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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 21, 1984
Significantly, the reversion agreement was signed in Peking, not London,
signifying the "winner" in the deal. It is an axiom of international rela
tions that where official events take place, or where international meet
ings are held, is a sure sign of the relative power or prestige, or both, of
the parties involved.
UNESCO Pullout: U.S., then Britain, then•..?
As mentioned at the beginning, the United States has made it official that
it would not retract its earlier decision, reached last year at this time,
that it would leave UNESCO effective December 31, 1984. With its depar
ture, Washington also withdraws its 25% budget appropriation. This money
will instead be allocated to three other organizations, one international,
two national, that the U.S. feels will better use the money.
Great Britain, a few days back, also gave a one-year notice of withdrawal,
effective the end of 1985. Several other Western nations are sympathetic
to the U.S. and U.K. moves, and may or may not follow suit. In fact, 24 na
tions have demanded reforms inside UNESCO. Their leverage should be great
since only eight nations pay 72% of the agency's bloated budget.
UNESCO :s the largest of 17 UN-related agencies (meaning they have separate
budgets and directorships). It was founded in 1946 to share the Western in
dustrial states' ideas and know-how with the developing nations. Reducing
world illiteracy was a major objective. Over the years, however, UNESCO,
like the UN itself, has changed, especially as it has added new members from
the decolonized Third World. It has grown from 20 to 161 members (three
more than the UN itself) and has taken on a decidedly anti-Western, specif
ically anti-American tone.
It has initiated politically controversial
measures such as the "New International Economic Order," which would amount
to the forceable transfer of wealth from the industrialized capitalist
countries to the developing world, possibly through a "tax" on the former.
UNESCO is also pushing the "New World Information and Communication Order"
under which journalists would be licensed by the governments they wish to
report from, easily leading to widespread censorship of news reporting.
Significantly, the liberal Western news media have generally excused or
justified UNESCO's excesses--until it came to the proposed curbs on jour
nalists. In his December 17 column, George F. Will commented wryly:
Its wide-ranging attack on democratic decencies went on without
hindrance, indeed with democracies feeling obliged to foot the
bill, until it committed the tactical blunder of suggesting a
"new world information and communication order." It had in mind
the regulation of journalists. At last the rascals had gone too
far•••• It was one thing to revile the United States, but to be
disrespectful of journalists•..well, I mean, the nerve!
It is not just the overt anti-West hostility that has caused Washington and
London to rethink their respective memberships. Two additional factors are
these: First, the overall approach of UNESCO's Director-General, Amadou
Mahtar M'Bow, formerly the Minister of Education of the West African nation
of Senegal, and secondly, UNESCO's Paris headquarters is top-heavy with
high-living bureaucrats, whose expenses eat up the agency's budget. Here
is a commentary from the December 24 issue of US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: