Javier Pérez de Cuéllar
UN Secretary-General
JAVIER PÉREZ DE CUÉLLAR was Secretary General of the United Nations at key moments in British history, including the Falklands and Iraq wars.
The Peruvian-born diplomat had only been in the post a few months when Argentina invaded the Falklands and, although ultimately failing, he worked to try to find a diplomatic solution. He did manage to secure the release of three British journalists held in Argentina on trumped-up spying charges. And his tireless attempts to achieve peaceful solutions to conflicts around the globe earned widespread respect.
“What I have to preserve most is my usefulness,” he once said. “Despite great sympathy for Argentina, I had to be on the side that was the law.”
He often held the UN charter in his hand, saying: “That book is my religion.”
The charter states that all disputes between countries should be resolved without force.
When Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait in 1990, De Cuéllar battled hard to stop the Iraqi leader using foreigners as human shields. He also won widespread praise for working behind the scenes to help secure the release of church envoy Terry Waite and ITN journalist John McCarthy from captivity in Lebanon in 1991.
He celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, but was despondent about fighting between Serbs and Croats.
Born in Lima, the capital of Peru, his father was a successful businessman and brilliant pianist.
In 1947 he married Yvette Roberts Darricau, then in 1975 married Marcela Temple Seminario, who died in 2013.