Traveling with the Stars: Horst Cerni

Working in movie and TV productions and project reporting prepared me for my last assignment in UNICEF - working with “Stars”. It was an amazing career, challenging and glamorous at the same time..

I started work at the UN in 1964 and joined UNICEF in 1966. Paul Edwards, Jack Ling and ExDir Henry Labouisse were my mentors. New York was our home. With my wife Isabel we established our family and raised three children, first in Manhattan and then Brooklyn.

Since I had worked at HQ for six years already, I was due to be transferred and I was accepted to become the Regional Information Officer for Latin America in Santiago, Chile. In March of 1973 we arrived there and I followed in the footsteps of my fellow German, Reinhard Y. Freiberg.

1973 was a difficult year, but our Chilean colleagues, Vicky Nathan de Rosenblitt and Maria Elisa Romo-Clark, helped us to get settled and most importantly get food (mostly on the black market). On the 11th of September the military toppled President Salvador Allende.

The Regional Director for Latin America was Roberto Esguerra Barry. Roberto welcomed me warmly to my new assignment. Soon thereafter, Carlos Martínez Sotomayor, former foreign Minister of Chile, became our Regional Director and his Deputy was Kenneth E. Grant. Orestes Fernandez was the Senior Program Officer. Orestes became the Representative in Brazil the next year and then Jim Mohan filled that spot in Santiago.

My assignments, of course, covered all of Latin America and so I had to travel quite a bit to report on projects and to coordinate TV co-productions. etc.

One exciting initiative was the annual UNICEF Media Awards in Central America and I accompanied Audrey Hepburn, Gina Lollobrigida and Roger Moore to present them and . to visit projects, give interviews, as well as meet the respective presidents.

With Roger it was like travelling with 007. In Honduras, the president invited us to travel in a small Piper plane to a meeting with the other presidents. The plane had been confiscated from drug dealers. In El Salvador Roger worried about getting up so early to drive to the airport and so President Cristiani immediately offered his presidential helicopters to take us. I ended up in the security copter which had no doors in order to allow the soldiers to use their machine guns if attacked.

With Liv Ullmann I went to Egypt and Indonesia. We had a curious incident while returning from Lombok to Jakarta. We had to change planes in Denpasar, Bali, and were taken to the VIP lounge. A Garuda plane arrived and people boarded at the terminal. We waited and then the plane took off, not realizing there were passengers in the VIP lounge.

Iin Sanaá, Yemen, George Kassis introduced Liv to education and water projects. Liv was concerned that all men were carrying knives in their belts. But all was peaceful.

In 1978 I was transferred to Geneva. Gordon Carter was the Director of the European office and he gave me precise marching orders.. He was the most disciplined colleague I ever had (probably because of his military background). He finished his work punctually at 17h – 5pm - and his papers on his desk were always neatly organized (in contrast to my desk). My duty was to work with the NatComs on their projects for the IYC, and so I met most of their presidents and information people and attended their meetings.

One big event was the benefit soccer match between an all star team and Borussia Dortmund at the end of December 1979. It was organized by the Yugoslav sports journalist Branco Perovanoviç. We worked together from then on to organize yearly benefit matches for UNICEF and I was in regular contact with FIFA's Secretary General Sepp Blatter and other soccer officials, including star players like Pelé and Diego Maradona. Mr.Grant later appointed Diego as UNICEF Sports Ambassador at the benefit match in Los Angeles in 1986.

At one point in 1982 Tarzie Vittachi, Deputy Ex.Dir for Communications, came from HQ for a meeting. He seemed to like what I was doing and asked me to come to HQ. A new post for Special Events had been set up, I applied for it and got it.

So our family decided to make a trip to the US and at the same time start looking for a home in NYC. By sheer coincidence, Mehr Khan had stopped over in Geneva and when I mentioned that we were looking for a place to stay while in NY, she immediately offered us her apartment at Waterside. Naturally we loved the place and decided to find an apartment there. And we did. It was ideal with a beautiful 180 degree view of the East River and lower Manhattan. We were very fortunate, because we had to entertain VIPs, like the singing group Menudo, Miss Universe Dayamara Torrres, Leslie Caron, Harry Belafonte, Peter Ustinov and a Chinese delegation, as well as other officials.

Most of my work in NY concentrated on special events, arranging and accompanying our goodwill ambassadors to media interviews and public appearances, and arranging field missions.

Carl Taylor, our Representative in Beijing, invited Peter Ustinov to visit China, and we travelled to Qinghai near Tibet. The elders who received us were wearing Yak furs, a fireplace was in the middle of the room, and for dinner we got Yak hoofs – thinly sliced and quite good.

I also travelled with our Japanese Ambassador, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. In Tanzania, where she had a meeting with President Julius Nyere, she dressed up in a beautiful kimono. In Kenya, the TV crew was not only able to film problems and projects, but also elephants in the national park. And in Niger we were received by exotic looking guards at a Moorish castle.

In 1979, I worked with Allan Robinson on an exhibit about appropriate technologies as part of a UNIDO conference in Vienna. Allan, I think, was a water engineer and had initiated projects in many countries. At one such meeting he was introduced as “Mr.Crusoe''. Anyhow, the newly appointed UNICEF ExDir Jim Grant stopped by the exhibit and was intrigued.

With the Winter Olympics coming up, we approached the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne and Mr.Grant and IOC President Samaranch signed an agreement asking participating nations to enforce an Olympic Truce to allow emergency assistance and medical services to both sides of a conflict. The tragic situation in Bosnia and throughout former Yugoslavia was to be the first to experience this truce. At the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994 we had a press conference with Liv Ullmann, Antonio Samaranch, Jao Havelange and Sepp Blatter. We also appealed to athletes to become spokespersons for children’s rights and well being.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Olympic Truce agreement has largely been forgotten today - just when it might be most useful as a means of using the Tokyo Olympics to reiterate calls for a truce in Syria, Yemen, and Palestine.

Looking back, I recall many wonderful experiences and friendships. Glamour, not so much, but overall an exciting career.