From the Secretary-General: 'How would Hammarskjold have handled this?'.

• Author: Roque, Herminia
• Position: Dag Hammarskjold - Brief Article

It will not surprise you to hear that Dag Hammarskjold is a figure of great importance to me--as he must be for any SECRETARY-GENERAL. His life and his death, his words and his action, have done more to shape public expectations of the office, and indeed of the Organization, than those of any other man or woman in its history. His wisdom and his modesty, his unimpeachable integrity and his single-minded devotion to duty, have set a standard for all servants of the international community--and especially, of course, for his successors--which is simply impossible to live up to. There can be no better rule of thumb for a Secretary-General, as he approaches each new challenge or crisis, than to ask himself: "How would Hammarskjold have handled this?" If that is true for any Secretary-General, how much more so for one of my generation, who came of age during the years when Dag Hammarskjold personified the United Nations, and began my own career in the UN system within a year of his death.

Four days ago, during my visit to the Congo, I met with a group of representatives of parties involved in the inter-Congolese dialogue as part of the peace process. Their spokesman began the meeting by telling me how much they appreciated the late Secretary-General's dedication and the fact that he gave his life for peace in their country. And he asked us to pay tribute to Hammarskjold's memory by observing a minute of silence. Everyone got up. I found it very moving that people could feel like that about him after forty years.

In Zambia, too--which, as you know, was where he actually died-Hammarskjold's death is commemorated annually. The Zambian Government, together with the Swedish Government and with the United Nations system, has launched a "living memorial", which includes a programme to educate young Africans as messengers of peace, as well as a Centre for Peace, Good Governance and Human Rights. There could be no better way to commemorate him than by promoting these ideals, which he held so dear.

If Dag were to walk through that door just now and ask me what are the main problems the United Nations is dealing with today, I could easily answer in a way that would make him think nothing much had changed. I could talk to him not only about the Congo, but about the Middle East or Cyprus, or the relations between India and Pakistan, and it would all seem very familiar. But I could also tell him things that he would find very unfamiliar, though some would surprise him less than others, and some would gratify him more than others.

He would probably be relieved, but not surprised, to hear that China is now represented at the United Nations by the government that actually governs the vast majority of Chinese people. It would surprise him much more to learn that the Soviet Union no longer exists. But he could only be pleased to find that there is no longer an unbridgeable ideological difference between the permanent members of the Security Council.

He might be struck by the number of conflicts that the United Nations is dealing with today that are within, rather than between, States--though the experience of the Congo would have prepared him for this--and also by the number of regional organizations that have developed as partners for the United Nations in different parts of the world. I feel sure, in any case, that he would be pleased to see the way United Nations peacekeeping has developed, from the model that he and Lester Pearson so brilliantly improvised in 1956 to something much more diverse and complex, which is often more accurately described as peace-building. And I imagine he would be equally impressed by the wide range of issues that the United Nations is now called upon to face outside the traditional security arena--from climate change to HIV/AIDS.

He would be gratified, and perhaps not all that surprised, to hear that human rights and democracy are now generally accepted as world norms, though he might well be distressed to see how far in many countries the practice still falls short of the rhetoric.

He would definitely be distressed to learn that within the last decade genocide had again disfigured the face of humanity--and that well over a billion people today are living in extreme poverty. I think he would see preventing the recurrence of the former...