UN still needed to tackle global problems: Gus Dur

NEW YORK (JP): Despite criticism over its inability to resolve emergencies around the world, President Abdurrahman Wahid said here on Friday morning that the United Nations remains an institution powerful enough to tackle global problems.

"The United Nations has developed into an institution which is powerful enough to tackle the problems of the globe," Abdurrahman said before the UN Millennium Summit.

"Of course some people say that the UN is obsolete, but I believe that in due time, the improvement will come," said Gus Dur, as the President is also called.

Abdurrahman said that he hoped the UN "can develop into a more powerful body which will represent all of us in many things".

"There are many incidents and occurrences (in the world) that have to be taken care of and taken over by the UN as an international body," the President said.

"Because of this, being an optimist, I will look forward to better cooperation in the next millennium," he added.

Abdurrahman's statement came as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told leaders of the world powers on Thursday that the UN Security Council was facing a "crisis of credibility" in responding to emergencies around the world, particularly in Africa.

Opening a meeting of the 15-member Security Council on how to boost the UN's uneven peacekeeping efforts, Annan said "no amount of resolutions or statements" could change the fact that many people in need around the world hesitated to ask the UN for help.

He said the council had to show it could respond to crises effectively, halt conflicts and restore peace in areas where the United Nations needed to respond, either before a war broke out or afterward.

World leaders on the Security Council voted on Thursday to overhaul UN peacekeeping operations in order to provide better trained troops that would respond faster.

At issue is an understaffed and underfinanced UN peacekeeping organization, which in the last year has had difficulty recruiting, directing and supplying basic equipment for troops and police in Sierra Leone, East Timor, Congo or Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Abdurrahman on Friday also called for better coordination between the UN and other international organizations.

"The institutions of course can support each other in their efforts to develop our respective countries. With the assistance of the UN, the continental groups as well as regional associations will be able to achieve this kind of solidarity," said Abdurrahman, who received a standing ovation at the end of his speech.

The Summit, which was attended by some 150 heads of state, had been overshadowed by an attack on UN humanitarian workers in Atambua, East Nusa Tenggara, on Wednesday, which left three UN workers killed. (prb/byg)