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UNITED NATIONS -A former Nicaraguan leftist official became president of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, urging that power be given to its broad membership and taken away from the big-power-dominated Security Council. In a combative opening statement to a new annual session of the assembly, Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann called for a "democratization" of the United Nations and sharply attacked the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The broadside by D'Escoto, who was foreign minister in the left-wing Sandinista government that ruled Nicaragua from 1979-1990, came just a week before he chairs the annual General Assembly gathering of world leaders in New York.He announced plans for a "high-level dialogue" to discuss the "revitalization and empowerment" of the 192-nation General Assembly by giving it powers "wrongly accumulated" in the Security Council, World Bank and IMF and the U.N. bureaucracy."The General Assembly should become more proactive and its resolutions should be binding," he said. "The idea that the clear and unequivocal voice of 'We the peoples' should be regarded as a mere recommendation with no binding power should be buried forever in our anti-democratic past."The U.N. Charter lays down that binding votes can be taken only by the 15-nation Security Council, whose five big-power permanent members have vetoes. Changing the charter needs approval by two-thirds of U.N. members, including the five.D'Escoto charged that at the United Nations the term democracy had become "increasingly empty, with no real meaning or substance." He cited the fact that repeated General Assembly votes against the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba by a majority of more than 95 percent had made no difference.No countries hold vetoes in the General Assembly.
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