Posted on 05/26/2005 8:12:37 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. member nations debated ways Thursday to help countries build peaceful, stable societies once conflict subsides, and mulled over one key obstacle to getting there: a lack of cash.
Speakers at the discussion at the U.N. Security Council noted that it's comparatively easy to get world attention and money for a region when a conflict rages. But once the violence abates, the world often turns away from the slow, difficult task of restoring a society to normalcy.
"If the international community is not able to act swiftly, the fragile peace is at risk, with loss of more lives as a consequence," said Denmark's Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller, whose country holds the council presidency and who led the debate.
Member nations who spoke - there were 36 scheduled to do so - focused on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposal for a new U.N. Peacebuilding Commission that would help win the peace in post-conflict countries.
The commission was one of the many reform proposals Annan announced in March as part of his bid to push through some of the most sweeping changes in the U.N.'s 60-year history. Its chief mission would be looking after conflict areas once the Security Council moved on to other matters.
Diplomats say the idea of the commission is one of the few reform proposals that has wide support. Yet Thursday's debate underscored just how differently many nations envision the shape the commission will eventually take.
U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said the United States wants the commission to advise other U.N. bodies and agencies on steps to take.
"It is vital that such a commission include in its membership both those with the most at stake and those with the most to contribute," Patterson said.
There was a recognition that the current system isn't working.
Speakers repeatedly mentioned Haiti, the impoverished Caribbean nation where U.N. peacekeepers have deployed for the second time in 10 years. And they cited evidence suggesting that about half of all conflicts that are ended resume once again.
"An organization such as ours, set up to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, must improve this record," Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette said.
A central problem with building peace has been cash.
Unlike U.N. peacekeeping missions, which are funded by stable, mandatory contributions from U.N. states, peacebuilding mostly gets its funding in voluntary donations.
Funding has become particularly pressing because assessments for peacekeeping have spiked to more than $5 billion overall in 2005 with new missions in Sudan, Ivory Coast, Haiti and Burundi.
Nations expressed concern about how much additional financial responsibility the member states would take on if a peacebuilding commission is set up.
Major contributors like the United States and Japan, which pay the most to the U.N. budget, fear the peacebuilding commission would demand much more funding from them.
At the same time, sometimes voluntary contributions take too long to get to societies that need them most, necessitating the need for a standing fund that could dispense cash quickly, other ambassadors said.
The Security Council circulated a draft presidential statement, agreed to in advance by members, which underscored the need for nations themselves to bear chief responsibility for attaining lasting peace.
On the proposed Peacebuilding Commission, the council noted the "important role this body could play to bridge the gap" between maintaining peace and revitalizing a society ravaged by conflict.
How about they just kill the troublemakers?
Screw the UN.
Hey, guess what? There IS no "international community."
A world tax is what they've wanted all along...in lieu of or in conjunction with total redistribution of resources and wealth.
Place the UN in charge of the money to support these new nations. I mean--they did so well with oil for food.
If they charge a world tax, they will be out of the U.S.
Our country was founded because of illegitimate taxation.
Ugh! As if they haven't amassed a huge fortune by asking for donations to rebuild after the tsunami. Not only that, think of all the charity benefits the libs/Hollywood crowd does in the name of helping the less fortunate. Where does all that money go I wonder? The UN is not broke I assure you!
We need to get out of the UN immediately!
Throw them out of New York while you're at it, but not until they pay every dime they owe for parking tickets, the scofflaw deadbeat chiselers!
Are these people really as stupid as they sound or just inherently corrupt? A way to peace is through building with and developing people with moral characters and clear principles. Giving people handouts does NOTHING to help individuals build such qualities, in fact they actually have the opposite effect. So either the UN and it's ilk are either the stupidest people to ever inhabit the earth or they see more money they can steal by keeping people TRULY oppressed through the despair and moral poverty....IMHO
Yeah, how will these non-0American nitwits collect from us, huh? I'd like to see them try it.
America first. Only America matters, screw the "international community".
How many ICBM's do THEY have?
Dear UN,
Kiss my buttocks, socialist pigs!
Sincerely,
VPINTHEAK
Hey just go to war with the US. We'll rebuild them. Like we have everybody else.
"How about they just kill the troublemakers?"
Works for me. How 'bout the USA offers to MOAB any depraved tin-pot bloody dictator from Zimbabwe to Iran?? [we retain final discretion in who, where, what, when, etc. but we offer our helpful services to the cause of UN Peacebuilding]
"fear the peacebuilding commission would demand much more funding from them."
No need to fear. That they will expect the US to pay the most is a given
"mulled over one key obstacle to getting there: a lack of cash."
---HAHAHAHAHAH! This one cracked me up!!!!!!!!
Why is every obstacle for the UN a lack of cash? :)
The kleptocrats at the UN will not give up untill the USA is under their complete control. We must never allow this to happen. Our universities are teaching their students that the only hope for the world is through the UN and a one world govt. (a Marxist one world order). This is the most important fight the world, and freedom faces. Conservatives are the last hope to defeat the forces of Marxist domination.
I'm not kidding.
And cheese-eating surrender monkeys. And continents that start world wars.
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