Did diplomacy die with Kofi Annan?

THE United Nations (UN) charter adopted by the UN Conference on International Organisations in San Francisco in June 1945 made the UN a permanent organisation to, among other things, maintain world peace by collective measures, to develop friendly relations among nations on the basis of equal rights, to promote freedom for all and to be a centre for harmonising actions towards those ends using diplomacy rather than the gun and artillery fire.

Successive UN Secretary-Generals have kept the world free from wars by sustained and shrewd diplomacy.

In the not too distant past, the world was privileged to have one such Secretary-General, whose personality was an embodiment of shrewd diplomacy.  

He epitomised tactical engagement of difficult Presidents around the globe; presidents the world perceived as dangerous, thereby, averting what would have been explosive world wars.

His name is Kofi Annan.  In fact, Kofi Annan became UN Secretary-General by default when the two-term mandate of the world’s preferred choice Boutros Boutros-Ghali Galli was truncated after only his first term.

Actually, the world Kofi Annan presided over as UN Secretary-General was more volatile and potentially more explosive than today’s world, yet Kofi’s shrewd diplomacy, and positive engagement with ‘dangerous’ world leaders averted a global warfare.  

He threaded where the then American Secretary of State, Collins Powell,  feared to thread, by travelling to Bahdad to dissuade Saddam Hussein from unleashing onto the world whatever diabolical plan he had.

It came to me as no surprise when the Nobel Prize Committee in Norway recognised the sterling diplomatic qualities of this man of few words, but full of action, Kofi Annan, and awarded him the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the organisation he headed with capable hands, the UN.

Inaction

Unfortunately, with the demise of Kofi Annan, the world’s body has fallen into the hands of a Secretary-General who is used to flowery speeches and rendered himself inefficient by his inaction to the sad betrayal of the UN Chatter he is supposed to defend, his name is Antonio Guterres.

There is absolutely no doubt that the new threat to world peace is Vladimir Putin’s unbridled ambition to recreate the defunct Soviet Union.

Putin’s refusal to come to terms with the fact that Ukraine and the rest of former soviet satellites having enjoyed statehood for 30 years, reserve the right to choose their own allies and which international organisation to join or not to join, is what triggered the Russian-Ukraine war.

Russia, from the start, never hid its intension to attack Ukraine.  In fact, Putin has never hidden his total dislike for Volodomyr  Zelensky, the Ukrainian President.
Kofi Annan might have squirmed in his grave, when Guterres stayed put at the UN headquarters, while Russia amassed his troops at the border with Ukraine for close to a month before attacking; persistent American intelligence warnings, notwithstanding.

It is precisely at this intervening period that Guterres should have moved in to diplomatically convince Putin to let cool heads prevail.

Even when Putin finally struck, the Secretary-General as a neutral arbiter between the East and the West, did not see the need to talk Putin out of the war.
He went to Moscow after President Macron of France and a host of Western leaders, who President Putin sees as his adversaries, had all gone and been snubbed.  Of course, he was also ignored.

Why is the UN Secretary-General allowing Russia to keep his seat at both the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, exercising its vote and the power of veto when Russia continues to trample on international law?

As at now, the UN Secretary-General has no peace plan on the table.

Even China  has proposed a 12-point position plan to the world to bring an end to the Russian-Ukraine war.

Whatever the merits are is another matter but what has Antonio Guterres put on the table so far to end the Russian-Ukraine war?  None.

Throughout the one year the war has raged on, the only positive input that has come from the current UN Secretary-General is the grain diplomacy.

But of what benefit would it serve the world when, as UN Secretary General, he negotiates for the safe passage of grain from Ukraine to the rest of the world, but the war continues?

Surely all battles end at the negotiating table.

Antonio Guterres must not allow the war to degenerate further.

He should stand up to the task, for diplomacy never died with Kofi Annan.

The writer is a Political Scientist/lawyer.

E-mail:  Adomakoacheampong55@gmail.com