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Boutros Boutros-Ghali Boutros Boutros-Ghali Afro-Arab Prophet, Proselytiser, Pharoah, and Pope Adekeye Adebajo First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Adekeye Adebajo The right of Adekeye Adebajo to be identiﬁed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. 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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 9781032430829 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032431482 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003365884 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003365884 Typeset in Minion Pro by Aimèe Armstrong Contents Introduction 1 1 Noblesse Oblige: A Committed Coptic Christian 9 2 The Prophet: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem 25 3 The Proselytiser: The Organisation of African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement 59 4 The Pharaoh: The Perils of Peacemaking 77 5 The Pope on the East River: Development, Democratisation, and Human Rights 101 6 Legacy 113 Acknowledgements 123 Index 127 Introduction Boutros-Ghali … was a man of charm and erudition. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of international, and in particular of African, affairs … He was forceful and decisive, perhaps sometimes too much so for his own good.1 David Hannay, Britain’s permanent representative to the UN, 1990–5 Prophet, Pharaoh and Pope Egyptian scholar-diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s career is portrayed in this biography using three typologies of Prophet, Pharaoh and Pope. He was a renowned professor of International Law and International Relations, publishing and teaching on issues related to the United Nations (UN), regional organisations such as the Arab League and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Acting as a peacemaking “Prophet”, Egypt’s minister of state for foreign affairs led negotiations between 1977 and 1981 that culminated in a peace treaty with Israel. His entire academic and public life had thus prepared him well for the role of UN secretary-general: he was a round peg in a round hole. As UN secretary-general between 1992 and 1996, Boutros- Ghali played the role of a stubborn “Pharaoh” in an often imperious approach, standing up against powerful members of the UN Security 1 Boutros Boutros-Ghali Council in the critical area of managing peacekeeping operations in the post-Cold War era. Finally, as UN secretary-general, Boutros- Ghali pursued the role of a secular “Pope” in leading conceptual debates on development, democratisation and human rights, as well as hosting mega-summits on the environment (Rio, 1992); human rights (Vienna, 1993); population (Cairo, 1994); social development (Copenhagen, 1995); and women (Beijing, 1995). Of the eight former United Nations secretaries-general since 1945, no historical biography in English has surprisingly been written on Boutros-Ghali, the most intellectually accomplished office-holder. The only biography – in French – was written by Alain Dejammet, France’s former permanent representative to the United Nations (1995–2000) and its former ambassador to Egypt (1989–91), who knew Boutros well.2 An eminent scholar-diplomat and the sixth UN secretary-general, Boutros-Ghali held the office in the immediate post-Cold War era when cooperation between the United States and Russia resumed after a 45-year thaw. This led to great expectations that the world body would finally work as its “Founding Fathers” had intended it to. An unprecedented number of peacekeeping missions was launched under the Egyptian’s leadership. Between 1992 and 1994, the UN deployed 75,000 peacekeepers to 17 trouble spots. During the previous four decades, the world body had approved just 13 peacekeeping missions. This book sets out to correct the anomaly of a missing biography in English of one of the most important UN secretaries-general, by examining the life and times of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who died in Cairo in February 2016 at the age of 93. He was the first African and the first Arab UN secretary-general. A Coptic Christian from a rich and politically connected family, he acquired a deep sense of noblesse oblige and a commitment to public service from his family heritage. His grandfather Boutros Ghali Pasha had served as prime minister and foreign minister of Egypt under the British protectorate, before being assassinated by a political extremist in February 1910. Two uncles had also served as foreign minister, another as agriculture minister, while several cousins served as ministers, parliamentarians and diplomats. But the Egyptian was also the ultimate outsider: a patrician within 2 Introduction a mass of poverty in his country; a Copt within an overwhelmingly Muslim society; and an Arab within an overwhelmingly black African continent.3 Boutros-Ghali obtained a doctorate in International Law from the Sorbonne at the University of Paris, and taught at Cairo University for 28 years. He published over a hundred academic articles in law and politics journals, and wrote the first book on the UN to appear in Arabic. He was thus indisputably the most scholarly secretary-general in the eight-decade history of the post. Having served as Egypt’s minister of state for foreign affairs between 1977 and 1991, Boutros- Ghali was steeped in the intricacies of Third World diplomacy, had a profound and intuitive grasp of the global South, and was deeply involved in both the Arab–Israeli dispute and the politics of the Organisation of African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement. In his first four years in the Egyptian foreign ministry, located on Cairo’s historic Midan al-Tahrir (Liberation Square), he acted as a “Prophet” in serving as one of the key architects in negotiating and implementing the controversial US-brokered Camp David peace accords with Israel in September 1978. The bilateral treaty that emerged six months later resulted in Egypt’s diplomatic isolation in the Arab world, as well as the assassination of its head of state, Anwar Sadat, by Islamic militants in October 1981.These events are well captured in Boutros-Ghali’s 1997 memoirs, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem: A Diplomat’s Story of the Struggle for Peace in the Middle East:4 a primary source, from which this biography has greatly benefited to tell the story from the vantage point of a principal actor in this sacred drama. This biography gives as much attention to this less well-known story of Boutros’s mediation efforts with Israel and his efforts to end Cairo’s diplomatic isolation, as to his much more well-publicised role as UN secretary-general. As United Nations secretary-general between 1992 and 1996, Boutros-Ghali clashed fatally with the world body’s most powerful member – the United States – earning him the unenviable record of being the only UN secretary-general to have been denied a second five-year term in office. His relationship with the 15-member UN Security Council was a difficult one. The Egyptian acted as a stubborn “Pharaoh” in bluntly condemning the double standards of 3