And after his comments on the Israel-Gaza crisis this week, Antonio Guterres is no different
Israel called for the resignation of the UN Secretary-General (UNSG), António Guterres, last Tuesday, for making a statement to the Security Council that seemingly justified Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israeli civilians around Gaza on October 7. In a trenchant response on Wednesday Guterres said that far from justifying the attack he had condemned it unequivocally.
Here’s the offending passage of his statement to the Security Council for readers to make up their own mind:
“At a crucial moment like this, it is vital to be clear on principles – starting with the fundamental principle of respecting and protecting civilians.
I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel.
Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.
All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions. I respectfully note the presence among us of members of their families.
It is important also to recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.
The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.
They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.
But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
Even war has rules. We must demand that all parties uphold and respect their obligations under international humanitarian law; take constant care in the conduct of military operations to spare civilians; and respect and protect hospitals and respect the inviolability of UN facilities which today are sheltering more than 600,000 Palestinians.
The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighbourhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming…
The protection of civilians is paramount in any armed conflict.
Protecting civilians can never mean using them as human shields. Protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel, and then continuing to bomb the south itself.”
Israel called for Guterres’ resignation or at least an apology for the above statement. It is not unique for secretaries general of the UN to be asked to resign for not being sufficiently neutral. The complaint against Guterres is that he sought to set the October 7 attack in context that was too close to the bone for Israel after Hamas’ shocking attack.
On the other hand, it is important not to lose sight of the fact the UNSG’s role is to protect the civilians caught up in the war, including trying to sweet talk the Palestinians to obtain the release of the Israeli and other hostages.
The UNSG is appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council, which means that the appointment needs the approval of the permanent members of the Security Council.
There have been four controversial UN secretaries general. The only one to resign was the Norwegian Trygve Lie who was the first UNSG. He was appointed in 1946 and resigned in 1952. The Cold War had just begun, and Lie helped the Americans pass the Security Council resolution that set up the UN force that fought communist North Korea after she invaded South Korea in 1950.
The resolution was passed in the absence of the Soviet Union, as it had been boycotting the Security Council for its refusal to recognise the People’s Republic of China. So when the time came for Lie to be reappointed at the end of his first term in 1951, the Soviet Union refused to approve it; Lie’s position became untenable and he was forced to resign in 1952.
He was succeeded in 1953 by Dag Hammarskjold, a Swedish diplomat, who was reappointed as UNSG unanimously in 1957. In 1960, however, he lost the support of the Soviet Union for not using a contingent of 20,000 UN troops to support the elected government of Patrice Lumumba, whom the Soviet Union had backed and who was later murdered. The Soviet Union called for his resignation, but he died in an air crash in 1961 while en route to negotiate a cease fire in the Congo between the UN and Congolese forces supported by the US and Belgium. Although the air crash was suspect, there has not been solid proof that his airplane was brought down deliberately.
Hammarskjold was succeeded by U Thant from Burma. who was a lot less controversial.
Kurt Waldheim, who succeeded U Thant, was in the post between 1972 and 1982. He was the one that got away without resigning. After he left office, in 1986, while campaigning to be president of Austria, it was discovered that he had lied about his past as an officer in the German Army during WWII and that he served in the Balkans, including Greece, during the deportation of the Jewish people of Thessaloniki (Salonika) to the gas chambers in East Europe. He was elected president of Austria and served one term.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali was a Coptic Egyptian diplomat who only served one term as UNSG between 1992 -1996. He was controversial because the US vetoed his nomination for a second term for the UN’s failures in the Rwanda genocide and during the wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia.
The current problems at the UN are that Israel, the US, Britain and France and the EU are against a ceasefire as they believe it would impede the right of Israel to defend herself by destroying Hamas.
More than two thirds of UN member states including France – Britain and Cyprus abstained – have had enough of the daily senseless killing of innocent civilians in Gaza and supported a resolution tabled by Jordan in the General Assembly on behalf of Arab states that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, full access to humanitarian aid in Gaza and for all parties to abide by international law and the immediate release of all civilians.
A General Assembly resolution is not binding like UN Security Council resolutions that have not been possible owing to US support for the continuation of the bombing of Gaza. Nevertheless, world opinion does matter, not least to Antonio Guterres whose main concern is and has to be the protection of civilians even if it means straying into political controversy.
Alper Ali Riza is a king’s counsel in the UK and a retired part time judge
