Current AffairsTwo books examine the former UN secretary general's difficult tenure
Joseph Stalin once put the question: "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?" The same could be asked about the United Nations secretary general. Responsibility without power aptly describes the position of the world's top civil servant. Real authority lies with the "permanent five" on the Security Council - China, France, Great Britain, Russia and the US. Not only do they hold perpetual membership and veto powers over resolutions, but council decisions are binding on all member-states. The P5 also have plenty of armed divisions, although they tend to be wary about sending their soldiers on UN duty.
The secretary general is the UN's public face, but his legal powers are very limited. James Traub points out that under article 99 of the UN Charter, the "SG" is empowered to "bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security". So he or she can tug the Council's sleeve, but they alone can lift their arm to strike.
When Dag Hammarskjöld took up the position in 1953 he was largely an unknown quantity, but the Swedish diplomat expanded the limits of the job, mainly through the sheer force of his personality. During his eight years in office, until his untimely and suspicious death in a plane crash in 1961, he became, in Traub's words, "the standard against which all successive secretaries-general have been measured, and found wanting, for the very simple reason that the Security Council did not make the same mistake twice". He points out that Hammarskjöld's "unflinching independence" at one time or another infuriated all the major powers.
FAST-FORWARD TO 1995, when the holder of the office is Boutros Boutros- Ghali of Egypt. The Cold War is over and the US the undisputed superpower. Boutros-Ghali falls foul of the Clinton administration, which devises a plan, titled Operation Orient Express, to deprive him of the customary second five-year term in office. The chosen successor is Kofi Annan of Ghana, a long-time UN official who has previously been helpful to US foreign policy aims in the Balkans and Haiti.
Two years earlier, in February, 1993, Annan had been appointed undersecretary-general in charge of peace-keeping operations. During his tenure, the horrific Rwanda and Srebrenica genocides took place, in the presence of UN peacekeepers. There is a great deal of blame to go around and it would be unfair to attach too much of it to Kofi Annan, but these events happened on his watch and critics say he was unduly passive, should have raised the alarm and taken decisive action. For his part, Annan told Traub on more than one occasion that he didn't feel personally culpable and Traub's book also provides a telling quotation from one of Annan's aides, who said: "He's a bureaucrat by temperament and training. His way of thinking is, 'I was doing the job assigned to me; I was not really the main person responsible'."
None of these considerations weighed significantly with the US, which vetoed Boutros-Ghali's second term, allowing Annan to take over in January 1997. The new man's public persona was an attractive one. Eloquent and articulate with a keen ear for the resounding phrase, he was at the same time quiet and soft-spoken and carried himself with grace and dignity. I will always remember attending a press conference he gave during a visit to the European Parliament, where he was interrupted by the cantankerous ringing of a photographer's mobile phone. The secretary general stopped speaking and simply gazed in withering silence at the offender until the intrusion was brought to an end. A text-book example of how to deal with such interruptions.
In a world crying out for heroes, Annan came across as a possible second Mandela. But Mandela did not have to contend with the competing self-interests and power politics of the Security Council, especially the P5. And Mandela was the leader of a risen people, not a functionary in a flawed and cumbersome international organisation subject to constant attack and criticism from left and right. Nevertheless, in 2001 Annan received the supreme accolade of the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded jointly with the UN as a whole.
He stepped down as secretary general last December, after 10 years in office, to be replaced by South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon. It is time to start drawing up a balance-sheet, which is what these two books attempt to do. James Traub writes on politics and international affairs for the New York Times Magazine and Stanley Meisler has enjoyed a lengthy career as a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.
Meisler's book is comprehensive and well-written, a good professional job in the traditional reporter's mode. Traub's work is longer and more analytical: journalists on serious US newspapers get an enviable amount of space. One could fairly say of either work that anyone genuinely interested in the affairs of this all-important world body, ultimate guarantor of peace and stability, should definitely read it.
IT IS CLEAR from the tone of both books that the authors rather like Kofi Annan as a person. They have considerable goodwill towards him and would prefer to write positively rather than negatively about the former UN chief, provided this was consistent with the facts as they see them.
Unfortunately, this is not always possible. Indeed, the overall impression left by the Traub volume in particular is largely a negative one. The import of Traub's book is that the failures of Kofi Annan's career outweigh the successes, partly because of his own style, personality and attitudes and partly due to the inherent limitations of the secretary general's job itself.
With the arrival of George W Bush and his associates in power, Annan soon found himself taking stands that were unacceptable to the new dispensation. He was also unfortunate that the first Bush White House was so heavily ideological, with neo-cons in the ascendant and, secondly, that the 9/11 attacks generated even greater US suspicion towards the rest of the world.
The key moment in recent UN history was its refusal to endorse the US-led invasion of Iraq. The mass protests around the world showed how critical UN endorsement was to the credibility of the mission; there had been no protests on that scale against the first Gulf War.
The UN would have been greatly weakened in the eyes of the world if the Security Council had backed Bush's ill-starred venture. But the White House was inevitably very displeased by the rebuff, with consequent pressure on Annan to provide some UN legitimacy to the occupation.
This was another occasion where he should have sounded the alarm, stood his ground and said "no, no, a thousand times no", even if it meant resignation. The world knows that the Brazilian superstar diplomat, Sergio Vieira de Mello, agreed to take up the job and was killed in an explosion in Baghdad with 21 others on August 19th, 2003.
Further travails ensued, with startling revelations about the goings-on in the Iraqi oil-for-food programme, administered by UN officials in partnership with the Security Council. The spotlight settled on Annan's son, Kojo, whose involvement generated a great deal of damaging publicity for his father. Annan snr also came under scrutiny for his own role but he survived the ordeal with only his management skills coming in for censure.
Even Meisler, whose book is the less critical of the two, has difficulty with the secretary general's conduct in this affair. Naturally the right wing in US politics had a field day with the oil-for-food revelations. Pressure on Annan to step down was very strong and, had he been forced out, the organisation would have suffered major damage. For that reason, those who still have faith in the world body were relieved at his survival.
To his credit, Annan tried to tackle the problem of UN intervention to halt or prevent genocide by promoting the concept of the Responsibility to Protect, allowing the international organisation to over-ride national sovereignty where a State was engaged in mass killing of its own people or else failing to prevent others from doing so.
The UN is roughly divided between underdeveloped countries, frequently ruled by oppressive regimes or "thugocracies", and prosperous western states, many of them former colonial powers, whose motives are constantly suspect in the eyes of the countries they previously held in thrall.
KOFI ANNAN WILL go down in history as a well-intentioned though not particularly successful administrator who did his sincere best to promote peace and end hunger in the world but who made some very bad judgment calls. The UN can only be as good as its members allow it to be and Annan was often blamed unfairly for the mistakes and misdeeds of others. He dropped plenty of his own clangers too, but at least he commanded the attention of the world and people believed in the UN, however critically or reluctantly, while he held office. These valuable books confirm that the secretary general's job is probably an impossible one but the Traub volume in particular conveys the strong feeling that Annan was excessively deferential towards the big powers that so often hid behind the cloak of his urbanity and eloquence.
Deaglán de Bréadún, Political Correspondent of The Irish Times, has reported on the UN for many years. He is the author of The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland, published by Collins PressCurrent Affairs
The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power By James Traub Bloomsbury, 442pp. £20 Kofi Annan: A Man of Peace in a World of War By Stanley Meisler John Wiley, 372pp. £19.99
