How Salim lost bid to be first black UN boss

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s former long-serving secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, has revealed for the first time, how he almost became the youngest and first black UN secretary-general.

He recounts how the war between two superpowers — the United States and China — blocked his ascendancy to the powerful diplomatic position in the world.

His story is contained in a newly-launched book titled ‘Salim Ahmed Salim: Son of Africa’, which was launched in Dar es Salaam on Thursday by the minister for Foreign Affairs, East Africa, Regional and International Cooperation, Dr Augustine Mahiga.

The 106-page book also speaks of how Dr Salim’s contribution to Africa’s liberation struggle is one of the defining facets of the Tanzanian diplomat’s distinguished career. In his various capacities at the UN and the then OAU (now known as the African Union (AU)), and while serving in Tanzania, Dr Salim played a pivotal role in supporting, coordinating and ramping up global efforts to eradicate colonialism and apartheid.

In 1981 Dr Salim, who is one of Tanzania’s foremost political and diplomatic leaders, presented his candidature for the position of UN secretary-general but his bid was unsuccessful despite overwhelming support from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the South Pacific.

The book reveals that the US and China, in their positions as permanent members of the UN Security Council, used their veto powers against each other’s preferred candidates. “The US consistently voted against Dr Salim’s candidature, preferring the Austrian candidate, Kurt Waldheim as China voted against Waldheim, in support of Salim,” reveals the book edited by Dr Jakkie Cilliers, chairperson of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Board of Trustees and head of African Futures and Innovation at the ISS.

According to the book, the UK and Russia abstained, France voted in favour of Dr Salim.

The process of voting in a secretary-general requires the support, or at least non-opposition, of all the permanent members of the Security Council and a majority vote from the UN General Assembly (Unga).

The book says the protracted election process was repeated 16 times over a period of five weeks, at which point Dr Salim asked the then president of the Security Council, Uganda’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador Olara Otunnu, to communicate to the Security Council that he did not wish his name to be considered for a subsequent vote.

It had become evident to Dr Salim that the US was unrelenting in blocking his candidature, so he opted out to allow other interested African applicants to bid for the position in his place.

In the end, Peruvian diplomat Javier Pérez de Cuellar was elected as a compromise candidate, becoming the first UN secretary-general from Latin America.

Nonetheless, despite stepping out of the ring, Dr Salim paved the way for future African candidates. It became increasingly difficult for one permanent member of the UN Security Council to block competent candidates when there was strong support from other members. And, in 1992, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt was elected as the first African UN secretary-general, followed by Kofi Annan of Ghana in 1997.

Indeed, Dr Salim was a protégé and emissary of former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, whose visionary, value-based and principled leadership served as a driving force behind the continent’s independence and liberation struggles.

Following in Nyerere’s footsteps, Dr Salim advanced the moral, political and socio-economic justifications for African independence in the 1960s and 1970s.

To date, Dr Salim is the youngest Tanzanian to have been appointed to represent the government in a foreign country. In 1964, at just 22, Dr Salim was appointed by President Abeid Karume as Zanzibar’s ambassador to Egypt.

In her foreword, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the chairperson of the AU Commission, describes Dr Salim as a distinguished son of Africa and a committed pan-African, who served his country, and the entire continent with distinction.

“His engagement in the struggle for a free, united, integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa remains a source of inspiration for current and future generations,” she says.

The launch of the book was co-hosted by ISS and the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation.

The ISS expressed its grateful for the support it received from the members of the ISS Partnership Forum: the governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the USA.