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Le Canada et l’ONU > Newton Bowles Reports Ce document est disponible seulement en anglais.
Before Words... This is my eighth annual round-up on the United Nations. I do this as each General Assembly concludes its main session in December. I try to interpret for you the ebb and flow over big issues, and sketch in background and context. Much is left out, but if I went on chasing all the dogs and cats I would never finish. This is a solo flight, I can run out of gas. Looking at the world through the General Assembly opens up many a vista, but it also closes out others. This is not a report on the U.N. system, it does not begin to tell you what the big U.N. family is doing about population, health, food, literacy, pollution, the exploitation of women and children-- and a lot more. Political issues, the exercises of power and wealth, come to a head here at "Mother U.N.", the General Assembly and the Security Council, casting their shadows over all. But there's more to the U.N. than that. If you kill Mother, will the chicks survive? While the 1998 General Assembly made brave forays into some difficult terrain, much was left unsaid. How can the U.N. forge ahead without U.S. engagement and money? The multilateral concord is on trial. For generous help in my preparation of this report, my thanks to many in the Secretariat, among NGOs and in the diplomatic community, chief among them my friends in our stellar Canadian Mission. Newton R. Bowles |
