Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

Peruvian diplomat

• Born: January 19, 1920
• Place of Birth: Lima, Peru
• Died: March 4, 2020
• Place of Death: Lima, Peru

Pérez de Cuéllar served as secretary-general of the United Nations from 1982 through 1991, focusing on the development of global social and economic policies and resolving a variety of international crises that emerged during his two terms in office.

Early Life

Born in the bustling city of Lima, Peru, with its large import market, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (PAY-rehz day KWAY-ahr) gravitated to other cultures and languages at an early age. Most of his ancestors and some contemporary family members had come to Peru from Spain, bringing a European culture and perspective that would influence him throughout his life. Because the family was economically comfortable, Pérez de Cuéllar was able to collect coins and stamps from foreign lands and even sought out a French tutor at a young age. Prophetically, the young Pérez de Cuéllar used to engage the tutor, who was from Alsace, France, in heated discussions of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi activities in Germany.

After studying at the Colegio la Salle and the Colegio San Agustin in Lima, he matriculated at the Universidad Católica de Peru. As a university student, Pérez de Cuéllar studied law and literature and, through a student intern program, became a clerk in the Peruvian Foreign Ministry in 1940. Although his aspirations at the time were not political and certainly not international, this position piqued his interest in the area and provided him with important contacts in the diplomatic field. After earning his law degree in 1944, Pérez de Cuéllar entered the diplomatic service as third secretary and, with the help of a family friend who was then the deputy foreign minister of Peru, earned an assignment to Paris and the French culture that had always intrigued him. There he married his first wife, Yvette Roberts; they had a son, Francisco, and a daughter, Agueda Cristina. He later served in embassies in Britain, Bolivia, and Brazil. In Brazil he also held the posts of councilor and minister counselor.

One year after he joined the diplomatic corps, World War II ended and preparations were under way to create the new world organization of the United Nations (UN). Pérez de Cuéllar was assigned to the Peruvian delegation of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations. Still relatively new to international politics, Pérez de Cuéllar was amazed by the number of world leaders flooding into London for the preparations and by the frenetic activity that was taking place, but the experience prepared him well for the climb to positions of leadership in Peru’s Foreign Ministry and later the United Nations.

Life’s Work

Returning to Lima in 1961, Pérez de Cuéllar was promoted to the rank of ambassador. He occupied the posts of director of the Legal Department, director of Administration, director of Protocol, and director of Political Affairs. He received his first ambassadorial position in 1962, becoming Peru’s ambassador to Switzerland. In 1964, he returned to Peru to assume the prestigious title of deputy foreign minister. The year 1968 brought dramatic changes to both Peru and Pérez de Cuéllar’s career in the form of a coup d’etat. The new regime established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, although Peru had never maintained permanent relations with czarist Russia or the Soviet bloc in previous years. The new government appointed Pérez de Cuéllar as its ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1969, and he was concurrently the ambassador to Poland. Although Pérez de Cuéllar’s personal politics were conservative, he felt it was his duty to facilitate relations between his nation and the Moscow leadership, a move that would aid his negotiations with the Soviets in later years.

In 1971, the leadership of Peru sent Pérez de Cuéllar to New York as its permanent representative to the United Nations in hopes of strengthening the international position of Peru. During this period, Pérez de Cuéllar served two terms as president of the security council and held several other positions within the United Nations dealing with specific international crises, such as special representative of Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim in Cyprus. In December 1977, he returned to the Peruvian foreign service. He was ambassador to Venezuela from 1978 to 1979. During this time, Pérez de Cuéllar married a second time, to Marcela Temple Seminario.

In February 1979, Pérez de Cuéllar was recalled to the United Nations as the under-secretary-general for Special Political Affairs but also traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the capacity of the secretary-general’s personal representative to continue negotiations initiated earlier by Waldheim. He then briefly was the legal adviser in Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, beginning in May 1981, and was professor of international relations at Peru’s Academia de Guerra Aerea.

That year, Waldheim’s second term as secretary-general of the United Nations was coming to a close. Although Waldheim was actively campaigning for a third term, Salim Salim of Tanzania ranked as a strong challenger, supported by those who wanted a leader from the developing world. However, as it became clear that the People’s Republic of China would not accept a third term from Waldheim and the United States would not accept the communist ally Salim, Pérez de Cuéllar emerged as a compromise candidate. Pérez de Cuéllar began the first of his two terms as secretary-general on January 1, 1982. He was elected to the second term on October 10, 1986.

Some of the most persistent challenges during Pérez de Cuéllar’s administration involved the political conflicts of the Middle East. When Palestinian refugees poured into Lebanon, the nation erupted in civil war. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) began launching attacks against the Israelis in 1978, and Israel responded by sending occupation forces into Lebanon. When Pérez de Cuéllar took office, he sought to diminish the still-lingering effects of this violence by using UN forces to protect the Lebanese civilians and Palestinian refugees caught in the morass. He further sought to bring the United Nations into the resolution of these conflicts, although his efforts were often thwarted by the lack of cooperation not only between the Arab nations and Israel but also between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Persian Gulf War and the success of Operation Desert Storm in reinstating the territorial integrity of Kuwait brought renewed hope to those seeking a peaceful settlement to the Middle East situation. Pérez de Cuéllar furthered these efforts by initiating a relationship with PLO leader Yasir Arafat to ensure that any United Nations–led peace settlement would take into consideration the rights and needs of the Palestinian people. Although Pérez de Cuéllar felt that he had failed in his attempts to bring peace to the Middle East, he did increase the role of the United Nations as moderator in these conflicts.

Pérez de Cuéllar also played a role in the efforts to free hostages in Lebanon. He personally contacted political and underground leaders in Lebanon, Iran, and Syria in an attempt to negotiate the release of hostages, such as British journalist Alec Collett and Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins, as well as other Westerners being held in the region. Although these efforts were not entirely successful, even the surviving family members credited Pérez de Cuéllar and the United Nations with extraordinary persistence in pursuing the hostages’ release.

Pérez de Cuéllar’s involvement in the Cypriot crisis predated his tenure as secretary-general. Pérez de Cuéllar characterized the problem as a seemingly simple one consisting of hammering out appropriate representation of both the Turkish Cypriot minority and the Greek Cypriot majority, yet one that has defied resolution since 1963. Ironically, however, the continued presence of what became the longest UN peacekeeping mission in history actually established an environment peaceful enough that no official resolution has been required.

The African continent called on Pérez de Cuéllar for assistance as well. Namibia, South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, and the Western Sahara all suffered severe political crises during the 1980s. Drought and famine brought disease and economic collapse, which in turn contributed to political upheaval and civil war, creating floods of refugees and continuing the cycle of famine and political strife. Namibia’s problems stemmed from its status as a territorial possession of South Africa. Although South African control of Namibia had technically ended in 1966, in reality little had changed by the time Pérez de Cuéllar became secretary-general. Furthermore, South Africa had extended its racial policies of apartheid to Namibia. Although Namibia’s independence had been largely planned by this time, UN involvement in negotiating cease-fires and actually implementing independence became crucial. Under Pérez de Cuéllar, the United Nations was also instrumental in coordinating international pressure on South Africa to end the apartheid policies imposed on its own people.

The conflict between Angola and Mozambique proved more complex for Pérez de Cuéllar. Angola’s government received support from the Soviet Union and Cuba, while Mozambique benefited from the aid of South Africa and what was then Southern Rhodesia. Meanwhile, Angola was engaged in repelling invasions from Namibian and South African forces. Although the United Nations was not the primary actor in the peaceful resolution of these conflicts, its peacekeeping missions played an important role in creating an environment for national negotiators to act. In contrast, Pérez de Cuéllar was largely responsible for the establishment of the Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco.

Latin America presented similar challenges to Pérez de Cuéllar. British possession of the Falkland Islands had long been a thorn in the side of Argentina and had remained a matter of mediation before the United Nations from 1965 to 1982. In addition to the lack of cooperation between Great Britain and Argentina, the eagerness of the United States, the Organization of American States (OAS), and various Latin American countries to help resolve the conflict served only to complicate the negotiation process and thwart the efforts of the United Nations. Ultimately, the Falkland Islands War of 1982 resolved the issue but not in the peaceful manner anticipated by Pérez de Cuéllar.

United Nations efforts to establish peace in Central America similarly met unintentional resistance through the active intervention of the United States, the OAS, and other nongovernmental institutions. However, the nations of Central America, in conjunction with UN guidance, were able to organize and resolve some of their problems before resorting to open warfare, although not without overcoming a number of coups and short-lived military regimes. Pérez de Cuéllar also focused the UN’s attention on such problems as the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic and the link between drug trafficking and international terrorism. His tenure also saw a growing awareness of environmental problems that needed international cooperation.

Declining to run for a third term, Pérez de Cuéllar ended his tenure as secretary-general on December 31, 1991, and was succeeded by Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He subsequently worked in a variety of diplomatic advisory capacities or charitable organizations, including special counselor to the director general of UNESCO in Paris from 1992 until 2000, president of UNESCO’s World Commission on Culture and Development from 1992 until 1996, and president of the Foundation de l’Arche de la Fratérnité in Paris in 1993. In 1995 he ran for president of Peru but lost to the incumbent, Alberto Fujimori. In November 2000, after Fujimori was forced out of office on charges of corruption, the interim president, Valentín Paniagua, appointed Pérez de Cuéllar president of the Counsel of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He held these positions until July 2001. He then was the ambassador to France until September 2004.

Pérez de Cuéllar’s international diplomacy brought him many honors. He received the Prince of Asturias Prize for his promotion of Spanish-American cooperation in 1987; the Olof Palme Prize for International Understanding and Common Security, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding, and Italy’s Golden Dove of Peace Award in 1989; the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award in 1991; CARE’s International Humanitarian Award in 1995; and the Albert Einstein Peace Award in 1998. He was granted honorary doctorates from forty-nine universities and decorations from thirty-four countries, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Gran Croix de la Legion d’honneur. When Waldheim died in June 2007, Pérez de Cuéllar became the oldest former UN secretary-general.

After becoming the first former UN secretary-general to turn 100 years old in January 2020, Pérez de Cuéllar died in his home in Lima on March 4, 2020.

Significance

Pérez de Cuéllar remained a staunch defender of the integrity and effectiveness of the United Nations. and in his autobiography, noted that even though the much-maligned staff of the Secretariat came from over 150 different countries with varying work cultures and management styles, they were able to adapt remarkably well to what was largely an American model of bureaucracy.

Coming from the developing world, Pérez de Cuéllar understood the importance of economic and social development in resolving and preventing crises, and thus the United Nations’ failures in these areas were particularly frustrating for him. In his autobiography, he pointed out that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations never possessed authority to create or coordinate global policies, nor did it ever control powerful agencies such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. Instead, Pérez de Cuéllar emphasized the importance of nongovernmental institutions, whose independence from governmental and bureaucratic constraints allowed them to respond to potential problems long before intergovernmental institutions were able to take action. Pérez de Cuéllar credited organizations such as the Red Cross and Save the Children with providing qualified and well-trained staff members who were often familiar with local problems and could adapt to varying local needs.

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