees to significant changes in its orientation. This means curbing such programmes as those that would encourage Government control of the press or promote governmental rights at the expense of personal freedom. The United States is also seeking new spending limits and what it regards as better management techniques. Given the composition of the special committee, which reflects the balance of power inside U.N.E.S.C.O. as well as the widely differing positions taken by delegates on the need for changes, it appears that the

panel will find it difficult to agree on changes acceptable to the United States. The Western members of U.N.E.5.C.0., which generally agree on the need for change, are represented by Britain, one of the strongest advocates of change, as well as by Iceland, Japan, and France, which was given a special seat as host country to the world body. But the remaining committee members, who make up a majority, are drawn from the Third World and the Soviet bloc, which favour better management at U.N.E.S.C.O. but generally support its more controversial political activities. The countries chosen to consider changes are the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Tunisia, India, Brazil, Jamaica, Guinea, and Nigeria. The Soviet delegate, Yakov Ostrovsky, said that

he had “no illusions” about the usefulness of the new committee. Needed changes in U.N.E.5.C.0., he said, could adequately be prepared by a series of internal working groups, which the agency’s director-general, Mr Amadou-Mahtar M’bow, of Senegal, has said that he will create to draw up a separate plan. Mr M’bow has also said several times during the two-week executive board session that U.N.E.S.C.O. activities already approved by a general conference in October cannot be altered in any way. In general terms, Mr M’bow and his supporters in the Third World and the Soviet bloc appear to want to limit any changes to relatively minor administrative steps and avoid moves that would alter U.N.E.S.C.O.’s fundamental orientation. Another bad omen for the

advocates of change, according to Western diplomats, was the executive board’s failure to reach a “consensus” on two other resolutions before it. Third World and Soviet-bloc countries, supported by France and Greece, forced through a resolution regretting the United States decision to withdraw in implicitly critical terms. Another Western resolution urging U.N.E.S.C.O. to concentrate resources on priority educational, cultural, and scientific areas and set aside disputed programmes was rejected. Normally, U.N.E.S.C.O. tries to proceed by consensus, trying to reach unanimous decisions acceptable to everyone. But its failure to do so yesterday was widely seen by Western diplomats as a sign that ideological divisions may be deepening.