Some Americans Try To Pay Their Debt To U.N.
Checks are trickling into the United Nations to pay the more than $1 billion U.S. debt, but the money isn’t from Washington. It’s from individual Americans, mobilized by private efforts to contribute their share of the U.S. debt: $4.40 per person.
Emily Kennedy of Montclair, N.J. sent a check for $74.80 for herself, her two children and her nephews and nieces. “I trust you are receiving many checks!” she wrote.
The campaign started in October when John Whitehead, chairman of the United Nations Association of the USA, a non-profit group dedicated to strengthening the United Nations and the U.S. role in the organization, wrote to Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali saying he had “become more and more embarrassed that my country refused to pay its dues to the United Nations.”
He enclosed a check for $44.00 for himself, his wife, Nancy, and their eight children.
“If every American would only do the same, we’d be fully paid up and back in good standing!” Whitehead wrote.
By March 22, the United Nations had received 642 checks for a total of about $6,000 representing 1,363 people, at least four dogs and several cats, said U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi.
The checks have not been cashed and the money cannot be applied to the U.S. debt without Washington’s agreement, Fawzi said. The United Nations was writing to everybody who sent in a check to ask if the money could be accepted as a donation instead.
Member states owe some $3.2 billion to the United Nations and the organization faces the worst financial crunch in its history.
U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly criticized the organization as wasteful and inefficient and have said that U.S. payments should be tied to cutbacks and financial reforms.
In their letter to Boutros-Ghali, Madeline Peters and Ross Williams of Yonkers, N.Y., echoed some of these concerns.
“Although we believe your salary and those of other U.N. officials are outrageously high, and that the numbers of staff positions is also extravagant, we do not believe that withholding dues is the correct approach to curing this problem,” Peters wrote.