Beyond persuasion: personal style

I met Guido de Marco for the first time in New York in September 1990, a few days before he was to preside over the General Assembly of the United Nations. Of course, I knew of him from the media in Malta.

He had asked to meet with me in New York so that I could brief him and share some of the experiences of my 25 years at the United Nations headquarters. After our first meeting he asked me to serve as his principal adviser and to run his office at the UN while he was away from New York.

I was impressed by his personal style and the way he analysed and saw the role of the General Assembly presidency, even after I presented it to him as a bland and simple chairing of a usually not-so-exciting plenary that approved decisions and resolutions of the many committees and sub-committees of the United Nations.

This personal style not only impressed me but also most of those who, for whatever reason, came in touch with de Marco’s style in New York, from the Emir of Kuwait, who saw his country being invaded by a neighbour, to the heads of the countries in the group of least developed countries who heard for the first time their plight highlighted at the highest forum of the United Nations.

In the case of the Kuwait invasion, rather than waiting for the usual lengthy process of informal consultations usually leading to the matter coming up before the Security Council and then the General Assembly, which could take forever, after a visit of the Emir to the new president of the General Assembly, de Marco took the initiative, as he explained in his autobiography, by pushing for a quick withdrawal of the invading army.

He did this by putting the credibility of the United Nations on the line if a solution was not found quickly. That the solution was only found by the use of force was not due to the lack of effort by the new president, who rationalised that only in such flagrant abuse of international law could the UN use force.

As could be seen from the Kuwaiti delegation attending de Marco’s funeral, the Emir and his people continue to be ever grateful for his role in restoring normality to Kuwait.

De Marco was never fully satisfied with the draft statements and speeches we gave him for the General Assembly and he always re-worked them extensively and kept pressure on us to keep improving the texts until just before delivering the speeches.

On one occasion, while walking quickly to the General Assembly for the opening of the High Level segment, usually attended by about 100 heads of state and foreign ministers, he told me that he wished to have something really new to say. I hesitatingly mentioned that the plight of the least developed countries (LDCs) was never given its due importance and, in spite of an increase of bilateral and UN development assistance, the number of the least developed countries continued to increase.

In the middle of his prepared statement he launched into an impassioned appeal on the behalf of the least developed countries, saying the General Assembly should give this matter more priority and that he would ensure this was done.

This was received by great applause from the hall, and later a delegation from the LDCs led by the then president of Bangladesh came to congratulate de Marco and to tell him this was the first time that their plight was mentioned by a president of the General Assembly and that they were forever grateful to him.

De Marco’s personal style was to change the role of the presidency of the General Assembly forever. After 25 years at the United Nations I was rather sceptical that the role of the General Assembly could change much, but I was wrong.

During one of the first meetings with me and his core group in his office on the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat building, we discussed possible missions and the visit to the Palestinian refugee camps that included also a visit to Israel and Jordan. I was asked to look into the logistics for the travel. This proved to be an impossible task for me since I was stopped cold in my tracks by the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General and was given the dressing down of my life.

I was told I should have known better and should have told ‘my president’ that the correct role of the presidency was to chair the plenary without making waves and that I should have also pointed out to him that his office had no budget at all.

At that time I did not know de Marco that well and did not really know what his response was going to be. As it turned out, the reaction of the top UN civil servant made him more determined to visit the Palestinian camps, and he immediately went to see the Secretary-General himself who had no problem at all with de Marco’s plans.

As we find out from his books, the objections came from other sources outside the UN, but these were also overcome.

De Marco’s personal style changed the way the General Assembly worked and he was convinced that other parts of the UN could be made more effective too. He did not accept my view that the governments did not want the United Nations to be more effective.

Like so many others who had the privilege to work with de Marco, I will miss him.