At last the decision has been made ! The five veto wielding members of the United Nations Security Council have reached consensus and the next Secretary General of the world body will be Antonio Guterres, the former prime minister of Portugal.
Some will offer him their condolences ! In recent times the job of Secretary General has been an impossible job trying to meditate the warring factions behind so many actual shooting wars plus the antagonism between the western way of life and the closed societies that insist on rule by decree. The present Secretary General, Korea's Ban Ki-Moon will lay down his task with relief and enjoy a well earned retirement.
Antonio Guterres comes well equipped for the job. After he served as Portugal's prime minister he spent ten years administering the United Nations Refugee agency, and he fluently speaks English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Many people regard the United Nations as a failed world body and a continuation of the similarly failed old League of Nations which was formed after the immense slaughter of the first World War.
The concept at both bodies was for all nations to sit at the conference table as equals and use their combined strength to decide world issues and prevent war. In neither instance did it work out that way.
In every age since the Roman Empire the world has been dominated by super powers, usually with both the power of wealth and military arms. They form power blocks with lesser nations of such strengths and become de facto rulers of the world, often achieving their ends by the way of proxy wars.
The present United Nations structure had to take notice of five major nations all equipped with nuclear arms. They became permanent members of the Security Council - each with the power of Veto. Essentially, the task of the Secretary General is to negotiate with this " inner body " and to concede just enough so that consensus is achieved. Unfortunately, on the issues that matter this is rarely possible and is the main reason why we still have active shooting wars.
The Secretary General must be a person of rare insight and skill. He or she must be a negotiator with extreme patience and have the ability to juggle trade, world agreements and the deployment of United Nations armed forces as the Chess pieces of diplomatic relations. There are usually many more failures than successes in the deliberations of the world body.
Some Australians will be incensed - and others relieved - that one of our former prime ministers was not considered for the job. Kevin Rudd certainly put his hand up and looked to the Australian government for support, but it was not forthcoming. Rudd's terms in office were marked by micro management and snap decisions and that is not the way of International diplomacy. It is doubtful that Rudd could have got the necessary consensus from that inner body to become the next Secretary General.
Now that Antonio Guterres is confirmed he will be the man in the spotlight on the world stage. World peace will probably depend on the skills he brings to the job !
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