If you want to know what makes a true statesman...
OVER the last decade or so, it’s fair to say that the world has not been well endowed with statesmen. However, in the last week, we have lost two people who I believe rightly deserve that description. Firstly, we heard the sad news of the passing of Kofi Annan, and subsequently, the death of John McCain.
During my time as foreign minister, I had the honour and pleasure of working very closely with both men. All of the accolades which they have received since their passing have, in my view, been well deserved. Both of them were unique in their own right. They rubbed shoulders with political leaders, both good and bad, across the world, they always retained a high standard of probity, honesty, and decency.
Shortly after becoming foreign minister, in 2004, I met with Kofi Annan and his staff in the UN building in New York. From the minute I met him, I was hugely impressed by his calm demeanour. It became clear to me that he had a huge respect for Ireland’s place in, and service on behalf of the United Nations. I think it was because of this that he subsequently asked me if I would become one of five special envoys on his behalf on the issue of muchneeded reform of the United Nations structures and rules. The UN had not undergone any major reform since its formation just after the end of the Second World War. And he indicated to me and the other envoys that he wanted to make a major push to finalise changes to how the UN operated at the 2005 General Assembly in New York.
NORMALLY, negotiations on this type of major change to the UN would be left to the resident ambassadors of the 191 nations at the UN, but Annan decided that he needed interlocutors, on his behalf, to, in effect, go over the heads of the ambassadors, by visiting their political leaders of the various countries directly. This meant that, in my case, I had to travel to over 40 capital cities across three-and-a-half months. To do this, I had to visit as many capitals every week as possible. On most days, I would get to at least two capitals. Indeed, on one occasion I visited four different countries all on the same day!
Annan asked us to impress upon government leaders in each country that he wished the UN to undergo meaningful change, given the fact that the UN had been often criticised for sitting idly by while conflict and disasters were occurring across the world. He was particularly insistent that, for instance, ‘Rwanda should never happen again’, referring to the deaths of more than 800,000 Rwandans in the genocide of 1994.
These intense negotiations, both in the capitals and at the UN in New York, culminated in the World Summit 2005, when the world leaders who make up the UN agreed a number of major changes to the UN: for instance, the creation of a new UN body, known as the Peacebuilding Commission, designed to help countries emerging from conflict, and also a new Human Rights Council. Most importantly, the World Summit introduced the ‘responsibility to protect’ principle into the UN. This meant that, from then on, the international community had a duty to intervene when national governments fail to protect their citizens from genocide.
A number of obituaries on Annan have referred to some of his perceived failings during his UN tenure. However, the changes made to the UN, while for many didn’t go far enough, were only adopted unanimously by the UN, because of Annan’s personal commitment to make the world a safer place.
I got to know John McCain because of his work with the late Senator Ted Kennedy on US immigration reform.
Both men had introduced a bill into the US Senate designed to pull all of the elements of US immigration law together in one piece of legislation. Because they were of opposing parties, it was felt that this proposal would, for once and for all, deal with the toxic issue of immigration in US politics.
Most of the lobby groups on behalf of the Irish undocumented in the US were supportive of the proposals, and had pressed me, and other government representatives to lobby the US Senate and Congress accordingly. Because of this, I met both Ted Kennedy and John McCain many times over those years.
WITH McCain, I was always struck by his professionalism and attention to detail. It was clear that he still suffered physically because of the torture meted out to him by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. And yet, he always made little of it. The Kennedy-McCain immigration proposals ground into the sand, after it became clear that McCain’s Republican Party would not wear some of its radical proposals. It also has to be said that McCain himself softened his support for these proposals, particularly around the time when he received the Republican nomination for president in 2008. I was told at the time that he bowed to the very strong anti-immigration lobby in his home state of Arizona. Yet again, another illustration of ‘all politics is local’.
Despite this, McCain has led an extremely principled political life. Knowing him somewhat, it was no surprise to me when I witnessed him on live television defending his presidential opponent, Barack Obama, when someone in the audience had raised doubts about Obama’s US citizenship. His outspoken attitude against Donald Trump is the hallmark of a truly independent politician, who spoke his mind, without fear or favour.
The passing of both Annan and McCain have left this world a lesser place.