COLOMBO, 20 June 2006 — Jayantha Dhanapala, the veteran Sri Lankan diplomat and candidate for the United Nations secretary-general’s post, claims that the strength of his candidacy is the country itself and its diplomatic traditions.
“Being a small country with moderate policies in international affairs, we are a founding member, along with Saudi Arabia, of the Non-Aligned Movement which began in 1961. We have also been a natural consensus builder in international forums and a bridge builder working with different countries,” Dhanapala told Arab News in an exclusive interview in Colombo.
Dhanapala said that the Sri Lankan diplomat, Ambassador Shirley Amerasinghe who chaired the greatly successful Law of the Sea Conference, clearly illustrates this point.
Dhanapala was widely acclaimed for his presidency of the 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference, a landmark event in the history of disarmament. Dhanapala became widely renowned because of his crafting of a package of resolutions balancing the twin objectives of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament as well as the concerns of the nuclear weapon states and the non-nuclear weapon states. The resolutions were adopted without a vote. “For that achievement many countries thought I deserved special recognition and an article in The New York Times referred to me as a prospective candidate for the post of secretary-general of the United Nations.”
Dhanapala has represented Sri Lanka and chaired groups in the Non-Aligned Movement and SAARC conferences, Commonwealth meetings, the Conference on Disarmament and the disarmament treaty related meetings, UNCTAD, the Commission on Human Rights and other human rights bodies including ILO, WHO, WIPO, and WMO amongst others. He was later invited by the Australian government to serve as a member of the Canberra Commission together with a group of 17 eminent international personalities in the task of publishing an influential report on nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation in 1996.
“My second qualification is the fact that I hold a diplomatic record of being a UN ambassador in Geneva accredited to all UN bodies there. Therefore, a knowledge of UN specialized agencies coupled with the experience of being an undersecretary general in the UN system has given me a blend of being both an outsider as well as an insider of the UN.” He said that such a useful experience is vital to gaining the confidence of member states and staff within the UN system to implement reforms that are important to the United Nations.
Being a nominee from a small country like Sri Lanka, Dhanapala claims that traditionally secretaries-general have come from small countries like Norway, Ghana and Peru. “My country and I are not new to the UN system, I am committed to development. Therefore, the millennium development goals and their achievements are of primary importance to me.” He said the island also stood for a resolution of the Arab-Israeli problem, the right of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland and strongly feel that the road map needs to be revitalized.
Dhanapala was hand picked by Kofi Annan to take on the challenging job of undersecretary general to re-establish the Department of Disarmament after the UN reforms of 1997 (1998–2003). During his tenure he piloted the UN role in arresting the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, anti-personnel land mines, conventional weapons, and weapons of mass destruction while reinforcing existing norms and norm-building in other areas.
Dhanapala has been responsible for breaking new ground in taking managerial initiatives in gender mainstreaming and in work-life issues. He is also accredited with innovating the exchange of weapons for a development program in Albania and other areas, and also in the cross–sectoral linking of disarmament with development, the environment and peace education program.
Asked about his priorities if he becomes the secretary-general, he said: “Eliminating terrorism, of which Sri Lanka itself is a victim, enhancing international cooperation, creating dialogue among civilizations and promoting compromise and tolerance to enable people to understand and respect each other’s cultural values by ensuring religious freedom will be my targets.”
Referring to the UN’s successes and failures, Dhanapala said that no one could deny the need of its existence. He pointed out that decolonization, abolition of apartheid, providing peacekeeping missions and wiping out smallpox, fighting against HIV/AIDS and SARS are creditable achievements of the UN. Dhanapala also admitted that the UN failed to prevent the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica and in the continuing tragedy of Darfur.
Dhanapala studied Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He has also had work experience in academia as Diplomat-in-Residence in 1997 with the Center for Non-proliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the USA researching and writing on a non-discriminatory global approach to disarmament.
Dhanapala has also received several honorary degrees including Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (2000); Doctor of Humane Letters (honoris causa) from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, USA (2001); Doctor of Science in the Social Sciences from the University of Southampton, UK (2003) and Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) from the Sabaragamuwa University, Sri Lanka (2003).
As an effective and eloquent communicator to a wide variety of audiences, Dhanapala has been invited to deliver several keynote lectures that include the Olof Palme Memorial lecture at SIPRI in 1999 and the Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture to Pugwash in 2003.
Born on Dec. 30, 1938, Dhanapala is married with two children. He speaks fluent Sinhala and English, and is equally proficient in both French and Chinese.
Assessing the contenders’ chances, the prestigious New York-based “Foreign Policy” journal has tipped Dhanapala as the man most likely to become the UN’s next secretary-general. Dhanapala has the most favorable odds of 6 to 1 as compared to former US President Bill Clinton, who stands a 1 in 1,000 chance.
