Richard C. Holbrooke

Speech of Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

Tuesday, February 22, 2000

     I'd also like to thank Bill and Ike Belk for inviting me here today, and Ronnie Pruett, for organizing this exciting event.

     As you all know, I live and work in New York, and it is not often enough that I get the opportunity to enjoy true southern hospitality. And so being here today, in the heart of North Carolina, is a real treat for me, and I am grateful for this opportunity.

     Last month, I was able to show Senator Helms a little "New York hospitality" which, despite what you may think, is not a contradiction in terms. The Senator and members of his committee, as well as Senator John Warner, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, came to the UN during the Security Council presidency of the United States. It was an unprecedented event that did more for our relationship with the United Nations than anyone could have possibly imagined.

     Senator Helms' visit has helped usher in a new era of mutual understanding between the United States and its nearly 190 UN partners. By engaging the other UN members in an open and candid discussion, he demonstrated that differences in opinion should not be mistaken for differences in purpose. He demonstrated that partisanship should, in fact, stop at the water's edge (in this case we're talking about New York's East River). And he demonstrated that it is indeed "O.K." to hate the sins but not the sinner. Senator Helms' visit to New York was good for the United Nations, and more importantly, it was good for the United States. And again, I thank him for that.

     In his speech before the Security Council, Chairman Helms expressed his hope that the occasion would mark a new beginning between the United States and the United Nations. He said that we should work toward a future where America's role in the United Nations, and the nature of America's global leadership, can be discussed in an atmosphere of friendship and understanding. And although Senator Helms and the Administration do not always agree on every issue, I couldn't agree more with this sentiment.

     Senator Helms also said that all of us — the Congress, the Clinton Administration, and most importantly, the American people -want the UN to succeed. Here, again, I share his sentiment. And I am sure that everybody in this room shares it too, because central to the Rotary Club's long and distinguished history has been a close, cooperative relationship with the United Nations.

     The Rotarian world view is an internationalist world view that recognizes the need for a strong, bipartisan American foreign policy, and recognizes that the United Nations - as the most universal of all international organizations — is a fundamental instrument of that foreign policy.

     As a group which was present at the founding of the United Nations and which has maintained an active relationship with it ever since, you know that America should not - and can not — afford to turn its back on the organization. Through your years of hard work with the UN, you know that the organization can be - and often is — an instrument of positive change. This is true whether we're talking about polio vaccinations or AIDS awareness or food production or any number of activities with which Rotary International has worked hand-in-hand, side-by-side with the United Nations. And it's true whether we're talking about the Congo or Sierra Leone or the former Yugoslavia or any of the approximately 160 countries in which Rotary Clubs exist.

     For over half-a-century, Rotary International has worked in close coordination with the UN, and for over half-a-century, the UN has been an important part of American diplomacy and American national security.

     But during the last decade, the role of the U.S. in the UN has been the subject of an intense and bitter debate. Many Americans lost confidence in the United Nations. In fact, during the 1995 Dayton peace negotiations, the UN was held in such low esteem that, as our nation's chief negotiator at Dayton, I did not even allow the U.N. to send a representative to the negotiations. And only four years ago, during the 1996 presidential campaign, you'll recall that the U.S. role in the UN was extremely politicized. The Republican candidate, a man for whom I have high respect and admire greatly, drew some of his biggest applause lines by criticizing the UN and the then Secretary General. To borrow a phrase from one of my predecessors as UN Ambassador, Senator Pat Moynihan, in the eyes of most Americans, the UN had become a truly dangerous place.

     The problems essentially began a decade ago, as Soviet communism crumbled and there was a period of great hope for the United Nations. The Soviet veto — which had stymied the UN from reaching its full potential during the Cold War — was heading toward history's dustbin, and the organization had a tremendous opportunity to fulfill the vision of Roosevelt, Churchill and Vandenberg. It was this sense of hope and opportunity that was dramatically displayed by the UN coalition to put down Iraq's aggression in the Gulf War (which was the first time the superpowers stood side-by-side in the Security Council to condemn and fight a regional threat).

     In the wake of the success in the Gulf, the number of UN peacekeeping operations went through the roof. In the organization's first forty years, the Security Council authorized only 13 missions. But from 1988 to 1998, the Security Council authorized 36 peacekeeping missions. In 1988, less than 10,000 UN peacekeepers were deployed in only a few places, primarily to patrol ceasefires. By 1994, the UN had 80,000 peacekeepers involved in 17 missions.

     At the same time, the very nature of peacekeeping began to change. For most of its history, UN peacekeeping worked to quell conflict between states. Over the past decade, UN peacekeeping has had to grapple a more difficult, far more complex challenge: to support peace within states, where the UN faces not established governments and leaders, but warlords, criminal thugs, gangsters and ethnic leaders fuelled by opportunism and hate. The U.N. was simply not up to the job.

     This precipitous expansion and transformation of UN peacekeeping led to five events that poisoned the U.S.-UN relationship, and to my mind, almost destroyed it. The first three were the disasters in Somalia in 1993, Rwanda in 1994, and Bosnia during 1992-1995. These three peacekeeping failures led to horrific human tragedies and were a stunning set-back to the post-Cold War international system. They were the direct consequence of an unprepared and overstretched UN; a UN that had extremely puzzling and confused command and control arrangements; a UN that undertook missions which exceeded the political will or financial support of its member-states.

     The blowback from these first three tragedies was crystallized by two other events in the United States: the 1994 midterm congressional elections and the battle over the U.S. debt to the United Nations. A new post-war generation of politicians came to Washington, many of whom were skeptical (and some utterly hostile) to the UN, and wanted to downgrade America's role in it. This series of events - Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and the 1994 elections — led to the fifth and final event: the arrears struggle, when the U.S., for reasons we do not need to revisit tonight, was unable to pay its dues to the UN and mounted over one billion in back bills.

     The combined effect of these five events — Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, the 1994 elections and the arrears struggle — nearly brought the UN system down. Without the United States' support and active engagement, the UN was heading toward becoming little more than the ill-fated League of Nations.

     This slide had to be stopped. And to this end, the Clinton Administration began working doggedly with Chairman Helms, Senator Biden, and their colleagues in the Congress to rebuild America's trust in the UN and revitalize our commitment to making it work better. We had to restore faith in the idea that despite the UN's many flaws, it remained indispensable to advancing America's national interests.

     Our first and most important order of business was to forge an agreement between the Administration and the Congress on the arrears issue. With a commitment to pay back nearly $1 billion in arrearages — contingent on the UN implementing reforms outlined by the Helms-Biden legislation — we've taken a major step in the right direction. In fact, this agreement was the crucial event in rebuilding a new, bipartisan consensus for American engagement in the UN. And there was no symbol of this more dramatic than the presence of the senior Senator from North Carolina, Chairman Helms, along with many of his colleagues from the Senate and House, at the United Nations January.

     But what was most remarkable was that after Senator Helms' speech, all 14 Security Council Ambassadors responded. One by one, they said how important it was that he had come, how important it was to have an active U.S. in the UN, and how they had honest disagreements with some of his views. This was something that, to be frank, happens all too rarely in the Security Council — there was a genuine exchange of ideas. They were as candid with Senator Helms as he was with them.

     This was the beginning of a conversation that had been put off far too long. Many of my UN colleagues - not just the 14 ambassadors on the Security Council — came to us afterwards and said that they had a much better understanding of how American democracy worked, and of Congress' vital role in making foreign policy. Again, Mr. Chairman, your visit helped the UN Ambassadors understand that the U.S. is trying to turn a new page in its relations with the UN.

     It's critically important that Senators Helms, Biden and their distinguished colleagues — Senators Rod Grams, Chuck Hagel, Russ Feingold, and John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with many other members of the Senate and over 30 members of the House, have all been to New York and all visited the United Nations in the last six to eight weeks. In my 37 years in and out of government, this has been the most intensive congressional consultative process I've ever been involved with. The fact that all of these Members of Congress have come to New York, in this, an election year, speaks volumes about what's happening to the UN. It's no longer politically radioactive. As The New York Times wrote after this visit, it's safe for politicians to be seen at the UN again.

     So, we have seen a dramatic change over the last four years, especially the last four to five months, and I hope future historians will be able to say that this period marked the start of a new era in U.S.-UN relations, ending a painful five-year nightmare in this critical relationship.

     By all indications, America's confidence in the UN appears to be back. And America's relationship with the United Nations appears to be back on track.

     But if this is to be a real turning point, if this is truly to be a new beginning for a new consensus for a revitalized U.S.-UN relationship, the UN must meet the twin challenges of reform and peacekeeping. The coming months will be critical on both fronts. The United States has made clear it will be there to help, but genuine change requires the political will of everyone in the UN system.

     Again, as Senator Helms noted, we all want the UN to succeed.

     Thank you.