China’s award to Tanzanian Dr Salim Ahmed Salim rekindles UN struggle

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The award is a deserving recognition to one of Tanzania’ most decorated diplomats and reminds us of the diplomatic efforts that Dr Salim to admit China to the UN

Dr Salim’s craftsmanship, which was the hallmark of a fine diplomat and a skilled mobiliser, was his ability to bring together the disparate French and English speaking African countries to vote for a common cause. These groups were not always concordant, especially on matters that concerned the interests of the “metropoles.” He maintained this ability all through his almost ten years as Tanzania’s representative to the UN, rising to become the president of the 34th General Assembly-elected in September 1979. He was the unchallenged choice to the position for all the 49 African members of the UN at that time. At 37 Dr Salim was the youngest diplomat to ever hold that position. An account in the New York Times, published in September 19, one day after Dr Salim was elected the president of the UN General Assembly, quoted a British diplomat saying the Tanzanian diplomat was the “the most powerful African at the United Nations” on account of his capacity to bring together Africans that the UN.

The 1971 success cost Africans, in general, and Dr Salim, in particular in future. At the height of the struggle for the new world order, which had unprecedented support from leaders from both the “North” and “South” countries, the efforts to have the UN exercise authority the Bretton Woods institutions (International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) and other international agencies were flatly “discouraged” by the US. It was at the Cancun summit in 1981 where Reagan, whom Nixon had described as the “spokesperson of the racists” in the infamous telephone call after the 1971 UN vote on China, fiercely faced off with Nyerere, one of the critical supporters for the new world order. Reagan intervened Nyerere’s speech four times, as he defended unfettered free-market in agriculture in poor countries. Nyerere opposed the notion of free markets because of the fact that farmers from rich countries received billions of dollars of subsidies. And, according to later interviews by Nyerere, calls for the new world order disappear completely when Reagan was in office. Reagan also went on to throw America’s political and economic weight behind the South Africa’s Apartheid regime hampering all efforts to achieve Namibia’s independence and establish a free, democratic South Africa.

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China’s award to Tanzanian Dr Salim Ahmed Salim rekindles UN struggle

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