Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Will Guterres manage to successfully wrestle with crises of the world?' that was published in Newsband

Will Guterres manage to successfully wrestle with crises of the world?

The United Nations Security Council’s board has announced that António Guterres would be the next Secretary-General of United Nations which is wrestling with the many crises of the world. In all, 13 of the 15 members of the Council, including the five veto-wielding permanent members, had sent the name of the former Portugal Prime Minister to the General Assembly for final approval.

The UN’s ninth Secretary-General Mr. Guterres’ experience as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees will come in handy. He is passionate about the cause of refugees; he has frequently appealed to the international community over the migrant crisis. Mr. Guterres will have to find creative ways to bridge the chasm between Western powers on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. Although he has a reputation for being an instinctive strategist, Mr. Guterres will have to hand-pick a capable team of advisers. The question asked is whether he will stay true to his promise, made earlier, to ensure that the higher echelons of the UN have 50 per cent women employees? That goal was set 20 years ago by the UN.

Mr Guterres is being called by his critics as another 'weak' leader in the same mould as the previous UN leaders and that he is just a ceremonial head of an organisation that is more symbolic than effective.

Mr Guterres was the head of UNHCR, so his priority will be refugees and asylum seekers. He should address the root cause of refugees, wars and conflicts, and should try to persuade the richer nations to take in an ever increasing number of refugees and give them asylum. He should reprimand nations like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran for sponsoring terrorism and war.

He should be bold enough to address the root cause for converting ordinary people/families to 'refugees'. Yes, the world is returning back to the Cold War period with not two Powers, but more, leading to stasis on one issue or another.

The division of nations, specially West and East blocks, remains an impediment to progressive policies and implementation by the United Nations. The balance is heavily tilted towards the Western countries and any resolution on Palestine liberation or crisis of refugees rehabilitation may need strong political acumen from the future Secretary General and his advisory body.

Antonio Guterres has the unenviable task of balancing "war like" situation on one side, and the effects of Global Warming and Poverty on the other side. As the distances amongst today's biggest nations who matter (USA, Russia and China) widen, this task, though cut out, would also widen - to a sort of out of reach proportions. How Guterres would balance these situations would be keenly watched. The sobering aspect is that he himself has soft corner for the downtrodden, especially when looking at the conditions of the unfortunate refugees, whose numbers are swelling to millions - by the day

Even though there was a moot to select a woman for the post of the Secretary General, Guterres of Portugal has been selected and it is a disappointment for the Nations aspiring a woman Secretary and also for few potential women candidates. India also wants a woman incumbent for the job to maintain gender equity and region balance. But Guterres is also a suitable candidate who is the global spokesman for refugees and he served as US High Commissioner for refugees treatment. Hoping that Guterres will efficiently handle the Syrian and Libyan refugee crisis and to take endeavour to bring global peace at this juncture of world peace being punctured by well grown terrorism and ego of big powers to use the civil war hit nations as scapegoat for their geopolitical whims and fancies.

Guterres must try to bring civil wars to end rather than concentrate on refugee problem which is repercussion of the war. Violation of human rights by genocide of Lankan Tamils is still pending.