Global Policy Forum

By Barbara Crossette

Secretary General Kofi Annan, hoping to dissuade the disparate forces of anti-globalization from demonstrating against a United Nations millennium assembly in September, told a gathering of independent groups today that the solution to global inequalities is not confrontation but cooperation with international organizations.

Not all members of the United Nations are hearing that message, the leaders of some private organizations say. They see doors closing, not opening, to them as they try to play a larger part in United Nations work.

''Whatever cause you champion, the cure does not lie in protesting against globalization itself,'' Mr. Annan said on the opening day of a weeklong Millennium Forum of independent groups -- some of which had supported attacks on the World Trade Organization in Seattle and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington. ''The poor are poor not because of globalization, but because of too little, because they are not part of it, because they are excluded.''

But as Mr. Annan praised private agencies and advocacy groups for their successful work on social issues and urged them to join hands with him and with business leaders to rectify economic wrongs, several independent groups were reporting that they are feeling a backlash at the United Nations, as countries try to limit their access and activities.

In recent years nongovernmental organizations -- known around the world as N.G.O.'s -- have been increasingly active in and around the United Nations in fields as diverse as international criminal law, the environment, arms control and women's rights. They have often framed issues succinctly and done the most successful lobbying for world attention to them.

The organizations gain access to the United Nations and its meetings through a committee of the Economic and Social Council, which has the power to deny them accreditation. Most at risk are human rights and democracy groups, which come under close scrutiny from countries like China, India, Cuba and Russia.

Last week, the 19-member accrediting committee did not approve a number of groups until more discussions could be held. Among those in danger of losing access to United Nations events is Freedom House, the New York-based research organization that measures democracy and press freedom worldwide.

The accusation against Freedom House, made by China with backing from Cuba and Sudan, is on a technicality: that the organization tricked the United Nations into providing unauthorized interpreter services during the Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva to translate for Chinese-speaking members of their delegation.

The Chinese included members of Falun Gong and the China Democracy Party, but they were not speaking for their own organizations, which do not have access, but for Freedom House, said Michael Goldfarb, spokesman for the organization. Translation was provided freely by the United Nations, he added. ''We work by the book,'' he said.

Adrian Karatnycky, president of Freedom House, called the move against his organization ''an attempt by closed societies to muzzle free comment and the open discussion of human rights violations at the United Nations.'' The case will be taken up again in June by the committee, whose members are Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Sudan, Turkey, Tunisia and the United States.

Cora Weiss, president of The Hague Appeal for Peace Foundation, said groups interested in publicizing human rights abuses in Chechnya are coming under similar pressure from Russia. She said the current committee, which was elected in January to a four-year term, appears to have a majority weighted against rights organizations. The extent of this trend will be apparent next month, when final decisions on access will be announced for a number of groups.

''The U.N. and governments can't survive without the partnership of organized civil society,'' Ms. Weiss said, echoing Mr. Annan's remarks. ''We should be embraced, not feared.''