United Nations Secretary General António Guterres was accused by Israel of violating the impartiality of his position. Do you agree with this reading?
No. I think the role of the Secretary General is to defend the principles of the United Nations Charter and engineer António Guterres, by saying what he said and the way he said it, not only underlined the basic principles of the UN , but also acted with dignity. the office. Engineer António Guterres also took a position on the Ukraine issue that was negatively read by Moscow for the same reason, precisely because he decided to remember what the fundamental principles of the UN are.
And now it was Israel.
On the issue of Israel, Palestine and Hamas, Guterres said two things, only one of which is emphasized. I said something that obviously resonates well with Israel, namely the issue of denouncing Hamas’s terrorist actions and the absolutely unacceptable nature of attacking the civilian population, cowardly killing civilians and cowardly kidnapping of citizens who is now trying to instrumentalize. But he also said something that is obvious and that cowardice and complacency at the international level have often avoided. He said this didn’t happen out of nowhere. Because we must understand that Hamas is taking advantage of the radicalization of decades of injustice to which the Palestinian people have been exposed. For example, settlements have been built in the West Bank against the wishes of the United Nations.
This is being used against Guterres…
I have the utmost respect for Israel and more than that: Israel is a country whose existence is not in question and should not be in question by the international community. But for me, the security of Israel is not superior to the importance of the security of the Palestinians and the lives of the Palestinians. And while Israel has a state to protect its citizens, only the international community, that is, the United Nations, can protect the Palestinians. I must say that it is a bit ironic to see Israel accusing the United Nations of a lack of independence, while Israel is not adhering to the United Nations’ own resolutions. In fact, if I say that I am in favor of the existence of the State of Israel, with borders defined in the light of international law, I will be considered an opponent of Israel. Because Israel does not accept the borders assigned to it by international law.
Returning to the role of Secretary General, Kofi Annan once said that he must be impartial, but that does not mean he must be neutral. Do you agree?
It is clear that the Secretary General cannot be neutral; the Secretary General has a historic problem, namely the vote of the Security Council. And outside that time when he is the voice of the Security Council, when the Security Council is blocked, the Secretary-General has only to reiterate the general principles of the United Nations, which flow from the UN Charter. It is not for any reason that Boutros Ghali was not re-elected as UN Secretary General. It was not for the simple reason that in defending the general principles of the Charter it was against a state, namely the USA. And that is why Engineer Guterres knows that by saying these words he is defending the principles of the United Nations, which is why he was elected. As a Portuguese, I was very honored by what he said, and I was very touched by what he said. He must be impartial, he does not have to be neutral in any way, because he can only be neutral if he is amoral. And he is not amoral. We here in Portugal, who know him well, know very well that principles and values are what Guterres cherishes most.
Israel is now calling for Guterres’ resignation. Do you have the strength to do it?
Israel has the same strength as a country that fails to comply with all Security Council resolutions. That is, it is clear that if tomorrow the US, France, the UK, Russia, China or some of them endorse the same positions, the vulnerability of the Secretary General’s role will increase. However, I would like to say that the Secretary-General currently has a mandate and that he must carry it out to the end, and that the United Nations is only honored to have a Secretary-General who is able to promote the interests of the UN is of paramount importance. principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
In the history of the United Nations, only one Secretary General has resigned, and that was the first: Norwegian Trygve Lie.
Precisely. And another [Dag Hammarskjöld] He died in a plane crash, probably in an attack, in Congo. But there was someone else who did not see his mandate extended, namely Boutros Ghali, because he opposed the United States, which did not allow him to extend his mandate. It was a series of statements that essentially questioned the role of the US. With regard to engineer Guterres, I think it is only an honor to the United Nations to have a Secretary General who says these things, which, I say again, are banalities. This is if the world has not long been complacent. Namely this entity that has an absolutely mediocre attitude in the Middle East, called the European Union, which serves only to compensate for the damage caused in wars and which is incapable of taking a common position and which always hesitates between great complacency in the face of Israel’s problems and some moral sensitivity towards Palestine and cannot make a final satisfactory decision from here. And recently, with the statements of Mrs Ursula von der Leyen, it was one of the lowest moments in the history of our own foreign policy. I think Guterres has done a lot of good and Guterres cannot be neutral, and I think Israel’s request for his resignation should be met with a shrug.
Finally, I think Trygve Lie’s statement that the position is “the most difficult in the world” will be on the United Nations headquarters.
What Trygve Lie said, at the height of the Cold War and at the beginning of the United Nations, was because he knew that within the Security Council itself and among the permanent members with veto power there were countries that took completely different positions and completely different readings. The Secretary General must be a kind of representative of a conflict and therefore, when the situation arises, when the Security Council decides on a matter that is not of essential concern to any permanent member of the Security Council, the Secretary General has an immediate power and an immediate power that can be exercised. Now that members of the Security Council are heavily involved, it is clear that their situation is becoming impossible. I do not rule out that the situation could become impossible for António Guterres at some point, in a scenario where the US endorses Israel’s positions. Guterres must enjoy the confidence of the permanent members of the Security Council. If you do not have that confidence, I hope that Brazil, which currently holds the presidency, can take positions that will allow us to find a common path.
Source: DN
