Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who served one five-year term as secretary general of the United Nations from 1992-96 and was first African to hold position, has died at the age of 93.
Venezuela’s UN ambassador, Rafael Dario Ramírez Carreño, the current holder of the Security Council’s rotating presidency, made the announcement on Tuesday at the start of a session on Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. The 15-member Security Council observed a minute’s silence after the announcement of Ghali’s death.
A diplomat who helped secure peace deals between Israel and his native Egypt, Boutros-Ghali became the first secretary general to be deprived of a second term as he struggled to impose the UN’s writ in a post-cold war world. However, Ghali was instrumental in helping to organise famine relief in the Horn of Africa.
He was succeeded by Kofi Annan.
Washington was angered by his opposition to NATO’s bombing campaign in Bosnia.
“Repeated clashes with the world’s dominant power meant his second term was opposed by then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and president Bill Clinton, who garnered the mixed support of some EU nations, including the UK, to block him.” wrote The Guardian.
He called the 1994 ethnic massacres in Rwanda — when hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and Hutus were slaughtered and countless women raped — “my worst failure” at the U.N. He also laid blame on world leaders including Clinton for indecision and lack of resources to tackle daunting peacekeeping missions that had already spread U.N. soldiers across the globe.
“Nowhere was the Secretary-General’s profile higher than in peace-keeping operations, and Boutros-Ghali presided over the largest in UN history: in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda, among other trouble spots. The Cambodian mission was a significant success, but was overshadowed by disasters elsewhere for which Boutros-Ghali was not entirely to blame, but for which he provided a convenient scapegoat.” The Telegraph wrote.
