SUNS  4307 Thursday 22 October 1998


UNITED STATES: CLINTON HOLDS LINE ON FOREIGN AID

Washington, Oct 20 (IPS/Jim Lobe) -- President Bill Clinton, despite his failure to clear U.S. arrears to the United Nations, has held the line on foreign aid in his $500 billion spending bill.

Barring any last minute hitch, the bill is set for Congressional approval Wednesday. Clinton will receive all of the $17.9 billion he requested for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - his top
foreign economic priority for 1998 - and appears to have done well in securing other key accounts which Republicans had resisted funding.

Defying expectations, Clinton got the Republican Congressional leadership to clear all U.S. arrears to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and to provide most of a $155 million request for
the African Development Fund (AfDF).

"Apart from the U.N. arrears and money for (the UN Population Fund) UNFPA, we got nearly everything we wanted," a senior State Department official told IPS. "We a really can't complain too much, considering how much Republicans wanted to cut."

Not counting the money for the IMF, the 1999 U.S. foreign aid bill will total about 13.2 billion dollars - slightly above the 1998 level.

While this is about half the amount in real terms provided by Washington in foreign aid in 1985, it is about 700 million dollars - or 5.5 percent - more than the levels approved by the Republican-led Congress when final negotiations began last week.

For example, the House of Representatives and the Senate approved only $42.5 million and $47.5 million, respectively, for the GEF, a Washington-based multilateral agency which provides grants to
developing countries for fighting global environmental problems, such as global warming, ozone depletion, and ocean pollution.

Because of Congressional indifference or hostility to the agency - the only concrete programme to emerge from the 1992 'Earth Summit' in Rio de Janeiro - Washington had fallen behind in its dues during the past three years, worth more than $192 million.

GEF officials believed they had virtually no hope of recouping the money but surprisingly, the White House persuaded Congress to pay all the arrears. It was unsuccessful, however, in getting the
Republicans to agree add another $107.5 million as the first US instalment of GEF's second replenishment, which begins next year.

A U.S. Treasury official also hailed as a "major breakthrough" the agreement to provide $128 million of a $155 million White House request for the AfDF Fund to which Washington has provided only
about $45 million over the last four years.

Clinton also succeeded in getting about $30 million more than Congress was willing to provide for de-mining operations abroad ($198 million) and for Washington's voluntary contributions to the
United Nations and other international organisations ($292 million).

Of the latter, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) is earmarked for $105 million, while the balance will be divided up other agencies, of which the UN Development Programme (UNDP) will receive the most.

Washington, which historically has picked UNDP's chief, is engaged in a battle with the European Union (EU) to retain that power when the current administrator, James Gustave Speth, is expected to step down early next year. U.S. contributions to the agency are likely to determine the outcome, according to State Department officials.

Clinton also got $922 million out of a request of $930.7 million for the assessed contributions to the United Nations and its specialised agencies for 1999, as well as all $231 million he had requested for UN peacekeeping operations. And he received all $35 million he had requested to provide heating oil for North Korea as part of a multinational deal to replace Pyongyang's indigenous
nuclear programme - which Washington believed was designed to produce nuclear weapons - with safer nuclear reactors financed and built by Japan and South Korea.

House Republicans rejected Clinton's request last month amid concerns about Pyongyang's compliance with the deal and its recent launch of a three-stage ballistic missile. But the White House pried the money loose on condition that Clinton certify that North Korea is making progress towards ending its nuclear and missile programmes.

Still, officials here and at the United Nations in New York could not hide their general disappointment over Clinton's failure to get any money to begin clearing almost $900 million owed to the United Nations as well as any of the $25 million he had requested for UNFPA, $5 million more than Washington provided last year.

The reason for both failures was "abortion politics." Anti-abortion forces, which accuse China of using coercive population-control methods, including abortion, have long tied funding for UNFPA to the agency's operations in China. The Republican leadership refused to go along with additional funding next year because, in their words, the agency is "starting new programmes in China."

The failure to fund UNFPA for the first time since 1992, drew fire from a coalition of population and environmental groups who argued that the decision will actually result in more abortions abroad.

"The UNFPA is in no way connected to abortion," Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York said Tuesday. "It provides health care counselling and contraception to women who otherwise remain ignorant about their own health as well as that of their children."

The same forces that oppose UNFPA also have vowed to condition any attempt to pay Washington's U.N. arrears on banning American funds for any overseas organisation pushing their governments to ease anti-abortion laws. Clinton has vowed to veto any legislation which included such a condition.

The result has been impasse, with neither side getting its way. Under last week's agreement, 1999 population funding will be limited to $385 million, the same amount as last year.

The bill includes $475 million for U.N. arrears but provides that Clinton can spend it only if he signs a pending authorization bill which includes the objectionable curbs on population funding, as
well as several reforms which Republican want the world body to implement. Clinton has said he will veto the authorization bill.

Under Article 19 of the UN Charter, member-states which accumulate two years of arrears lose their vote in the General Assembly. But U.S. and U.N. officials say that the administration has worked out
a way to use existing and new funds to pay enough by the end of the year to avoid that fate.

"But they won't be able to do that this time next year," according to a senior UN official. "They've got to get the (the money) next year."

Most observers, however, believe that will be tough, particularly if, as expected, Republicans increase their ranks in Congress as a result of the November mid-term elections.