By Harmonie Toros
Associated PressJune 19, 2000
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed French defense expert Jean-Marie Guehenno to head U.N. peacekeeping operations, which the United States has accused of inefficiency.
Guehenno, 50, is to replace Bernard Miyet, current udersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations on Oct. 1, U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said Monday. A former diplomat, Guehenno was France's representative to the Western European Union, a military alliance, from 1993 to 1995. He is currently member of U.N. Advisory Board for Disarmament Affairs.
Diplomats said Guehenno will be under pressure to ensure that U.N. peacekeeping missions operate smoothly and achieve their goals.
The United Nations has launched four new peacekeeping operations just in the past year in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor and in Congo. More than 35,000 military personnel and police currently serve in 14 peacekeeping operations across the world.
Washington says the U.N. peacekeeping system is on the brink of collapse and urgently needs to reform its organization and financing. Criticism grew after 500 U.N. peacekeepers were taken hostage in Sierra Leone in early May for several weeks by the rebel group led by Foday Sankoh.
"Unless we act together, peacekeeping will fail, crippled by an organizational and financial system that cannot support the increasing demands now being put on it by the member states," U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said last month.
Costs have also increased, leading to strong objections by the United States, which according to a scale established in 1973 for a peacekeeping mission in the Sinai pays 31 percent of all peacekeeping operations.
Washington has made U.N. reform a condition of paying its arrears, which the United Nations says now total $1.8 billion. U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, last month placed on hold $368 million owed by the United States for U.N. peacekeeping in Congo, Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone. Gregg, chairman of the Senate subcommittee overseeing State Department expenditures, later released dlrs 40 million for Kosovo and 50 million for peacekeeping in Sierra Leone.
