The Anatomy of Decay Excerpts
Preface
From 1966 to 2003, a period of thirty-eight years, I worked at the United nations in two places: the fifth committee and the advisory committee. I was assigned to other areas but these were peripheral and temporary, like my brief participation in the work of the committee for programme and coordination, CPC, the governing council of the United Nations Development Programme, UNDPP, and the de-colonisation committee – otherwise known as the committee of twenty-four. More…
Chapter 1 Excerpt
The difficulties I faced chairing the advisory committee were consequences of developments such as those described above, difficulties which grew incrementally from the beginning of the eighties. The changing composition of the committee contributed a great deal to these difficulties. From 1985 to 1991 at least 28 individual changes in membership occurred, each bringing new members, except for the federal republic of Germany (frG), of which a previous member returned to the committee. In some cases, like the United states, the federal republic of Germany, and nigeria, a total of three new members for each country joined the committee in seven years. This meant members from these and other similar countries served for less than the required full term of three years. It was a phenomenon that haunted the committee for years, becoming worse as the committee became larger. More…
Chapter 6 Excerpt
Nothing reflected the naivety and ignorance of several of the new breed of members more than their view of the small secretariat of the advisory committee. They thought it was a research institution, which it was not; it was too small for this function; all additional information and clarifications to assist the committee were supplied by the main United Nations Secretariat. They thought the staff should first read reports of the Secretary-General and make summaries and recommendations for members to use during meetings with representatives of the Secretary-General. This demand was misguided: members were expected to read reports submitted to them before these reports were considered in plenary meetings of the committee. This demand reflected either laziness or refusal by members to perform functions in fulfilment of the role expected of them. In scheduling meetings, the executive secretary and I always made sure, to the extent possible, that sufficient time was available to members to prepare, especially for long or complex reports. More…
Campaign Excerpts
Preface
This memoir is presented in two parts. Part one deals with my campaign for the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) from 1970 to 2003, a period of thirty-three years. Part two deals with the 1981 campaign by the former Tanzania foreign minister, Salim Ahmed Salim, for the post of secretary-general of the United Nations. This part also contains brief comments on the failure to have Mwalimu J. K. Nyerere, the president of Tanzania, elected chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) commemorative session in 1973, his embarrassment about this incident, and his views on the appointment of the OAU secretary-general in 1974. More…
Chapter 1 Excerpt
My first glimpse of the matchbox secretariat building and the iconic General Assembly dome was in 1964 from the roof of the offices of the Carnegie Foundation on East 46th Street in New York City. In 1966, I attended the United Nations General Assembly for the first time. It was a memorable year as I watched with fascination as the assembly debated the judgement of the International Court of Justice on the status of the mandate over South West Africa. An Australian judge had provided the casting vote in the court’s majority dismissing, on a technicality, the case brought by Ethiopia, Liberia, and others against Apartheid South Africa’s continuing claim over South West Africa. More…