United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres should absolutely not serve a second five-year term, says former Canadian Ambassador to the UN Stephen Lewis. In a blistering statement, he and his Co-Director of the Code Blue Campaign Paula Donovan say that Guterres has failed to eradicate sexual offenses by UN peacekeeping and other UN personnel as promised in his inaugural address.
The Code Blue Campaign was launched by the non-profit AIDS-Free World to end impunity for sexual abuse by UN personnel. Directors say that for over three decades, allegations of sexual offenses have been levelled against UN personnel around the world. While the UN has a zero tolerance police for this, the directors ask why the impunity persists.
The Code Blue Campaign was launched by the non-profit AIDS-Free World to end impunity for sexual abuse by UN personnel. (Code Blue Campaign)
Approach called ‘little more than a public relations campaign’
Lewis and Donovan say that Guterres has been largely silent over the past three years and that his “New Approach” to sexual offenses “has proven to be little more than a public relations campaign marked by cosmetic adjustments that fail to address the systemic flaws that sustain a culture of impunity.”
They say that Ms. Jane Holl Lute who was appointed to address the issue seems to have not made a public appearance or statement on sexual exploitation and abuse since 2018.
The picture of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi was displayed near the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul where he was murdered in 2018. The UN secretary general was criticized for not speaking up about this and other human rights abuses. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)
‘An unwillingness to speak up on behalf of human rights’
The directors also criticize Guterres for what they call a dispiriting unwillingness to speak up on behalf of human rights. “Mr. Guterres has been mind-numbingly circumspect on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi; the repression of Uyghur Muslims in China; the Myanmar army’s onslaught against Rohingya Muslims; the bombing of Syrian hospitals by Russian-Syrian forces; the various Trump administration outrages, including the inhumane child separation policy at the border; and other issues that might conflict with the sensibilities of the permanent five members of the Security Council (whose support is critical for his reappointment as Secretary-General),” write Lewis and Donovan.
They go on to say that Guterres is not taken seriously by the nations of the world and has trouble garnering a response when he asks for financial contributions for things like COVID relief, climate change or victims of the cholera that was introduced by UN personnel in Haiti. They add that when Guterres decried countries that reject the truth about the pandemic and ignore World Health Organization guidelines he does not name the countries and is “easy to ignore.”
Lewis and Donovan say that instead of offering himself for a second term as UN secretary general, Guterres should step down and state that his successor should be a woman.
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