Where is another Pérez de Cuéllar? Not inside the United Nations glass tower for sure. The UN these days is sidelined and unfairly humiliated. The fruitless pilgrimage to the Kremlin by the current Secretary General Antonio Gutérres, met with condescension by Putin, to be lectured like a slow-witted pupil at the far end of a grotesquely long table, spoke for itself.
That was a total fiasco. Failure of a non-existent peace mission, which inexplicably took place only two months after the beginning of the Russian aggression on Ukraine.
By late spring of 2022, it was obvious that Gutérres’ trip was doomed. The Kremlin autocrat, having given the order to attack Ukraine on the fictional assumption that the invasion would be little more than a short victory parade, followed by a quick pro-Russian regime change in Kiev, was not going to admit to the hapless UN chief that he had made a colossal blunder. He would just double down, as most failing dictators do.
The conflict, after more than nine months, has dramatically evolved. It is now an unwinnable war of attrition where Ukraine, heavily supported by the West, appears to have the upper hand. But Ukraine, despite its truly heroic resistance, has no real chance of totally defeating the Russian lumbering nuclear behemoth.
That dramatically increases risks of escalation, including perhaps even the use of tactical nuclear weapons by embattled Russia. Now a truly existential question arises. Granted that the United Nations so far has abysmally failed, is there any prospect that a UN-led peace mission on Ukraine – possibly with the intervention of Blue Helmets – may be at least partly successful in the future?
Cynics no doubt will respond that, given the climate of intense hostility and mistrust now prevailing within the UN Security Council, such an outcome would be totally impossible. But if the world is to be spared the catastrophe that would be World War III, it is now vital that those cynics are proved wrong.
Ironically (on account of his full family name) it fell on Javier Pérez de Cuéllar de la Guerra, the Peruvian fifth Secretary-General from 1982 to 1991 and the most effective peace mediator in the history of the United Nations, to set a shining example. Time and again, over more than six decades of methodical, painstaking and honest hard work as an international negotiator, Pérez de Cuéllar showed that the dogs of war can be defeated. He died two years ago at home, a frail but still mentally alert 100 years old. But his precedent must be kept alive.
I went to see him once, at his unpretentious 2-floor cottage in Lima’s upscale district of Miraflores. Twice married but by then a widower, he lived alone assisted by a housekeeper, with no bodyguards or particular security, except for an electrified fence in the garden.
The Maoist Sendero Luminoso fighters were active then with kidnappings and assassinations. That did not concern him, a self-effacing and highly disciplined diplomat from a Third World country who had served with distinction in London and Paris, and that as an ambassador to Switzerland and subsequently to Moscow, was highly regarded by the Russians for his impartiality.
Then for de Cuéllar, in the times of Soviet collapse and civil war in the Balkans, came the UN top job, followed after more than a decade, by his brief appointment at home as prime minister.
In a now forgotten book with a humble title, Pilgrimage for Peace, the quiet Peruvian explained the secret of his success as a peacemaker. Never take “no” for an answer. Do your utmost to gain respect and trust from the warring sides. Listen a lot. Patiently persuade all parties that making reasonable concessions is always infinitely less costly and devastating than continuing war.
Secretary-General Gutérres, Russia’s autocrat-in-chief Putin, and Ukraine’s wartime president Zelensky, would be well advised to take a leaf out of Pérez de Cuéllar’s book. But it’s a safe bet that they won’t. Or at least not yet. Meanwhile, sadly, the destruction of Ukraine will go on.
