Under Fire

By Michael S. Serrill

THE POST OF U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL MAY WELL BE ONE OF THE world's most thankless jobs. Whoever holds it is somehow expected to do the impossible: calm crises around the world, search for compromise among a welter of contending national agendas, enforce international agreements -- and do it all with seemingly never sufficient resources.

Despite those challenges, when Javier Perez de Cuellar prepared to leave the office in late 1991, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egypt's Deputy Prime Minister and one of the world's better-known diplomats, lobbied hard to be his successor. Boutros-Ghali, now 70, had ambitious ideas -- foremost among them the desire to reshape the cumbersome, inefficient organization and deal aggressively with the problems of a world reinventing itself after the cold war. The U.N. seemed to be the beacon for a new planetary order; he was confident he could lead it in that direction.

A year after taking office, Boutros-Ghali will not admit to disappointment, but it is evident that his ambitions to help shape the architecture of a new world order have run into trouble. Under his stewardship, the U.N. has dramatically expanded its peacekeeping mandate -- only to find itself stymied, even rejected, on several of its recent initiatives. Though the Secretary- General acts at the behest of the Security Council, he is being saddled with much of the blame. Rightly or wrongly, the Secretary-General has, in ^ effect, become the lightning rod for dissatisfaction with the U.N. and, more generally, for widespread frustration at the way in which nationalist ambitions and ethnic hostilities are threatening to convert the desired new world order into the very opposite. Never mind that the U.N., for all its good intentions, lacks the military force, political leverage, perhaps even the moral suasion to fulfill its expanded mandate.

The pressures on Boutros-Ghali and the U.N. were evident in the scene that unfolded on a freezing New Year's Eve in Sarajevo, his first stop on a tour of peacekeeping trouble spots. When the Secretary-General declared that he was bringing desperate and besieged Bosnians a "message of hope" that peace would come soon, demonstrators jeered and spat at him. Climbing into an armored car, Boutros-Ghali was pursued by one Sarajevan who pushed his face against a window and screamed, "Murderer! Murderer!"

The reception was no friendlier at his next stop, Mogadishu. The Secretary- General was forced to flee to a U.S. Marine compound after U.N. headquarters was surrounded by a raucous mob that hurled rocks and garbage. When Boutros-Ghali traveled on to Addis Ababa for the opening of peace talks among Somali faction leaders, Ethiopian demonstrators gathered to protest alleged U.N. support for the secession of the province of Eritrea.

Among the most difficult obstacles ahead on the course for Boutros-Ghali:

--THE BALKANS. In Geneva the latest U.N.-sponsored effort to find a diplomatic solution to the war in Bosnia is stalled, and is likely to remain so in the wake of last week's brutal assassination of a Bosnian Deputy Prime Minister by Serb gunmen. In the meantime, 23,000 blue-helmeted U.N. troops are deployed on a peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia, their purpose more uncertain by the day. Some 16,000 are assigned to keep Serbs and Croats apart in Croatia; the remainder are occupied with ferrying food and supplies to Sarajevo and other beleaguered towns in Bosnia. So far, the U.N. presence in Bosnia has done nothing to stop the fighting and little to relieve the suffering of Bosnians, who are still dying from shelling, sniper fire, hunger and intense cold. Says one European diplomat familiar with the Yugoslav morass: "What we've seen in Yugoslavia isn't peacekeeping, peacemaking or peace enforcing. It's been a case of watching as peace deteriorates." Despite pessimistic signs, Boutros-Ghali predicts an end to the fighting in Bosnia this year.

--SOMALIA. The decision by the U.S. and some of its allies to deploy up to 30,000 troops underlined the failure of U.N. peacekeeping efforts in that shattered country. Some 500 Pakistani troops had been sent to Somalia under U.N. auspices beginning in September, three months before U.S. forces arrived to support food distribution, but they never got beyond the main Mogadishu airport. Since the landing of U.S.-led units, U.N. officials have concentrated on trying to work out a peace agreement among the dozen competing factions. Clan chieftains have now agreed to convene a full-fledged peace conference in Addis Ababa in March.

--CAMBODIA. The U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia is spending $2 billion to run the country until elections can be held in May. So far, the 20,000 U.N. personnel, including soldiers, police and civilian administrators, can claim only partial success. Registration for the election has proceeded apace, but last week Prince Norodom Sihanouk, whose political participation is essential to any settlement, washed his hands of the U.N. effort, charging that the peacekeepers had failed to protect opposition leaders organizing for the elections. At the same time, the Khmer Rouge have become increasingly brazen in defying the U.N., refusing orders to disarm, even taking U.N. personnel hostage in an effort at intimidation.

--EL SALVADOR. The conservative government of President Alfredo Cristiani failed to fulfill a U.N.-brokered agreement to remove 100 alleged assassins, torturers and other human-rights violators from the upper ranks of the armed forces by last Dec. 31; to date, only 23 have been cashiered. Cristiani contends that carrying out the agreement, part of a delicate balancing act to end a decade of civil war, could endanger national stability, and has proposed a delay until 1994. Rebel leaders have reacted cautiously; they are relying on the U.N. to enforce the strictures of the peace accord. "The Secretary- General is responsible for the entire process," says former guerrilla leader Ana Guadalupe Martinez. "If this fails, the U.N.'s reputation will be left seriously damaged."

--ANGOLA. The U.N. is blamed for having failed to insist on the disarmament of the UNITA rebel movement in Angola before U.N.-organized elections were held last September to end that country's 16-year civil war. As a result, UNITA head Jonas Savimbi reacted to his first-round election loss to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos by renewing the fighting.

The Secretary-General and his supporters point out -- correctly -- that success or failure of U.N. peacekeeping is utterly dependent on the good faith of contesting parties, and that the organization can only rely on persuasion if the parties balk. Moreover, Boutros-Ghali notes, the tide of criticism reflects something positive, namely the U.N.'s new assertiveness: "The reaction against the United Nations everywhere in the world shows that at last the U.N. is being active."

Since 1988 the U.N. has launched 14 peacekeeping operations -- compared with just 13 in the previous 40 years. The latest such venture will send 7,500 peacekeepers to Mozambique to monitor the cease-fire in a 16-year civil war, disarm the fighting factions and organize elections.

"We're just trying to slog our way through, doing it case by case," says U.N. spokesman Joseph Sills. "We are being asked to do jobs of greater size and scope than ever before, but we are short on manpower, short on money and short on troop contributions." The lack of resources is mainly the result of some member nations' being delinquent in paying their dues. The U.S., which pays 30% of the U.N.'s peacekeeping costs, owes $114 million to that fund and $296 million in regular U.N. dues. Russia owes a total of $400 million. Meanwhile, the cost of keeping 60,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the field approaches $3 billion annually.

The blue helmets not only have expanded operations geographically but also have broadened their scope. Prior to the Balkan crisis, the U.N. had never set out on a humanitarian mission to a war-torn country before a cease-fire was declared, but it is doing so in Bosnia. In Somalia the Security Council took the unprecedented step of approving the current U.S. military intervention to provide protection for food distribution, even though the U.N. had received no official invitation. When the two sides in El Salvador's civil war could not agree on a land-distribution plan that was crucial to a peace accord, the U.N. proposed its own scheme. In Cambodia the U.N. has a broader -- and, many say, more trying -- charge than in any other operation it has mounted.

Boutros-Ghali has done much to encourage the U.N.'s activism. Within months of taking office, he issued a much praised report, An Agenda for Peace, that outlined his ideas for the expansion of U.N. responsibilities in peacemaking, peacekeeping and what he called "preventive diplomacy." The centerpiece of the plan, which has yet to be discussed by the Security Council, is a proposal that various national armies create rapid-deployment units that could serve under the U.N. flag when needed. The Secretary-General hopes that such forces could be dispatched within days after a crisis erupts, rather than the several months it now takes to assemble and equip peacekeeping units. "It would be a complete change," he says. "If I could say I will send troops in the next three days, this would have an impact completely different from saying I will have troops in the next three months."

He argues his ideas with zest and vigor -- in contrast to the cautious, softspoken approach of Perez de Cuellar. Critics contend that Boutros-Ghali's sharp mind crosses the line into impatience and rudeness toward diplomats, who generally do not like to act hastily.

His acid tongue has landed him in controversy several times. Last July at the U.N. he accused Europe and the U.S. of being more concerned with "the rich man's war" in Bosnia than with the fate of the starving in Somalia. He picked a fight with both Lord Carrington, then the European Community's chief negotiator in the Balkan crisis, and Sir David Hannay, Britain's U.N. ambassador, over the same issue, commenting that it was "maybe because I am a wog" that he had been criticized in the British press.

The latest slip of the lip occurred during his Sarajevo visit. Angered by a local journalist's furious denunciation of the U.N., Boutros-Ghali snapped back, "I understand your frustration. But you have a situation that is better than 10 other places in the world. I can give you a list."

At headquarters in New York City, the Secretary-General's administrative style has drawn an unusual amount of fire. Early on, he upset several ambassadors at the U.N. by making it clear that he preferred to deal directly with the leaders of their governments; he still allots relatively little time in his schedule for consultations with envoys. Some diplomats are equally dismayed by the way he equates the status of his office with that of the Security Council and the General Assembly. Before his recent tiff with the Security Council, he attended meetings only selectively, calling them a time- consuming waste. "His imperiousness is intolerable," says a senior French diplomat. "His job has gone to his head."

Born into a wealthy Coptic Christian family, Boutros-Ghali grew up speaking three languages -- Arabic, French and English. He earned a Ph.D. in international law from the Sorbonne, then went on to a career as a professor of law at Cairo University and as a writer. He was tapped by President Anwar Sadat as a senior policy adviser and was named acting Foreign Minister when two foreign ministers resigned in protest over Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977. Boutros-Ghali played a prominent role in the negotiations that led to the 1979 Camp David accord on the Middle East.

When he decided to run for the Secretary-General's job, those qualifications clearly helped. He was also helped by being African, though black Africans preferred their own candidate. Working against him was his age, an issue he defused by declaring that he would serve only a single five-year term. Washington was initially unenthusiastic about Boutros-Ghali but warmed to him when he quickly instituted bureaucratic reforms, cutting 14 high-level jobs and putting other top officials on one-year contracts. Today U.S. officials have renewed their skepticism. "The U.S. finds him too independent-minded," said one U.N. observer. "He doesn't consult enough."

Boutros-Ghali has his defense ready. "My role is becoming more difficult, not because of the absence of cooperation among the five permanent members of the Security Council but because of the multiplication of problems," he says. "The U.N. never before had to deal with so many big problems at the same time."

He has lately grown more aware that he needs the goodwill of U.N. ambassadors, especially those on the Security Council, to succeed. At the same time, U.N. members are beginning to appreciate his readiness to tackle intractable situations, like those in Bosnia and Somalia, that require a multilateral effort to resolve. "His heart is in the right place," says a senior Dutch diplomat.

But heart is clearly not enough. As currently constituted, the U.N. is ill prepared to deal with mushrooming demands for peacekeeping here and there and everywhere. Such operations are being handled by a small and overworked group at U.N. headquarters: there is no general military staff, no single body mapping contingency plans and no standing military force that can be deployed quickly. "If the U.S., as a superpower, has discovered that it cannot be a global cop, how can we expect that role of the Secretary-General, with his meager resources?" asks a British diplomat. Despite persistent problems for the U.N. around the world, and his personal abrasiveness, Boutros-Ghali has shown that the organization can play a constructive, perhaps ultimately even decisive, role in the quest for peace. What he needs is for member nations to set reasonable goals -- and then give him the wherewithal to see them through.

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo/New York and William Mader/London, with other bureaus