U.N. members vote for budget boost

The Associated Press, New York

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“NEW YORK — The General Assembly’s finance committee has approved a $50 million budget increase, despite objections from the United States, the Soviet Union and other major financial contributors.

The vote Monday, 82-14 with nine abstentions, comes at a time Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar is trying to cut costs to get through the 1986-87 budget year… In other U. N. news, the Security Council voted 14-0 Monday to deplore the killing and wounding of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. The United States abstained from the vote.

All other members of the Security Council voted in favor. The measure called on Israel to abide ‘immediately and scrupulously’ by the 1949 Geneva Convention on protecting civilians in occupied territories, and to release any people arrested in violation of the convention during recent demonstrations at Bir Zeit University.

Palestinian news reports said a 12-year-old Palestinian boy died earlier Monday after being shot in his head by Israeli soldiers in the Balata refugee camp. An Israeli military spokesman said it is not clear who killed the boy. Last week, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian in the same camp and two 22-year-old students at Bir Zeit University.

The Security Council resolution urged all concerned parties ‘to exercise maximum restraint to avoid violent acts, and to contribute toward the establishment of peace.’ To overcome U.

S. objections, the resolution’s non-aligned sponsors dropped the word ‘condemns’ so the resolution read the 15-nation council ‘strongly deplores the opening of fire by the Israeli army, resulting in the death and the wounding of defenseless students.’ U.

S. sources said the American delegation could not support even the amended resolution because it felt Israel did not bear full responsibility for the violence. During two days’ debate, Israeli Ambassador Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Palestine Liberation Organization of inciting shooting. He insisted Israeli soldiers reacted to restore law and order. U. S.

Ambassador Vernon A. Walters abstained while occupying the chair as this month’s council president.”

Context added by this archive

A 12-year-old and a 14-year-old killed in Balata, and two students at Bir Zeit, reported inside a story about the United Nations budget. The word the sponsors removed to get the resolution past the United States is printed: “condemns.”

Cite this clipping

"U.N. members vote for budget boost," The Indianapolis News, 9 December 1986, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1986-004. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1986-004