On April 7, Guido Lenzi, minister of Italy's permanent mission tothe United Nations, visited the Library to discuss "The New Roleof the U.N. in Environmental, Economic and Social Development,"sponsored by LC's European Division.
Throughout his address, Mr. Lenzi, who assumed his currentposition in 1989, downplayed the United Nations' increasingimportance as peacekeeper in such strife-torn countries asBosnia-Herzegovina and Somalia. He stressed that worldwideeconomic and social stability is a prerequisite to ensuringinternational security.
"The blue helmets [worn by U.N. peacekeeping forces] are anobvious manifestation of the United Nations' rebirth; they arethe most glitzy part," Mr. Lenzi said.
"Revolutions occur when people are hungry. Many of the bluehelmets are there strictly as a stopgap solution. They are notthe solution to the problem. ... The U.N. should not be seen as amilitary organization enforcing the policy of a limited number oforganizations that want things to work like clockwork."
Mr. Lenzi emphasized that the United Nations' mandate goes muchdeeper than peacemaking and that its efforts should begin sooner."Part of our task is to address the cause of events," he said,referring to the 1945 conference in San Francisco, where the U.N.charter was drafted.
"The U.N. set itself to improve the fate of humanity, fostercooperation and prevent the causes of conflict," he explained."We see that the causes of instability are economic and social.These factors led to the recent changes in Eastern Europe andwere also the [basis] for the recent summit in Vancouver, wherePresident Clinton and President Yeltsin discussed food,reconstruction and prosperity.
"The Cold War locked the world into sterile stability, but thefundamental problems of humanity were not solved. When the wallsfell, it had the opposite effect from what was expected. Insteadof unifying countries, the changes caused a swing of the pendulumtoward the affirmation of national particularity. ... As aresult, countries emerging from communist domination didn'tcooperate more but are more willing to rely on multilateralinstruments of the U.N. to solve their problems."
Mr. Lenzi conceded that in the past the United Nations has notbeen as aggressive as many of its members had hoped. "The U.N.has rightly been accused of being little more than a debatingsociety, of being irrelevant," he said. "But we need debate toachieve consensus and gain information about issues. ... Richnations have many connections and networks in which tocommunicate, but many poor countries have only the U.N. as aloudspeaker."
Funding shortfalls also hamper U.N. efforts, Mr. Lenzi said, aproblem he blames on the organization's members. He cited areport by an independent advisory group to the United Nationsthat called for greater contributions from Security Councilmember-countries for specific U.N. initiatives, such aspeacekeeping missions. "The amount of funding for the U.N.'speacekeeping missions costs as much as two Stealth bombers, or .2percent of the world's military budgets combined," he said."We're not talking about a lot of money."
As for the future, Mr. Lenzi voiced optimism tempered by someanxiety. "Many problems are becoming global in scope":peacekeeping missions, environmental issues, poverty, refugees,trade imbalances, AIDS. "These issues cannot be addressed by onecountry alone, only by international organizations such as theU.N.
"The U.S. administration is picking up on many of thesechallenges as they come up and is attributing increasingauthority to the U.N.," he continued. "However, there is a dangerthat the U.N.'s role is changing and not for the better. In thefuture, the organization may find itself performing a residualfunction not covered by other aid organizations such as theInternational Monetary Fund, the World Bank, etc. We may beperceived as a charitable hospital for the least fortunatecountries, concentrating only on spoon-feeding the 'have-not'countries while only the 'have' countries serve as the U.N.'spermanent members. We have to avoid that," he warned. "It willlead to a break in the compact of the U.N."
Despite these forebodings, Mr. Lenzi also celebrated theorganization's new approach to aiding countries. "The U.N. hopesto help countries using strategies that are developed by thecountries themselves," he explained. "The assistance will besupervised but not imposed by the U.N.; however, the recipientswill be expected to work for the good of their own people. Sometimes, we have to step in and substitute for a failedgovernment, but the assistance must be specifically targeted,planned and impartial. ... We must be 'surgical'-- do what wemust and get out -- followed by the establishment of normalrelationships between nations.
"This is a very delicate matter," he stressed, "Becausenonaligned Third World countries are on their guard against theimposition of extraneous foreign values. China often abstainsfrom voting in the Security Council for this reason. ... Internalinterference may be resented."
In closing, Mr. Lenzi underscored that "the U.N. can't do it all-- or alone."