Former United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who served during the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Rwandan Genocide, has died.
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The late Egyptian diplomat became the first secretary-general from the African continent in 1992, but his tenure ended abruptly after five years when the United States vetoed his second term.
The president of the UN Security Council, Venezuelan Ambassador Rafael Ramirez, announced Boutros-Ghali’s death at the opening of Tuesday’s session on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
There was also friction over the implementation of United Nations sanctions against the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which had invaded and then been ejected from Kuwait by a US-led coalition a year before Boutros-Ghali took up his post.
Before serving at the United Nations, he had occupied the post of Egypt’s deputy prime minister for foreign affairs, among other positions.
He once consented to be interviewed by the faux reporter Ali G, played by the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who introduced Boutros-Ghali as the “geezer” who leads the United Nations. He later served as Egypt’s vice foreign minister.
Boutros-Ghali took the U.N.’s helm at 69, determined to subdue aggression and pursue peace after the fall of Soviet communism and a relaxation of East-West tensions that had long hamstrung the U.N. He also resolved to tackle the organization’s bloated bureaucracy and chronic money problems.
Later, as an ascendent member of Egypt’s diplomatic class, he garnered seemingly countless academic degrees, including a PhD in worldwide law from the University of Paris, and directed the Centre of Research of the Hague Academy of global Law.
Boutros-Ghali had argued unsuccessfully during the negotiations for a Palestinian state and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to The New York Times.
Many diplomats suggested he was jettisoned by U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration during an election year to pre-empt criticism from Republicans deeply hostile to Boutros-Ghali and the United Nations, which they wanted to see undergo more reform.
“Boutros Boutros-Ghali did much to shape the Organization’s response to this new era, in particular through his landmark report “An Agenda for Peace” and the subsequent agendas for development and democratization”.
He is the only Secretary General in the history of United Nations who did not serve for two terms, and was succeded by Kofi Annan of Ghana who became the 7 secretary General of the United Nations.
In 1977, when Sadat made a decision to go to Jerusalem, his foreign minister, Ismail Fahmy, resigned in protest, reflecting opposition to the overture in Egypt’s dominant Muslim majority and in the Arab world.
And in 2002, he was appointed the president of Egypt’s new human rights council by Hosni Mubarak, then Egypt’s president.
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He was married to Lea, an Egyptian Jew.
