Quiet diplomat is Warrior mediator

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 25

Quiet diplomat is Warrior mediator

By

TOM BRIDGMAN

NZPA staff correspondent Washington

The United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar, who has agreed to act as mediator in the Rainbow Warrior dispute between new Zealand and France, is an advocate of quiet diplomacy. “He’s a very sensible man and quiet too — he’ll just get on with the job,” said a United Nations veteran senior official, Mr Brian Urquhart. Mr Urquhart, who was with the United Nations in a peace-keeping role for 40 years until he retired from his position as under-secretary for special political affairs, described the SecretaryGeneral as being “very able,” “scholarly” and "conscientious.” Profiles of Perez de Cuellar, whose term as U.N. Secretary-General ends on January 1, 1987, all emphasise his keenness for behind-the-doors

resolving disputes. Patience, persistence and quiet diplomacy “do work small miracles,” he said in an interview with the "Christian Science Monitor.” “The U.N. is here to stay and will not end up like the League of Nations, its predecessor in the ash-can of history. “The powerful nations of the world will come to

realise once more that they cannot manage all the world’s problems and that the U.N. is very useful, indeed, as a facesaving device, a problemsolving mechanism, a forum where to conduct not only multilateral but also bilateral diplomacy, effectively and discreetly.”

A Peruvian diplomat, he succeeded Dr Kurt Waldheim as secretarygeneral (one newspaper in a profile then used a now-unfortunate headline which referred to Mr Perez de Cuellar as “the Third World’s Waldheim,” and since then has won praise for his work, especially his unsuccessful diplomacy as a way to efforts to try and resolve the Falklands crisis in 1982 before full-scale war broke out there between Britain and Argentina.

“The failure was not the result of his bumbling. He deserves credit for the effort if not the result,” said United States U.N. ambassador, Ms Jeane Kirkpatrick, at the

time. Mr Perez de Cuellar achieved his post as a dark-horse compromise candidate after a long deadlock between Dr Waldheim, who was trying to get an unprecedented third term, and the Tanzanian Foreign Minister, Mr Salim Ahmed Salim. Previously in his long career, Mr Perez de Cuellar had served as Peruvian ambassador to Switzerland, the Soviet Union and Venezuela, had headed Peru’s delegation to the U.N., held high foreign ministry posts in Lima, and was a professor of international law and international relations. He served as under-secretary-general at the U.N. and went to Cyprus and Afghanistan on peace missions. Mr Urquhart, now with the Ford Foundation in New York, said if Mr Perez de Cuellar had a mediator’s role, as opposed to just using the “good offices” of his position to try to resolve differences, it theoretically meant he had the power to make proposals to bring disputes to an end. “Mediators usually talk themselves out of a job,” he said. “The danger is you make a proposal that one party violently rejects, and then you’re out.” However, he said, the “honest-broker” side of the Secretary-General’s office was very valuable. “The Secretary-General is a person very much in good standing politically, and can bring the total impartiality of the office.