December 6, 2001
There are 65 of them and they hold the key to peace in some remote parts of the world. They form an elite corps whose existence is unknown to most people. One member has the daunting job of bringing peace to Afghanistan. These are the world's unsung heroes of democracy.
The 65 are designated special and personal representatives and envoys of the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. They serve as expert extensions of Annan's cabinet-style administration in New York, some for only a few days at a time, some for weeks or months, but always available to troubleshoot in an emergency.
Currently in the global spotlight are the UN's special representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, and his deputy Francesc Vendrell, who, as Annan surrogates, are now key players in UN-led negotiations that began near Bonn last week and aim to create a broad-based interim government to secure peace and stabilise a country that has been in constant turmoil for almost a quarter of a century. At least for now, the United States seems content to leave this crucial task to Brahimi, a plain-spoken former foreign minister of Algeria who, despite knowing he must work with the United States - which he describes as the UN's "most important, most influential member", has not hesitated to criticise US policy. Who is Lakhdar Brahimi?
In October and prior to the US-UK air raids begun on November 7th, Brahimi made a swing through Afghanistan's neighbouring states, conferring in Pakistan with President Pervez Musharraf and with Iranian leaders in Tehran. The Taliban authorities barred him from visiting Kabul, where the UN was already having serious problems delivering aid. His own mandate, he explained at the time, was three-dimensional: humanitarian, political (to encourage the Afghans to stop their endless warring, for which the UN was, he said, "uniquely qualified") and to promote national reconstruction.
Brahimi has chided the major powers' past lack of committment to address Afghanistan's problems, but perceives a change of heart in recent statements by the European Union, Japan, the United States and Saudi Arabia. Noting that the USA and the UN have different roles to play, he said in New York the other day, "We desperately need the USA to be engaged. I am on record for criticising the USA for not being engaged in the past, so their [current] engagement is most welcome."
A leader in Algeria's independence movement who served as ambassador to Britain for eight years in the 1970s, he will turn 68 on January 1 2002. He has maintained a gruelling pace in recent weeks and was clearly exhausted when he returned to New York for recent General Assembly and Security Council meetings on Afghanistan. Too serious in demeanour to be very convivial, not much is known about his personal life and interests or whether he is even a devout Muslim, although as a young diplomat, he represented the National Liberation Front independence movement in Indonesia, the most populous Islamic state, prior to Algerian nationhood.
Skilled negotiator
In the old-boy network of international diplomacy, he is admired for his professional skills, especially in negotiation. He has been tapped often for duty as a sort of unsung UN jack-of-all-trades - in Haiti, the Congo, Yemen, Liberia and South Africa (where he oversaw the post-apartheid elections that brought Nelson Mandela to power) - he had a two-year Afghanistan assignment before this current one. Perhaps his crowning achievement to date in the UN hierarchy is The Brahimi Report, a blunt and comprehensive review, completed last year by a panel he chaired, of the shortcomings, messes and near-disasters committed in UN peacekeeping operations. The Security Council has since adopted his recommendations for sweeping changes. Apart from the Northern Alliance's political objections, one reason a UN force for Afghanistan is highly unlikely is that it would take three months or more to assemble and deploy. Brahimi and his deputy Vendrell, a long-time UN official from Spain, recently have been joined in the Afghanistan team by Mark Malloch Brown, a Briton appointed by Annan to co-ordinate humanitarian assistance. A journalist who has served in the UN's High Commission for Refugeesand is a former vice-president of the World Bank, he is the first non-American administrator of the UN Development Programme, the world's biggest multilateral aid agency. Coming from Ghana, the secretary-general has a deep personal concern for Africa. Thus it is no surprise that the portfolios of 21 of his special and personal emissaries are in that troubled continent - in an alphabet soup of operational acronyms, from Angola's UNOA through UNAMSIL in Sierra Leone to Western Sahara's MINURSO.
Eager to help Annan
Ibrahim Gambari, the special representative for Africa's Great Lakes region, is typical of the superannuated diplomats whose experience Annan values and has drawn out of retirement for UN service. Gambariwas Nigeria's ambassador in New York. Then there are Tom Eric Vraalsen, a former delegate from Norway, now the special envoy in Sudan; retired Barbadian diplomat Oliver Jackman, the personal representative for the border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela; and Razali Ismail, a former ambassador of Malaysia and president of the UN General Assembly, who has the seemingly impossible task of persuading the Burmese generals to honour humanrights. Among other diplomats put out to pasture by their governments andeager to help Annan are Jean-Bernard Merimee, a former chiefdelegate of France, who has the loosely defined office of Annan's special adviser for European issues; the former Russian ambassadorYuli Vorontsov, who is special envoy for the Commonwealth of Independent States; the one-time Swedish prime minister, Carl Bildt,special envoy to the Balkans; and Olara Otunnu, formerly a Ugandan diplomat, who is special representative for children and armedconflict (charged with rehabilitating child soldiers).
Giandomenico Picco, a one-time UN secretariat member from Italy who was honoured by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II for heroism after risking his life in negotiations that eventually won freedom for Western hostages in the Middle East, is now the personal representative for the UN 'Year of Dialogue among Civilisations', an initiative promoted by Iran.
The most well-known of the special envoys is James A Baker III, a former American secretary of state, secretary of the treasury and White House chief of staff. He has had the thankless task since March 1997, enjoying the rank of UN under-secretary-general, of encouraging intermittent negotiations over the future status of the former Spanish territory of Western Sahara. An indigenous group wants independence; Morocco claims sovereignty. Algeria andMauritania also have been involved as, for years, UN teams havestruggled in a vast arid land to complete a roll of eligible votersamong the largely nomadic population, for an ultimate referendum.Annan wants bigger UN Middle East role The secretary-general, who has made it a point to improve UN relations with Israel while trying always to be even-handed in the Palestinian conflict, is dissatisfied with the world body'speripheral role and lack of success in promoting a settlement. Emphasising this interest, last month he sent his point man, TerjeRoed-Larsen of Norway, to calm an infuriated Yasser Arafat after President Bush snubbed the Palestinian leader during the UN session they both attended. Roed-Larsen has a 24-word title attesting to the range of his duties: Special co-ordinator for the Middle East peaceprocess and personal representative of the secretary-general to the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority. For all his lecturing on the need to establish gender parity in the UN system, and constant nudging of governments to appoint women ambassadors and nominate female candidates for UN posts, Annan generally has not followed his own advice in selecting the team of special and personal envoys. The only women members are Laura Canuto, an Italian peacemaker in Guatemala; Angela King fromJamaica, special adviser on gender issues and the advancement ofwomen; and Silvia Fuhrman, an American, the special representative for the UN international school.
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