Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922-2016)

The death in a Cairo hospital on Tuesday February 15, 2016 of the former Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Boutros Boutros-Ghali marked the passing of one of Africa’s most distinguished diplomats and world’s statesmen. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 93, was the sixth UN Secretary General in 1992-96 and was the first Arab and the first African […]

The death in a Cairo hospital on Tuesday February 15, 2016 of the former Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Boutros Boutros-Ghali marked the passing of one of Africa’s most distinguished diplomats and world’s statesmen. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 93, was the sixth UN Secretary General in 1992-96 and was the first Arab and the first African to head the global body. Even though he became the first UN boss to be denied a second term in office, he left a legacy that was as mixed as his Afro-Arab identity.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali was born in Cairo on Nov. 14, 1922. He earned a law degree from Cairo University in 1946 and a doctorate in international law from the University of Paris in 1949. He was a Fulbright scholar at Columbia University in 1954-55. For many years he was a professor at Cairo University, led its Political Science department and lectured around the world in Arabic, French and English. In 1977 Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat regarded Boutros-Ghali Coptic faith, his reputation for fairness and his marriage to an Alexandrian Jewess as diplomatic assets by appointing him to replace the minister of state for foreign affairs, Mahmud Riad who resigned.

Boutros-Ghali broke with tradition and campaigned for the job when Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru retired after two terms as secretary general in 1991. Three Europeans, an Asian and a Latin American had already held the post and it seemed to be Africa’s or Arabia’s turn. Boutros-Ghali was both. UN Secretaries General are usually compromise candidates, unknown to the world until their election but he was well known as Egypt’s Foreign Minister. African and Arab support helped Boutros-Ghali to clinch the job.

Though as UN scribe he was one who met both tests of character and experience, Boutros-Ghali faced daunting tasks. He assumed office at a time the world was still trying to adjust to post-Cold War era. The crisis in former Yugoslavia, the Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Muslims, the coming apart of Somalia,  Iraq’s 1991 invasion of Kuwait, the Rwandan genocide of 1994 as well as investigations of corruption into the UN’s Iraq oil-for-food program all made matters difficult for Boutros-Ghali.

To Boutros-Ghali’s credit however is the mobilization of the international coalition that saw to the successful conduct of elections in South Africa in 1994 that ended white-minority rule. His tenure as UN Secretary-General came with a lot of hope for countries of the South particularly Africa but his career ended on an inglorious note because when he sought to assert the UN’s independence from the world’s remaining superpower, the United States blocked a second term for him. The Western powers instead put forward Mr. Kofi Annan of Ghana as his successor.

In his memoirs “Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga” (1999), Mr. Boutros-Ghali said the Americans had told him where not to travel, whom to avoid meeting and what to say and not say in speeches, and also to avoid ruffling President Bill Clinton, whom he regarded as thin-skinned and indecisive. He was also told to stay away from the US Congress and soft-pedal on his demand that America pays its $1.3 billion debt to the United Nations. Though the US described him as an ineffective reformer, Boutros-Ghali worked on a radical reform program for the UN, an organization set up with very noble ideals but which has remained undemocratic in its governance structure and powerless in the enforcement of its decisions. Boutros-Ghali was frustrated by the US’s frequent use of its veto power to block key Security Council resolutions.

 

After his tenure at the UN, he became the first Secretary-General of La Francophonie, an organisation of French-speaking nations, from 1997 to 2002 and served as chairman of the board of the South Centre, an intergovernmental research organisation of developing countries from 2003 to 2006. Boutros-Ghali, a lean, slightly built man with glasses and an intense expression, was strong-willed and independent, a prodigious intellectual, world statesman, a diplomat and an academic who once said that while the broad principles of democracy are universal, the fact remains that their application varies considerably. May his gentle soul rest in peace.