Dag Hammarskjöld, the first United Nations Secretary-General to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, was also among the first UN staff members to lay down their lives in the line of duty. He is credited with launching the United Nations on its active career as the keeper of world peace during the difficult period of the cold war. Using "the intense art of diplomacy for unconventional and novel experiments", he pioneered the techniques of crisis management and peacekeeping and was the architect of basic rules and principles that still apply. He was awarded the 1961 Nobel Peace Prize posthumously, after his plane crashed on a mission in war-ravaged Congo, killing thirteen UN personnel on board.
 |
UN Photo
|
Mr. Hammarskjöld believed that the United Nations had a limitless capacity to wage peace, provided it was properly led, organized and supported. "Working on the edge of human society", he had an almost idealistic belief in rhetorical concepts, such as the world community, the rule of law and international peace and security. An intellectual and a visionary, he made a new art of multilateral diplomacy and international service. Passionately interested in the universal arts of literature, drama, painting and music, he was convinced that there were indivisible bridges on which human beings could meet above the confines of ideologies, races and nations. He believed that international understanding needed a larger base than mere political accord: mutual appreciation of the culture, art, literature and music of the world.
A career diplomat and a political economist, Hammarskjöld represented Sweden as a delegate to the UN in 1949 and again between 1951 and 1953. He was elected Secretary-General in 1953 and re-elected for a second term in 1957. He served as constitutional innovator and chief negotiator and was entrusted with executive responsibilities of unprecedented scope. His career challenges span the ceasefire mission to the Middle East, the dispute over the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the surprise attack on Egypt mounted by Israel, France and the United Kingdom, and the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) in the Sinai, which became the model for peacekeeping missions of future decades.
He is remembered for personally negotiating the release of American soldiers captured by the Chinese in the Korean War, helping to resolve crises in Lebanon and Jordan, interceding in the diplomatic crisis between Cambodia and Thailand and then in Laos, and his passionate involvement with the problems stemming from the new independence of various developing countries. He brought a strong determination, consummate skill and total dedication to his job.
A firm believer in "quiet diplomacy", he sought solutions to disputes through private discussions between adversaries. His leadership, personal initiative and moral courage were directly responsible for the increasing influence and prestige of the United Nations. In a private letter written in 1953, he said: "To know that the goal is so significant that everything else must be set aside gives a great sense of liberation and makes one indifferent to anything that may happen to oneself." And so, at the pinnacle of his career, at age 56, he undertook his last mission. The goal was to bring compromise and peace in the Congo; the tragic result was the death of a great statesman.
In the presentation speech, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Gunnar Jahn, said that in every situation Dag Hammarskjöld faced, "he had one goal in mind: to serve the ideas sponsored by the United Nations".
For Kofi Annan, Dag Hammarskjöld has been a model, as established by his words in a lecture in Sweden in September 2001. "His life and his death, his words and his actions, have done more to shape public expectations of the office, and indeed of the Organization, than those of any other man or woman in its history. His wisdom and his modesty, his unimpeachable integrity and single-minded devotion to duty, have set a standard for all servants of the international community—and especially, of course, for his successors—which is simply impossible to live up to. There can be no better rule of thumb for a Secretary-General, as he approaches each new challenge or crisis, than to ask himself, 'How would Hammarskjöld have handled this?'"
The concept of peace contained in the UN Charter was always to remain Dag Hammarskjöld's guiding principle. He wanted the United Nations to be shaped into a dynamic institution in the service of development. Despite being exposed to criticism and violent attacks, he remained steadfast in his mission and true to his belief that goodwill among men and nations would one day create conditions in which peace would prevail in the world.
|
Print