Javier Felipe Ricardo Pérez de Cuéllar Guerra (, ; 19 January 1920 – 4 March 2020) was a Peruvian diplomat and politician who served as the fifth secretary-general of the United Nations from 1982 to 1991. He later served as prime minister of Peru from 2000 to 2001.

His two terms as secretary-general coincided with the final decade of the Cold War, and he engaged in efforts to address the Iran–Iraq War, the Western Sahara conflict, the Cyprus problem, Namibian independence under the Tripartite Accord, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Gulf War, and the opening of the Croatian War of Independence.

Pérez de Cuéllar was a member of the Club of Madrid, a group of former heads of state and government, and the Inter-American Dialogue.

Biography

Early years

Pérez de Cuéllar was born on 19 January 1920 in Lima, Peru, to a rentier family of Spanish descent with ancestry from Cuéllar. His father, whose ancestors had migrated from Spain in the 16th century, died when he was 4. He attended Colegio San Agustín, learned French from a governess and earned a law degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in 1943.

Diplomatic career

Pérez de Cuéllar joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1940 first as an intern, the diplomatic service itself in 1944, serving after that as a 3rd Secretary at Peru's embassy in France, where he met and married his first wife, Yvette Roberts-Darricau (1922–2013), in 1947. He also held posts in Britain, Bolivia and Brazil, From his first marriage, he had a son, Francisco, and a daughter, Águeda Cristina. with whom he had no children.

On 27 February 1979, he was appointed UN under-secretary-general for Special Political Affairs. From April 1981, he also acted as the Secretary-General's personal representative on the situation in Afghanistan; he visited Pakistan and Afghanistan in April and August of that year to continue negotiations initiated by the Secretary-General some months earlier. he was unanimously re-elected for a second term in October 1986.

During his two terms as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Pérez de Cuéllar mediated between the United Kingdom and Argentina in the aftermath of the Falklands War In 1983, he initiated the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) to promote sustainable development. He intervened in the negotiations for Namibia's independence, and engaged in efforts to resolve the war between Croatian forces and the Yugoslav People's Army along with local Serb forces, as well as the Cyprus dispute. In March 1986, Pérez de Cuéllar formally accused Iraq of using chemical weapons against Iran during the Iran–Iraq War. Later that year, he presided over international arbitration in the Rainbow Warrior incident between New Zealand and France. During the build-up to the Gulf War, he facilitated negotiations that led US president George H. W. Bush to send Secretary of State James Baker to meet Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz in Geneva. He played a role in ending the Cambodian Civil War, Salvadoran Civil War, and Nicaraguan Revolution, as well as negotiating the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. and Pérez de Cuéllar's second term as secretary-general concluded, as scheduled, on 31 December 1991. After Alejandro Toledo's election as president in 2001, He was the first UN secretary-general to become a centenarian.

Pérez de Cuéllar died at his home in Lima on 4 March 2020 two months after he turned 100.

  • 1987: Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation issued by Italian research institute Archivio Disarmo
  • 1989: Olof Palme Prize for International Understanding and Common Security French chivalric decoration
  • 1991: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George,
  • 1991: Presidential Medal of Freedom,

He received several honorary degrees from universities, such as the following:

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Javier Perez de Cuellar papers at the United Nations Archives
  • Official UNSG biography