During Adam
Malik’s Presidency of the 26th General Assembly session, the vote
finds a successor to outgoing United Nations Secretary General U Thant was
held. Among the candidates running for the post was Austrian Ambassador to UN,
Kurt Waldheim. The Foreign Minister of Austria had requested Indonesian support
for Dr. Waldheim that was readily been given by Adam Malik. Dr. Waldheim was so
grateful that he promised a high position within the United Nations
organization to a qualified Indonesian national should he be elected as
Secretary General.
Waldheim was
elected and was appointed as UN Secretary General commencing 1 January 1972. He
indeed kept his promise to Adam Malik by offering to post of Executive
Secretary of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East or ECAFE to an
Indonesian national. The Indonesian government proposed a career diplomat who
previously had served in several multilateral forums. But for reasons still
unknown to me, Dr Waldheim preferred another high-ranking Indonesian. As I
recall it was in early October 1971 that I received an urgent call in Brussels
from Foreign Minister Adam Malik informing me that the Indonesian Government
had decided to nominate me as the candidate for the ECAFE post. I was of course
very much surprised by this decision since it was only in February of that same
year that I had presented my credentials to the King of Belgium, the Grand Duke
of Luxembourg and the Presidents of the Council and Commission of the European
community.
When
President Soeharto paid a state visit to Belgium in November 1972, I asked the
President why he had appointed me as candidate for ECAFE since I had only been
in my post as Ambassador to Belgium only a few months earlier. The president
answered “There are many candidates for the post as Ambassador, but for ECAFE
you are the only one” I was of course
very pleased with his reply.
Dr. Waldheim
immediately approved my candidacy, as he was already familiar with me from the
time I served as Ambassador to UN and as President of ECOSOC. On January 8
1973, at a press conference in the United Nations he announced my appointment
as the new Executive Secretary of ECAFE
with the rank of Assistant Secretary General. This designation was later
up-graded to Under-Secretary general.
My
predecessor at ECAFE, U Nyun of Burma asked for a brief postponement of the
handover date to which I readily consented. I left Brussels in early July and
spent three weeks on vacation with Nini and our six children in Switzerland.
This was to be our last family re-union for a long time to come, for in the
intervening years our children went their separate ways and somehow we never
managed to congregate as one family in one place.
I arrived in
Bangkok in July 20 1973 accompanied Nini and four of our youngest children,
Larry, Mignonne, Mioche and Richele.
I assumed the post
officially on 1 August 1973 as the fourth Executive Secretary of ECAFE.
To help me in my
duties of Executive Secretary I selected Mr. H. Rudy Gontha as my special
assistant, a strategic position of great importance in the bureaucratic
labyrinth of the United Nations hierarchy. I needed the services of a person
who was fully qualified and dedicated to the job. One who would be highly
responsible, and above all trust worthy and loyal. Mr. Gontha possessed all
those qualities. He was a close confident in my days in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and had served ably as my assistant in the Indonesian Permanent to the
United Nations in New York. I have counted on his help during Adam Malik’s
Presidency of the General Assembly and I knew I could tap on his experience yet
again in my new position at ECAFE.
ECAFE was created in June 1947 with
Shanghai as its original headquarters. After the communist victory in China, the
headquarters were moved to Bangkok where it remained until the present. When I
took over the helm of ECAF, the Commission had 35 regional and non-regional
members, and 8 associate members.
ECAFE was the largest of the five
regional commissions. The four others were ECLA (Economic commission for Latin
America), ECE (Economic commission for Europe), ECA (Economic commission for
Africa) and ECWA (Economic commission for West Asia).
The ECAFE region at the start of my
tenure encompassed a vast area stretching
from Iran in the west to the Cook Island in the far Pacific, and from Japan in
the North to New Zealand in the South.
This area covered over 31 million square kilometres and was home to 2.7 billion people or 56% of the world’s population. The ECAFE region was also the most heterogeneous in terms of culture, traditions, religion and stages of economic, social and political development.
ECAFE was originally conceived as a machinery to promote and co-ordinate reconstruction in the wider sense and to bring all the international aid activities of the region into a common focus so that they might supplement and reinforce each other. During its early years a shift in the role of ECAFE was already discernable from its original ‘think-tank” to the promotion of economic development.
By the 1950s countries in the region were
slowly accustomed to the idea of regionalism, an all-important precondition for
the period of institution- building that was to follow in the next decade. Thus
under its first three Executive Secretaries, Dr. Lokonathan (1947-56), C.V.
Narashimhan (1956-59) and U Nyun (1959-73) ECAFE had evolved from a think tank
to an increasingly action oriented organization, providing countries with
economic development projects and programs aimed at regional and sub-regional
economic co-operation.
Mr. ESCAP
As mentioned earlier, I was already
quite familiar with the work of ECAFE from the several annual commission session I had
attended in my early career with the Indonesian Foreign Service.
I felt, however, that I needed more
time to familiarize and up date myself with ECAFE’s activities and objectives.
It was in this context that I decided during the first months to travel widely
in the region to personally acquaint myself with the leaders of several member
countries to seek their views on ECAFE.
An important observation expressed by
countries in the Pacific was that ECAFE was too Asian oriented (Asian High
Ways, Asian Railroad etc.) with the Pacific considered merely an appendage of
Asia, a view that I happened to share completely. Upon my return from these
initial visits, I had already made up my mind on what I had to do.
First, I would propose to change the
name of the organization to more accurately reflect its geographical
boundaries. Second, I would give sharper focus to ECAFE operational capacity as
the regional centre of United Nations development activities in tune with the
new horizons and changing perspectives that were emerging in the region.
Let me deal with the proposal of
changing the name first. Let me emphasize from the outset that my proposal to
change the name was not for the sake of change itself. First and foremost was
my resolve to see the organization more realistically reflecting the new
political map and power relations in the region during that time. The People’s
Republic of China, which already reoccupied its lawful seat in the United
Nations, would be encourage to a more active role. Likewise with Vietnam in the
aftermath of the Vietnamese war. Last but not least was the emergence of the
Southeast Asian and Pacific countries on the political scene. The term Far East
also carried with it political connotation –“far” from the Hague, London and
France?
I brought up the subject of changing the
name from Far East into Pacific at one of my first meeting with General Carlos
Romulo of the Philippines, who was Foreign Secretary at that time. He was a
very enthusiastic supporter since it was he himself had first initiated the
proposal to substitute Far East with Pacific. However, this was turned down by
my predecessor who had insisted that ECAFE was already a household word.
I suggested to Romulo to add the word Social as well since the regional commissions were subsidiary bodies of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. More important, however, was that the term social was intended to reflect an integrated approach to development embraced not only economic indicators but social dimensions as well. And members themselves would pledge themselves to pursue policies to create a more just and rational world economic and social order, where equality of opportunity was to be much a prerogative of nations as of individuals within a nation.
I proposed to rename ECAFE to the
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. General Romulo nodded
in agreement. His only question was what the abbreviation would be. I replied
“Something like ESCAP”. He thought for a while and said. ”I agree as long as it is not escape”.
I submitted my proposal to the annual
session of ECAFE that was held in Colombo in 19743m, my first session as
Executive Secretary.
My proposal was adopted unanimously and
subsequently endorsed by ECOSOC and United Nations General Assembly. ECAFE was
subsequently renamed ESCAP as of 1974.
From then on I was referred to as Mr.
ESCAP.
Posted: April 28, 2000. rudyct http://sulutlink.com http://tumoutou.net