Discussion - Are Demands for Office Space Causing UNICEF to Lose its Libraries and its History? : Steve Umemoto / Kul Gautam

Dear Kul,


I wholeheartedly support your proposal for special efforts by UNICEF to protect and preserve the archive and library resources of the East Asia and Pacific Regional Office. Having played modest roles myself in the 1970's and 1990's in developing and maintaining the library, I am aware of its wealth of history.



Clearly, information technology has transformed UNICEF in innumerable ways, but the accumulated organization experience at least partially documented in the EAPRO archives and library are a valuable asset. If one looks at post WWII Europe as a special case, then indeed East Asia was UNICEF first laboratory of experience in the "developing world". Hundreds of UNICEF staff members have passed through the region, many serving in the regional office. Within the region there have been pioneering initiatives at local, country and regional levels in innumerable fields -- expanded immunization; smallpox eradication; midwifery training; rural water and sanitation; advocacy for children in national planning; country programme planning; urban and regional approaches; development support communications; staff training and development; child rights promotion; CRC monitoring and on and on.


In its earliest years the Regional Director provided strong direction as country teams were assembled and offices established. But by the late 1960s, the Regional Office began to evolve from an operational "directing" role into more of a leader in policy and strategy, facilitating the exchange of ideas and mutual learning among note only UNICEF staff in the regions but a host of senior government and civil society partners and distinguished experts and specialists. As the region became richer in its own home-grown programmes, initiatives and strategies, the EAPRO played a role in helping UNICEF colleagues and partners from across the region and well beyond in learning of the experience of Thailand's, and later China's primary health care; Koreas Saemaul Undong; the Philippines' child nutrition monitoring.



Just as a practical idea for discussion, might UNICEF consider partnering with a leading regional university (or perhaps small group of institutions) to consolidate, analyze and perhaps develop a program of study, of the archives and library resources of EAPRO?


Thanks much Kul for highlighting this resource and need. All the best, Steve




Dear Myo,


You asked for my suggestion and advice. Here is one:


I was very pleased to see how magnificently the EAPRO office has been refurbished and modernized recently. And I congratulated Karin Hulshoff for her knack for very creatively refurbishing and modernizing whichever office she heads, including EAPRO or earlier ROSA.


But I am disappointed that in the process of refurbishing, one key element of UNICEF's legacy and history is ignored and undermined - i.e. the office library. I know we are marching ahead with the digital world and many things - papers, documents, books, hard-copy files are being electronically filed and digitized. However, until we can guarantee that some of these historical treasures are made accessible by alternative means, it is a mistake to dismantle and banish libraries.


EAPRO had one of the best office libraries and filing systems in all of UNICEF for a very long time. It appears that the library has now completely disappeared. Many of the amazing historical books I refer in my memoir, including those by some great UNICEF leaders like Sam Keeny, Margaret Gaan and others are now out of print and not available in easily accessible digital editions. I am a history buff and think those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. I strongly believe that new, young staff must be encouraged to read some of the glorious and inspiring accounts of our predecessors and ancestors.


I hope and request that as the new DRD you will do what you can to re-create the UNICEF EAPRO's library in some suitable form, both in digital and hard copy formats. When there is a shortage of office space, the library is often the first target for dismantling. Please ensure that all country offices in EAPRO retain and modernize their office libraries, not dismantle them completely.


I attach herewith excerpts from my memoir on EAPRO. Perhaps a hard copy of the memoir is available at the Thailand country office's library (?!). If not, I know Kyungsun Kim definitely has a copy which you should be able to borrow.


As both EAPRO and the Thailand office are celebrating 75th anniversary of UNICEF this year, I recommended to Kyungsun, and she agreed, that it would be good to prepare and publish an updated version of the beautiful booklet "UNICEF in Thailand: A Journey of 50 Years" which EAPRO and UNICEF Thailand office published jointly when I was RD in the year 2000. Other country offices should also be encouraged to produce updated versions of UNICEF's history and legacy in their countries.


With best wishes -





======================


Kul Chandra Gautam





Dear Myo,

I am so happy to learn about your appointment as DRD for EAPRO.

Warm congratulations!

A whole chapter of my memoir (pages 261-317) is dedicated to my experiences in EAPRO. While many things have changed since the late 1990s, some still remain valid -- e.g. the need for special focus on Myanmar and DPRK.


It would be my pleasure to share with you whatever insights I have, though I suspect that my perspectives maybe increasingly outdated.

Let us remain in touch.


With very best wishes -

======================


Kul Chandra Gautam

EAPRO Excerpts from Kul Gautam’s Memoir:

Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of United Nation

https://amazon.com/author/kulgautam


Crisis Amidst Vibrancy in East Asia and Pacific

I took up my assignment as Regional Director for East Asia and Pacific (EAPRO) in Bangkok in January 1998. Binata and I really liked Bangkok, the Thai people and their culture. Although the sweltering heat and hustle and bustle of a traffic-congested city could be unpleasant at times, it was more than compensated for by the graciousness of the people, and the availability and affordability of consumer goods and services. The fact that there were daily direct flights from Bangkok to Kathmandu and many Nepali families in Bangkok with whom to socialize was an extra attraction, particularly for Binata.

I had always liked the UNICEF office in Bangkok. I found it well-organized and efficient with friendly and helpful local staff. I was impressed by how well-informed and well-connected EAPRO was with both its field offices and HQ. I recall during the 1970s and 1980s there was a popular belief that senior staff in Bangkok often knew about the latest developments at HQ before most staff in New York.

Sam Keeny’s Legacy

The foundations for EAPRO being perhaps the best organized and efficient regional office was laid by the early leaders of UNICEF who served in Bangkok, starting with the legendary Spurgeon ‘Sam’ Keeny who was UNICEF Regional Director for Asia from 1950 to 1963.

Keeny was an early leader of global stature at UNICEF, and probably its most effective Regional Director ever and anywhere. A Rhodes Scholar from Pennsylvania, he was a veteran of the First World War. Like UNICEF’s first Executive Director, Maurice Pate, Keeny was an established leader in international humanitarian relief operations and one of the most respected UNICEF leaders of the founding generation.

Keeny was intolerant of bureaucracy that stood in the way of UNICEF’s mission. In an era when there was no CRC or any such concept, he persuaded governments to launch massive programmes with ambitious targets to combat such diseases as yaws and trachoma, leprosy and tuberculosis, malaria and smallpox.

Emphasizing that Asia contained ‘Half the World’s Children’, the title of a book he wrote, Keeny persuaded UNICEF HQ and Board to allocate significant resources and priority to the region. A collection of monthly reports that he regularly dispatched to the HQ from 1950 to 1963 chronicle a fascinating tale of UNICEF’s activities in Asia, and the personality of a dynamic Regional Director. A book entitled ‘His Name is Today: The Early Years of the United Nations Children’s Fund in Southeast Asia’ by one of Keeny’s close associates, Margaret Gaan, who later became Deputy Regional Director of EAPRO, provides a graphic account of UNICEF’s work and accomplishments in the region

Keeny personified UNICEF in Asia, and was regarded as the most eloquent champion of children and a forceful voice for UNICEF field offices at HQ. He set very high ethical as well as operational standards for the UNICEF regional office that his successors tried to maintain and emulate.

I was proud and awed to be one of Keeny’s distant successors. I tried to emulate him during my own tenure as Regional Director. I encouraged the UNICEF Thailand Country office to produce ‘UNICEF in Thailand: A Journey of Fifty Years’ which recapitulates the fascinating history of UNICEF in Thailand and the EAP region.

Children and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-99

I arrived in Bangkok when one of the worst financial crises of recent decades was hitting Southeast Asia. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 and quickly spread to Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines and beyond, raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown.

Until 1997, many Southeast Asian countries had attracted huge amounts of foreign direct investment (FDI) and experienced high economic growth earning them the title “Asian Tigers”. The 1997-99 financial crisis led to massive devaluation of currencies, a slump in stock markets, collapse of the over-valued real estate market, drastic reduction in FDI and inability to meet foreign debt repayments. As employment, economic growth and people’s incomes plummetted, the IMF stepped in with a $40 billion programme to stabilize the currencies of South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. But some IMF conditions – e.g. to drastically reduce government spending which required cutting social expenditure – made the situation worse. The crisis and the riots that followed were so severe that Indonesia’s President Suharto was forced to step down after 30 years in power.

The unprecedented economic boom among the Asian Tigers had created a bubble fueled by the “hot money” of speculative investors, and led to the phenomenon of “crony capitalism” in many countries. The strict fiscal policies implemented by governments on the advice of IMF were similar to the “structural adjustment packages” recommended during the Latin American crisis in the 1980s.

While some of the belt-tightening was necessary and beneficial, the contractionary economic policies and reduction of social expenditure hit the poorest and most vulnerable groups, including, as always, women and children. Parents thrown out of jobs started withdrawing children from schools, health centres began to run out of essential drugs and child malnutrition began to increase.

Unlike in the 1980s, during the Asian financial crisis the World Bank distanced itself somewhat from the IMF. Indeed, the World Bank’s Chief Economist, Joseph Stiglitz, was critical of the IMF, as partly responsible for the crisis. This was a point of view shared by many civil society activists who even termed it the “IMF Crisis”. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahatir Mohammad defied IMF advice and refused to accept any IMF bailout in dealing with the crisis. Malaysia’s relative success in coping with the crisis lent additional weight to criticism of the IMF.

Unlike in the 1980s, when senior management provided support for “Adjustment with a Human Face”, during the Asian financial crisis UNICEF HQ was no longer willing and able to provide such leadership. So it fell largely on the field offices, backed up by EAPRO, to speak up.

I took the initiative to work with several Bangkok-based regional offices of UN agencies such as ESCAP, UNDP and ILO to ensure that we spoke with a common voice when it came to the issues of social protection in coping with the crisis. This was one of the themes of my regular reports and presentations to the Board and senior management in NewYork. During country programme reviews, we tried to ensure that UNICEF-supported programmes were responsive to the impact of the crisis on children and vulnerable families.

Besides formal channels for advocacy, I used regional media networks to plead for child-friendly approaches in coping with the crisis. In a long interview with ‘Asiaweek’ of 18 June 1999 that published a cover story on ‘Kids at Risk: The True Victims of the Economic Crisis’, I highlighted some of the serious consequences of the crisis for children.

Most people thought of the crisis as affecting big financial institutions – companies going bankrupt, banks suffering insolvency, rich people becoming poorer and traders losing or gaining unfairly. While all that was true, I highlighted the often under-recognized but devastating impact of the crisis on women and children from poor communities. Partly because economic statistics are gathered more frequently and updated promptly, whereas social statistics are usually available only every two or three years, people focused on the visible impact of the crisis on the profitability of businesses and markets. Meanwhile, interventions to protect children were not implemented quickly, leading to lasting damage to health, nutrition and education for children.

I argued that the construction of bridges or highways could be put on hold if funds dried up. But if children were allowed to be chronically malnourished, there was no way the consequences could be remedied later. I emphasized that governments, NGOs and donors must follow a “children first” policy in handling the crisis. I believe our call for such a proactive approach had some positive impact, as quite a few ASEAN countries did follow UNICEF’s advice.
Weapons or wellbeing?

By early 2000, most countries affected by the economic crisis were beginning a slow recovery. I began to worry about how the dividends of the economic upturn would be allocated. Would governments increase funding for social services to assist those who had suffered the most, and build on the social and economic successes of recent decades? Or would the beneficiaries be the weapons makers and the military that laid claim to a growing share of government expenditure?


This was the topic I discussed in an Op-Ed piece I wrote in ‘Asiaweek’ on 14 January 2000. The points I raised in the article were:


The socio-economic success of many East Asian countries before the crisis was well-known. But the fact that this prosperity brought with it some of the highest levels of military spending in the world was not. Between 1988 and 1998 global military expenditure fell by 35 per cent but in East Asia and the Pacific it increased by 38 per cent. South Asia too increased its military spending by 25 per cent. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), military expenditure declined worldwide from $1,066 trillion in 1988 to $696 billion in 1998. But in Asia, it climbed from $95 billion to $130 billion.


Japan, China and the Koreas accounted for the majority of the region’s military spending, while the continuing arms race between India and Pakistan swelled South Asia’s military budgets. Less visibly, military expenditure in ASEAN increased by 52 per cent in real terms between 1988 and 1997. This increase was greater in both absolute and percentage terms than that of any other region, and occurred as the world as a whole cut military spending by more than one-third.


Such high level of military spending was somewhat curtailed by the financial crisis, which resulted in overall reductions in government expenditure and depreciation of Asian currencies made some arms imports prohibitively expensive. Still, SIPRI noted that while the volume of arms procurement had been scaled down, the domestic burden of military expenditure did not decline.


I warned that the resilience in military expenditure should be a cause for concern to us all since so many development challenges still needed to be addressed in Asia, home to the world’s largest concentrations of poverty, illiteracy and preventable child deaths.


As Asian economies restarted sustainable growth, there would be strong pressure from all sectors, including the military, for increased budgets. To ensure that a significant share of the post-crisis economic gains went to basic social services, I argued that the “security” of nations needed to be redefined to encompass not just “national security” in terms of military power but “human security” comprising health care and education for children and their families, the protection of the environment and continued economic prosperity.


Expecting that some Asian countries that have real or perceived security threats might protest that it was difficult to make reductions in military budgets, I argued that many of their weapons and strategies designated for “defense” were increasingly irrelevant to the real dangers facing their people. They needed to wage war against foes such as HIV/AIDS and the resurgent threat of old enemies like tuberculosis and malaria. Also needed was a much stronger battle against hunger, illness, illiteracy, joblessness and crime.


Even a small reduction in the tens of billions of dollars spent yearly on military programmes in the region could free the resources needed for winning the battle of human security. In most countries, ensuring that all children have improved access to basic services would require millions – not billions – of dollars. Invoking the “20/20 compact,” I called on donors and developing countries to ensure that at least 20 per cent of their development budgets be allocated to social services to meet the basic needs of children and vulnerable groups.


Every Asian country had ratified the CRC and committed to undertake measures to fulfill the right to survival, protection and development of their children “to the maximum extent of their available resources.” I argued that curtailing growth in military expenditure in favor of funding basic social services would be a practical demonstration of that commitment.


I made passionate pleas for reduction of military expenditure in many forums when I was Regional Director. In doing so, I bluntly reminded how countries like Myanmar and North Korea were starving their children even as they invested heavily in their bloated militaries. This was part of my deeply held anti-war and anti-violence conviction, which I continued to hold throughout my career and after my retirement.


I was particularly happy and proud that in drafting the Declarations and Plans of Action of the WSC and SSC, I managed to include language calling for reduction of military expenditure and allocation of a greater “peace dividend” for the wellbeing of children. These were perhaps the only documents in which world leaders have explicity acknowledged a link between reduction in military expenditure and the wellbeing of children.


Lessons from East Asia’s development successes


Despite the financial crisis and several country-specific exceptions, on the whole East and Southeast Asian countries continued to make impressive progress in socio-economic development and the wellbeing of children.

Japan and South Korea were among the first countries to “graduate” from being recipients to donors to UNICEF. Malaysia and Thailand made impressive progress to the point that the nature of UNICEF cooperation in these countries changed from support for basic services to policy dialogue, advocacy, experience exchange and mutual learning. China, Indonesia and Vietnam were also making impressive progress and more recently the Philippines, Cambodia and Mongolia began picking up momentum. The laggards in the region remained Myanmar and Laos and, in it own unique way, North Korea.

I was happy to note during my visits to Myanmar and Laos in 2017 that these countries too are now on the path to economic resurgence attracting much FDI and domestic investment. That now leaves only North Korea as the odd man out not so much in terms of indicators of basic health and education that are quite good, but in terms of human rights and political freedoms. I will say more about North Korea in a later chapter.

In the chicken-or-egg dilemma of what comes first, economic growth or human development, the experience of East Asian countries offers some important lessons. The answer is certainly not a categorical either-or, as clearly we need both.

Investing in human development starts with the health, nutrition and education of children. The following are other important lessons from the relative success of the Asian economies:


Good governance - in both the public and private sectors, and the rule of law are vital to attract investors, both domestic and international.


Equity – especially the empowerment of women and girls, and avoiding huge gaps in income between different population groups and geographic regions, is essential to unleash the full creative potential of all citizens, and to avoid social unrest.


Incentives – targeted tax breaks and other incentives should be offered to job-creating enterprises, entrepreneurs, and NGOs to encourage them to invest and innovate.


Pragmatism – pragmatic economic policies rather than dogmatic, ideologically driven, highly centralized and state-managed enterprises seem to have a better track record of sustainable success. That was the main difference between what led to Mao-Zedong’s “great leap backwards” versus Deng Xiaoping’s flourishing Chinese economy; and between North Korea’s juchhe-led nightmare and South Korea’s rapid modernization.


Social protection – in all societies, there are people who need special protection whether it is vulnerable children or the elderly, people with disabilities, and marginalized communities. A civilized society must strive to provide for their protection commensurate with its capacity.


Democracy and human rights – although many Asian countries had authoritarian governments at early stages of their rapid economic growth, it became quickly clear that human beings are never satisfied by material prosperity alone. The yearning for greater freedoms, creativity and justice must be accommodated in any peaceful and prosperous society.

The difference between countries that have made rapid progress despite being poorly endowed in natural resources, such as South Korea and Singapore, versus resource-rich countries such as Myanmar and Papua New Guinea that have made slow progress, shows that healthy, educated and skilled human resources are essential for countries to harness their natural resources and develop service industries, manufacturing and information technology. The latest iteration of the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) confirms this accumulated wisdom from the experience of Asia and around the world.

The challenge for enlightened leadership is to strike a balance between political stability and democratic freedoms and between investment in social development and economic growth, to create a mutually reinforcing virtuous cycle of human progress.

I tried to reinforce these lessons learned from Asia’s development experience during my extensive travels throughout the region and interactions with political, civic and private sector leaders and my colleagues in the UN. My field visits to learn from UNICEF assisted programmes and to support our country reps in high-level advocacy were very helpful for me to effectively present country programme proposals at the UNICEF Board, and to influence global policy dialogues at HQ.

Besides overseeing UNICEF’s work in the region, I also represented UNICEF in many inter-agency meetings and committees. As Bangkok was the regional hub of many UN agencies and NGOs for Asia-Pacific, I devoted considerable time to cultivating partnerships with a broad range of constituencies.

HIV/AIDS was a major issue of concern to many UN agencies in the region. I chaired the Regional Inter-agency Committee for Asia and the Pacific for HIV/AIDS, and we did some valuable work to coordinate the work of UN agencies with a broad of range of other partners.

Looking back, the opportunity to observe and learn from Asia’s experience in promoting national development and regional cooperation, and putting the wellbeing of children and human development as central concerns, was truly inspiring for me. All of this made my assignment as Regional Director for EAP one of my professionally most exciting and personally very enjoyable experiences.


The Fragility and Frivolity of the Pacific Islands

One interesting aspect of my assignment as Regional Director was visiting and getting to know the Pacific islands and their development challenges.

UNICEF worked in 14 small island developing states of the Pacific, 12 of which were full Member-States of the UN, while two were semi-independent protectorates of other countries. The largest of these countries was Papua New Guinea (PNG) with four million people and the smallest was Tokelau (population 1,500). Tuvalu (pop 9,500) and Nauru (pop. 10,000) were the smallest UN Member-States. Excluding PNG, the total population of the remaining 13 countries was only about 2.5 million.

Covering an area of over 30 million square kilometers, the social and economic development of these countries was constrained by isolation, natural disasters, limited domestic markets, inadequate infrastructure and other capacity constraints. The impact of global warming, economic modernisation, and new lifestyle aspirations of the people created additional problems.

UNICEF started a modest programme of cooperation with several Pacific island governments in the 1960s, focused on health and drinking water projects. Because of the remoteness of the islands, their small populations and UNICEF’s limited budget, we did not have an in-country presence. UNICEF-supported activities were generally managed by other UN agencies with a presence in the Pacific, notably WHO. For WHO’s Regional Director for the Western Pacific, as well as the Director-General in Geneva who were both elected by Member-States, each sovereign Pacific island country represented a vote so WHO attached great importance to having a presence in most countries of the region.


In the mid-late 1970s, UNICEF expanded its cooperation with support for basic education programmes in several Pacific islands. By mid-1985, UNICEF was involved in 72 projects in 14 countries in child health, water supply and sanitation, nutrition and early childhood education. Initially, UNICEF-supported programmes in the Pacific were handled from Manila with a resident programme officer posted in Suva, Fiji. In 1997 Suva was upgraded to a full area office for the Pacific islands, with sub-offices in Kiribati, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Later UNICEF teamed up with other UN agencies in joint offices in the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa and Tuvalu. We also provided some modest support to the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and Tonga out of our Fiji office.


When I was leading efforts to organize the WSC, we strongly encouraged the Pacific island countries to attend. PNG, Samoa and Vanuatu attended at HoS/G level, and several others attended at ministerial/ambassadorial level. As Director of Programmes in the early 1990s, I took a particular interest in UNICEF cooperation in the Pacific islands. Partly prodded by Australia and New Zealand, we developed a coherent multi-island programme with increased funding, instead of just supporting ad hoc projects.


As Regional Director, I tried to get the Pacific island countries to actively participate in various regional ministerial meetings in the follow-up to the WSC. I visited several countries and attended sub-regional programme consultations. We developed a special partnership with Australia and New Zealand that took a strong interest in UNICEF cooperation in the Pacific.


Both as Regional Director and later as Deputy Executive Director, I advocated for special attention to the Pacific island countries, because children there were vulnerable to special hazards, such as natural disasters and climate change. As I oversaw UNICEF’s participation in UN Conferences on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), we paid special attention to the Pacific as well as the Caribbean islands.


Women and children of the Pacific islands face some unique problems. For example, there is an unusually high level of obesity among Pacific islanders, particularly among Polynesians, caused by lack of vegetables and fruits in people’s diets and excessive reliance on imported, cheap, low-quality canned beef and other junk food. Obesity starting in childhood causes a high incidence of cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, hypertension and other ailments among young adults. UNICEF programmes have tried to respond to some of these unique challenges.


Votes for Sale


An interesting phenomenon in the Pacific islands was how these small and vulnerable countries were involved in rather unscrupulous diplomatic games that led to unique kinds of corruption and manipulation. As Member-States of the UN, each of these tiny countries has an equal vote with other larger countries in the UNGA and the governing boards of UN agencies. So, many countries and candidates for elective UN positions pay special attention to wooing these countries. It is widely known that votes of many can be “bought” with special “incentives” for governments and even for individual leaders and ambassadors. Thus, some countries use “cheque-book diplomacy” to win the support of the Pacific islands for their candidates, and in competition to host major international conferences.


A case in point is the intense and unseemly rivalry between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, posing as the Republic of China, to have exclusive diplomatic relations with these countries. Taiwan has managed to secure diplomatic recognition by several Pacific island states and uses them as bargaining chips in its rivalry with China. China, of course, insists that all countries with diplomatic relations with it must follow the “One China” policy and severe diplomatic relations with Taiwan.


Long-time UN watchers know that every year at the UNGA, some Member-States propose that Taiwan should be admitted as an independent member of the UN, a motion that is routinely defeated. But in specialized agencies like WHO, a few pro-Taiwan delegates often force prolonged discussion on Taiwan’s admission as a full-fledged Member-State. Sometimes, Taiwan and its supporters even manage to stage a spectacle by getting a “rent-a-crowd” to shout support for Taiwan from the balcony of the World Health Assembly.

At any given time, about half of the 14 Pacific island countries recognize China and the other half recognize Taiwan. Some of them switch sides from time to time to the higher bidder. Thus, we often see Taiwan and China competing to offer these countries generous scholarships, to build hospitals, schools, sports stadiums, airports, conference centers and government offices, and to finance junkets to Beijing and Taipei where lavish receptions are held in honour of the visiting dignitaries.



For example, it is believed that Taiwan donated around $100 million to the tiny nation of Palau (population 16,000) since establishing diplomatic ties in 1999. That works out to approximately $6,000 per capita. Taiwan’s largesse has financed construction of a new capital city, a conference center, expansion of the airport, and building and equipping the National Museum.


“Cheque-book diplomacy” has deepened an aid-dependency syndrome in the Pacific and led to corruption and political instability. Indeed, the aid-dependency syndrome is one of the many obstacles to sustainable development of Pacific island nations. For example, countries all over the Pacific now prefer to sell fishing licenses to Taiwan, Japan and other Asian nations instead of fishing themselves. As mentioned earlier, entire generations have been raised on imported junk food, shortening lifespans and causing obesity in numbers unseen anywhere else in the world.


I personally witnessed a case of “cheque-book diplomacy” when I visited Vanuatu in 2004 at a time when a political and diplomatic drama was unfolding. The prime minister was visiting some Asian countries at that time and news came of a surprise announcement by him that his government was switching its diplomatic relations from China to Taiwan. Back in Port Vila, some of his cabinet colleagues moved to reverse this unilateral decision through a vote of no confidence. Coincidentally, Vanuatu’s Parliament building had been constructed with very generous Chinese aid, and just a few months earlier the prime minister had visited Beijing in an all-expenses-paid visit where he had personally made a solemn commitment to the “One China” policy.



Besides China and Taiwan, other countries too play this “cheque-book diplomacy” game in the Pacific. Several Pacific island countries, including Micronesia and Palau, regularly support virtually any resolution proposed by the US at the UN. The Federated States of Micronesia, which hardly appears on any world maps, always joins the US in voting against all UN resolutions condemning Israeli actions in the Middle East.


A country that is considered one of the most successful in buying votes at the UN, including from the Pacific islands, is oil-rich Qatar. Until 2017 when it got into conflict with neighbouring Gulf countries, Qatar had a track record of winning virtually all UN elections it contested. I personally experienced this when I was Nepal’s candidate for the President of the 66th session of the UNGA in 2011 when we were defeated by Qatar mostly on the strength of its cheque-book diplomacy with several Pacific Islands and members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).



Inspired and Disappointed by Aung San Suu Kyi

Two countries that preoccupied me most when I was EAPRO Regional Director were Myanmar and North Korea. I had the difficult task of mobilizing international support for programmes for children living under the authoritarian pariah regimes in those countries. As I had to defend UNICEF country programmes at the Board, I needed to provide first-hand information on how our support was actually reaching the children of those countries and not being siphoned off to their military or otherwise misused. This required me to travel to Myanmar and DPRK quite often.

As Myanmar was under tough UN sanctions, the Executive Board of UNDP had imposed some restrictions on its cooperation, which most other UN agencies were expected to follow. UNDP was required to channel its assistance through NGOs working with local communities. Because of this restriction UNDP was confined to working in only 15 townships. As the UN’s normal job is to help build national capacity and not to build parallel structures for programme implementation, it was extremely awkward for UNDP and most other UN agencies to operate in Myanmar.

Some of UNICEF’s donors and Board members wanted us to follow the same approach as UNDP. But we at UNICEF argued that for humanitarian programmes for children such an approach would be inappropriate. For example, to be effective, the UNICEF-supported polio eradication programme had to be nationwide, not confined to a few townships. We argued that to have large-scale coverage, we had no choice but to work with the Ministry of Health and local government authorities. We also argued that the nature of UNICEF-supported programmes was such that the risk of these being misused by the government was minimal and that we would institute the strongest possible monitoring system.

Given UNICEF’s mandate, the Board allowed us to have a fairly normal country programme. Thus, of all UN agencies, UNICEF had the least restrictive mandate in Myanmar. But still, the Board asked us to be vigilant, and to monitor implementation rigorously. From time to time some Board members and donors wanted us to brief them on our activities in Myanmar. On several occasions, I briefed senior staff of influential US Congressmen who were concerned about financial support going to the Myanmar Government.

Besides regular resources to which Myanmar was entitled based on the normal UNICEF criteria, it was very difficult to raise additional funds from donors. Our main sources were a few UNICEF National Committees in Europe and the Japanese Government. The European countries found it so difficult to allocate funds directly for Myanmar that we had to occasionally prepare sub-regional projects and include Myanmar. For example, we got funding from the Netherlands for the Mekong sub-regional project on HIV/AIDS.

A major concern for donors was that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (DASSK) had called for economic sanctions against the military government, and they wanted to be seen as supportive of her position. So we were encouraged to keep DASSK and her National League for Democracy (NLD) apprised of UNICEF activities and informally secure her “no objection”.

It was, of course, not easy to be in direct contact with “The Lady” as she was often under house arrest and constant surveillance. Still, we managed to consult with her discreetly and indirectly. A UNICEF national staff member Daw Su Su Lwin (who later became the First Lady of Myanmar and a Member of Parliament) was the daughter of a senior NLD leader and through her we managed to establish occasional contact with DASSK. Several UNICEF reps were creative enough to maintain discrete contacts with DASSK, although sometimes the government found out and criticized them harshly.

When I visited Myanmar, the government would not facilitate my meeting “The Lady”, but I did manage to meet her discreetly, sometimes with the tacit knowledge of the government. She had fond memories of Nepal, when her mother was the Burmese Ambassador to India and Nepal in the 1960s. DASSK’s father, General Aung San, had also provided arms to BP Koirala’s Nepali Congress Party to fight Nepal’s Rana regime. Her husband, Professor Michel Aris, was a scholar of Tibet and the Himalayan region. So she had important connections with Nepal and had visited there several times. In fact, she had even written a lovely tourist guidebook for Nepal. DASSK had also worked at the UN in New York for three years in the early 1970s and knew the UN system well.

In 1998, I led a UNICEF team to Myanmar when we had a long informal meeting with DASSK during which a Japanese colleague of mine, Jun Kukita, pointed out that the Japanese Government and people were keen to provide more support for the children of Myanmar through UNICEF. But they wanted to know how DASSK felt about that. In a long professorial response, DASSK recounted the history of Japan’s imperial past and its brutal occupation of Burma and other countries of Asia during World War II. She then pointed out that although Japan was a democracy today, the Japanese people did not fully understand what it is like to struggle and suffer for democracy and human rights, as these were essentially imposed on Japan after World War II.

That is why she said, some Japanese officials and diplomats considered her stubborn and the NLD unreasonable, as she did not jump to make compromises whenever the military regime made small concessions. Japanese officials sometimes gave the wrong signals to the Burmese military by complimenting them for these small concessions.

DASSK wanted us to understand this context before she replied to my colleague’s question. After giving this background, she said, “I whole-heartedly welcome UNICEF assistance to the children of Burma and have no objection to the Japanese Government or private sector providing support to Burmese children through UNICEF”. She then added, “But please do not forget to tell them why I and the NLD are so adamant about our struggle for democracy and human rights and that there is no need to press us for compromise. The pressure should be put on the military junta”.

We were all impressed by the passion with which she spoke. We could then understand why she refused to leave the country to take care of her dying husband or see her children. They were not allowed to visit her in Burma, and she was afraid she would not be allowed back if she left the country. Behind her petite figure, I found her to be a woman of steely courage, determination and unshakeable principles. I considered it one of my great joys to have had several opportunities to interact with this inspiring icon of democracy and human rights.

In 1999, I had another memorable meeting with DASSK in Rangoon. I asked if I could convey any message to S-G Annan. She asked that I convey her reading of recent events in Southeast Asia and how these might impact on the situation in Burma. She referred to the fall of Suharto in 1998 as potentially significant for Burma. She said the Burmese junta looked to the Suharto government as its future role model of a “guided democracy”. Now that Suharto had fallen, the Burmese generals were nervous.

She said that now was the time for the UN and ASEAN to convey a strong message to the junta that they needed to change their approach and restore democracy. As Southeast Asia was going through an economic crisis at that time, governments in the region were reassessing their policies and they should press Burma to do the same.

Referring to the forthcoming ASEAN Summit in Manila in November 1999 she said the one person who could play an important role was Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, then the most respected elder statesman among ASEAN Foreign Ministers. As he had served the Suharto regime, witnessed its fall and was still an influential ASEAN leader, many people would take his views seriously. If he took a strong position on the need for significant change in Burma, other Asian and world leaders, as well as the Burmese generals, would have to pay attention.

I conveyed her message to Annan through UNICEF’s Deputy Executive Director Stephen Lewis but I’m not sure if he followed up with Alatas. ASEAN certainly did not press the Burmese junta very hard. On the contrary, it followed its standard policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of its member states, giving indirect comfort to the junta. As far as Myanmar was concerned, Alatas acted as if he was representing Suhartoism without Suharto. It was therefore ironic that in 2005 he was sent to Myanmar as a special UN envoy, and I for one was not surprised that he failed to make any impact.

During my visits to Myanmar, I cultivated a good working relationship with key figures of the military regime, once known ominously as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and later rebranded as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The government was appreciative that I defended UNICEF cooperation in Myanmar at the Board and with some critical donors, and ensured that, unlike other UN agencies, UNICEF had a fully-fledged country programme.

Taking advantage of this goodwill, I spoke quite frankly and, at times, critically of the Myanmar Government’s policies in my meetings with officials, as well as in some public conferences in Yangon. I often prefaced my remarks by saying I was a friend of Myanmar and had the best interests of its children at heart, so I wanted to be constructive but frank. I even put some of my strong remarks and suggestions in writing.

For example, on 21 May 1999, I wrote a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Win Aung in which I made the following points:


The proportion of Myanmar’s budget allocated to social services had been declining (the unstated but well-understood message being its military budget was increasing); in order to convince donors, Myanmar needed to show that more of its budget would be allocated to health, education and social welfare.


Myanmar needed to tackle HIV/AIDS more seriously, rather than denying its prevalence.


To be competitive in the global economy, Myanmar needed to invest in quality basic education and increase primary school completion rates that were among the lowest in the world. I also hoped the universities that had remained closed for a prolonged period would be reopened soon. This was a highly sensitive issue, as the government saw universities as the hotbed of its political opposition.


Some of the provisions of Myanmar’s Child Law needed to be amended as these were not in compliance with the letter and spirit of the CRC that Myanmar had ratified.


While UNICEF would try to be a dependable partner and do its best to mobilize resources for Myanmar’s children, as a subsidiary body of the UN, UNICEF cooperation had to be implemented in the spirit of the latest UNGA resolutions on Myanmar – which were highly critical of its human rights record.

I made many of these points explicitly in my public remarks at a fairly large mid-term review meeting attended by government officials, UN staff and other partners. Some of my remarks were embarrassing to the government but they had to swallow them as the remarks were both factually correct and said by someone who had indeed tried to be helpful to Myanmar.

It was an open secret that while the military government had managed to suppress people’s views, it had failed to win people’s hearts. Indeed, many Burmese, including government officials, used to confide to me in private how they despised the regime. Thus, while during my critical public remarks the audience was generally silent, many people afterwards expressed their joy that I had dared to criticize the government in public. At the UNICEF office in Yangon, our Burmese staff felt proud that their big boss had articulated their own deeply felt sentiments which they could not do outside the privacy of their own homes.

My public remarks about the closure of the universities were particularly well-received. Many parents were resentful that they could not send their children for higher education, while the children of senior military officers were often sent abroad for university education at government expense. For nearly a decade Myanmar was the only country in the world that did not have functioning universities or colleges.

My last official UNICEF visit to Myanmar was in August 2006. At that time, I was one of the first senior UN officials to visit Myanmar's new capital, Nay Pyi Taw, which had been built in great secrecy with investment of billions of dollars. NPT was like a gigantic construction site when I visited it first. But when I visited again in 2017, it looked surreal in many respects – grandiose, clean, green and spacious. Occupying an area of more than 7,000 sq kms – larger than New York, London, Tokyo or Mexico City – it only had a population of about half a million, mostly government officials and military personnel.

The town had huge roads and boulevards (some up to 20 lanes) with hardly any vehicles, a gigantic parliament house and presidential palace, a replica of the Swedagon Pagoda (even bigger than the original in Yangon), a large convention centre and stadium, and impressive museums. The city had beautifully landscaped parks, fancy modern buildings, squeaky clean environment-friendly neighbourhoods divided into a dozen zones - e.g. the military zone, the ministerial zone, the residential zones (with colour-coded buildings for married and unmarried residents according to their ranks), the hotel zone (with nearly 1000 modern looking big hotels with hardly any occupants). It must cost a fortune to keep this rather empty city clean and green. I have hardly seen such a spacious and well-maintained city, even in the richest countries in the world.



Depending on one's point of view, one could either see it as a visionary project of a futuristic city or a grandiose symbol of megalomaniac military rulers who have the wrong priorities in a country with high levels of poverty.



It is speculated that the military government built this city out of paranoid fear that the old capital Yangon might face foreign attack. There is a popular belief among the Burmese that the military chief was responding to just a warning from an astrologer. I found the most colourful and astute explanation in the words of the Indian journalist Siddharth Varadarajan who wrote that the military government built the city to protect its hold on power, noting that the vastness of the new capital was "the ultimate insurance against regime change, a masterpiece of urban planning designed to defeat any putative 'colour revolution'—not by tanks and water cannons, but by geometry and cartography".


During my visit in 2006, I met several ministers, and most importantly, Lieutenant-General Thein Sein, one of Myanmar's most powerful generals and Secretary-1 of the SPDC, who was also the chair of the national committee in charge of health, education and prevention of recruitment of minors in the armed forces. Thein Sein became Prime Minister in 2007 and the first “elected” “civilian” President of Myanmar in 2011.


In these meetings, I raised the need for health workers, UNICEF and other UN staff and NGO counterparts involved in a major measles immunization campaign to be given nationwide access. On education, I highlighted how Myanmar was seriously lagging behind other countries, and asked for their support to the UNICEF-assisted "child-friendly schools" and life-skills programme. Noting that children in border areas, especially in the cease-fire zones and conflict areas were especially deprived of basic services, I advocated for easier access to these areas for UNICEF cooperation in water and sanitation, health, education and child protection.


General Thein Sein himself raised the issue of child soldiers, claiming it was against Myanmar’s law to recruit soldiers below the age of 18 and that they were making every effort to eliminate unintentional recruitment of minors. To confirm this, he invited me to visit a military recruitment center. Recognizing such visits were often stage-managed publicity stunts, I politely declined but recommended that UNICEF staff in Myanmar be given regular access to such centers.


I raised questions about the guidelines issued by the government that severely restricted the activities of the UN as well as international and national NGOs. I reminded the government that these were not in compliance with relevant UNGA resolutions, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities and our basic cooperation agreements. Furthermore, it was wrong for the government to lump together UN agencies and NGOs. Senior government ministers, including Thein Sein, understood my points but his commitment to comply was only cosmetic.


My overall impression of Myanmar from that trip was a sad one. While some progress was being made in health, HIV/AIDS, school enrolment and child protection, Myanmar’s performance remained considerably below its potential, especially compared to its neighbours. There was inexcusable under-investment in basic social services and over-investment in military expenditure and prestige projects like the new capital. It was pathetic that the quality of education in Burma at the turn of the 21st century was below that of the 1950s and 60s. The information technology revolution was passing Myanmar by as the SPDC did not allow free access to the Internet. There was growing secrecy and centralization of power as poor governance and lack of democracy were dragging the country down.


One had to salute the resilience of the people of Myanmar who continued to persevere against all odds. UNICEF cooperation was relatively effective given all the constraints. It was one of the few UN agencies with a full-fledged country programme and worked with government institutions as well as NGOs. Many donors and UN agencies were appreciative of UNICEF’s flexibility and were willing to help children through UNICEF, while taking a tough stance against international aid to Myanmar in general.


Despite some cosmetic changes, the Burmese junta continued to be one of the most repressive regimes in the early part of the 21st century. Because Burma is richly endowed in agriculture and fishery, it was able to avoid large-scale famine. Given its natural and mineral resources, neighbouring countries were more interested in securing investment opportunities than promoting democracy and human rights. Sanctions by Western countries and international agencies had, therefore, been toothless in persuading the junta to make real reforms. Thus, Myanmar remained one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia in terms of potential, but one of the poorest in terms of socio-economic development and political freedoms.



The continuing unpopularity of the junta became starkly clear during the 2007 anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks. As these spread like wildfire in all parts of Myanmar, some hoped it might bring an early end to the military regime, but the generals turned out to be even more ruthless than people imagined. They cracked down on the monks with brutal force.

However, even the die-hard military regime could not keep the country isolated from the winds of change. Its fake attempts at “democratic reforms” failed to pacify the people. In the end, some key leaders of the Burmese military itself came to the conclusion that it was time for some real – though very gradual and controlled – democratic reforms.

Thein Sein released DASSK from house arrest in November 2010 and held a series of private dialogues with her, paving the way for significant political reforms. DASSK was allowed to travel freely inside the country and to address public rallies. During 2011-12 the government released a large number of political prisoners, set up a national human rights commission, passed labour reform laws that met the ILO’s standards and drastically devalued its artificially maintained currency. Press censorship was relaxed and freedom to establish trade unions, NGOs and political parties was reinstated. Most importantly, election laws were changed to allow the NLD to participate in the 2012 by-elections to the parliament in which it won a landslide victory. DASSK herself was elected a member of parliament.

While the military retained considerable influence in the political processes, the reforms introduced were significant and irreversible enough that the international community changed its position vis-a-vis Myanmar. Sanctions against the government were lifted; a caravan of high profile foreign dignitaries descended on Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw; international media, NGOs and thinktanks turned Myanmar into a “go-to” destination; and the country transformed itself from a pariah to a darling of donors and investors.

I was delighted to see DASSK finally able to travel to foreign countries where she was feted as a democratic icon. DASSK’s popularity in Burma was reconfirmed during the national elections in 2015 in which her party won by a landslide, and she became the de facto head of government.

Sadly, DASSK’s lustre as a global human rights icon has been tarnished because of her less than forthright position on the brutal treatment of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s military and ultra-nationalist Buddhists. The attacks, including burning and pillaging whole villages, and inhuman treatment of innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly, led to the exodus of over half a million refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh in a period of just a few weeks in 2017. These attacks were condemned by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as a “textbook case of ethnic cleansing”, possibly amounting to crimes against humanity. Some other human rights groups have even charged the military’s actions as genocide.

Many Nobel Peace Prize laureates, who had campaigned for DASSK’s freedom, worldwide expressed their disappointment with her and urged her to speak up and act to protect the human rights of the Rohingyas. Some journalists and civic leaders even suggested that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to her should be rescinded.

Like many of DASSK’s admirers, I too feel disappointed that in the case of the Rohingyas she has refused to take a clear and strong position consistent with her earlier track record of stubborn defense of human rights and democracy against all odds. Worse, her government proactively prevented access to the Rakhine state and the Rohingya communities by UN delegations, other independent fact-finding missions and journalists, and even international relief agencies – in a move reminiscent of what the Burmese junta did during her own incarceration.

During my visit to Myanmar in October 2017, I was struck by the sharply contrasting domestic versus international narrarives on the Rohingya crisis. Most of us outside Myanmar subscribe to the narrative of gross human rights violations and repressive measures by Myanmar’s security forces, aided and abetted by some extremist Buddhist nationalists. This is the narrative one hears from the global media and international organizations, and eyewitness accounts from refugees pouring into Bangladesh.

While there is no question about the large-scale humanitarian crisis, the views on the causes of the crisis and the solutions proposed or contemplated are widely divergent. It is acknowledged that the harsh military reprisals starting in August 2017 were triggered by the unprovoked fierce attacks on security posts by an armed insurgent group called Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) that is presumed to receive support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and several Jihadist groups abroad, and uses terrorist tactics. But many considered the military reprisals disproportionate and indiscriminate.

Interestingly, during my trip in 2017, I did not meet anybody, including many Burmese friends and colleagues whom I have known as progressive liberals and democrats over several decades who agreed with the international narrative. I found much stronger support for the domestic narrative, including DASSK’s position as conveyed in her public remarks. Referring to the talk of international sanctions against her government, people inside Myanmar often asked: “If not Suu Kyi, who?”. They saw the military as the only – and far worse – alternative to Suu Kyi, and asked that outsiders better understand the predicament she is in – i.e. the very likely risk of a military take-over if her position is undermined. That may not be a prime concern for the international community, but to the people of Myanmar that is an unthinkable alternative after what they have gone through this past half a century.



The domestic narrative also points out that Myanmar has 60 million people. Rakhine itself has 17 townships. The world seems to care only about the one million or so Rohingyas in the three townships of northern Rakhine. How about the rest? Most Burmese want and expect DASSK to care for the development of all of Myanmar as her election manifesto promised. The outside world may judge her on the basis of her position on the Rohingyas, but her voters will judge her on the basis of what she does for the country as a whole. As a politician, she is acutely aware of that.



Most people in Myanmar either support DASSK whole-heartedly or give her the benefit of doubt regarding the sincerity of her public pronouncements on the Rohingya crisis, including her statement that those who have gone to Bangladesh will be allowed back after “verification” of their identity.



I must say that is one of the points on which I have serious doubts. The military and most of the populace would not want to see the Rohingyas return, and even if they were, it is doubtful that they would be allowed to return to their previous homes or reclaim any land or business.



On that count, I am struck by the similarities between the case of the Rohingyas of Myanmar and Lhotsampas (ethnic Nepalis) of Bhutan. Over 100,000 Lhotsampas were forcibly expelled from Bhutan, just like the Rohingyas (but without any comparable international media coverage). The Bhutanese too said they would take the Lhotsampas back after verification of their identities.



What we learned from the Lhotsampa experience is that the charade of verification can go on for decades and result in zero returnees. I suspect the Burmese will find a way to treat the RohingyasBangladeshis exactly as the Bhutanese treated the Lhiotsampas, making "verification" an endless process producing few, if any, results.



In my view, the people who understand and appreciate both the internal and external narratives are the resident staff of INGOs and UN agencies who work in Myanmar. Former UN S-G Annan and his commission members are among those who understood and appreciated both the domestic and external narratives. Though written before the escalation of the latest crisis following the ARSA attacks on 25 August 2017, I believe the report of the Annan commission offers the right diagnosis and recommendations for a long-term solution.



Suu Kyi seemed to initially endorse these recommendations and promised to implement them. But with the passage of time, she seemed increasingly constrained by the army’s resistance. They have now started cherry-picking and trying to implement some of the recommendations (e.g. on economic development of the Rakhine state) but not others (e.g. related to statelessness and citizenship rights of the Rohingyas).



It is widely understood that despite her party’s electoral triumph in 2015, DASSK’s relationship with Myanmar’s military continues to be fragile, and she does not have the power or influence to restrain the military on an issue like the Rohingya crisis on which domestic sentiment favours the military’s narrative. Nevertheless, her seeming denial of the horrific atrocities committed by the army smacks of acquiescence, if not complicity with the military’s actions. This is deeply troubling and disappointing to her many admirers around the world.

How well and how sincerely DASSK manages implement the Kofi Annan commission’s recommendations will be the real test of whether she deserves the benefit of doubt that many of us continue to give her, with much hope as well as trepidation.

On balance, however, I feel happy that Burma has finally re-joined the community of free and democratic nations after its long nightmare. I cherish the hope that it will become a shining star of democracy and development in Asia.



My hope for post-Juche North Korea

The humanitarian crisis in North Korea, which calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), became one of my major preoccupations when I was Regional Director in Bangkok during 1998-2000. I visited DPRK several times and met its ambassadors in Bangkok and New York as well as North Korean delegations attending various UN conferences.

I had to present and defend UNICEF’s country programme and humanitarian aid for DPRK at the Board, and with donors and delegates of several countries that took a special interest in DPRK, including South Korea, Japan, US and several EU countries.

Although some modest UNICEF cooperation with DPRK had started in the mid-1980s, UNICEF did not have an office in Pyongyang until the mid-1990s. Earlier UNICEF support for DPRK was managed from its Bangkok office. Part of the reason for not having an office in Pyongyang was that during the regime of Kim Il-sung, following the principle of Juche or self-reliance, DPRK did not accept aid from donors outside the socialist bloc. But a more important reason was that until the early 1990s, North Korea was actually doing relatively well in terms of services for children. Indeed, in some respects, e.g. child immunization and basic education, it probably had better indicators than South Korea.

UNICEF had a full office for South Korea after the Korean War. But South Korea made such rapid progress that by the mid-1990s it became one of the first countries to “graduate” from being a recipient to a net donor to UNICEF. UNICEF closed its office in Seoul around the same time it opened an office in Pyongyang. I was personally quite involved in developing a strategy for RoK’s transformation from a recipient to a donor to UNICEF.

The Korean peninsula was occupied and ruled by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Following Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, Korea was divided and administered by the victors – a pro-USSR government ruling the North and a pro-US one ruling the South. In 1950 the Soviet-supported leader of the North, Kim Il-sung, invaded the South with the aim of unifying the country under his leadership. The US, with the support of the UN, intervened on behalf of the South, and China entered the war on the side the North. The Korean War left the country devastated, and divided.

In North Korea, Kim Il-sung introduced a hyper-nationalistic, totalitarian Communist regime. He built a cult of personality portraying himself as a God-like patriotic figure with super-natural attributes. His “Juche” ideology identified the Korean masses as the masters of the country's development. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Kim elaborated Juche into a set of principles including self-reliance, independence from great powers and a strong military posture. Juche was presented as Kim Il-sung’s contribution to Marxism-Leninism that was uniquely relevant to Korea.

Such was the personality cult that, following his death in 1994, Kim Il-sung was declared the “Eternal President” of Korea and his son, Kim Jong-il, anointed as his successor. To legitimize this dynastic rule in a “democratic people’s republic”, the history of Korea was re-written to glorify the Kim family. The North Korean political machine continues to mythologize the Kim dynasty to this day.


Juche requires absolute loyalty to the Workers' Party of Korea and its supreme commander, formerly the “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung, followed by the “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il, and now his successor, Kim Jong-un, who carries the titles of General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the National Defence Commission and Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army.


Despite its much touted claim to self-sufficiency, North Korea has always had to rely on economic assistance from external donors. During the Kim Il-sung era it received most of its assistance from the USSR and some from China and other “fraternal” countries. During the Cold War, the socialist bloc gave DPRK a market for its industrial goods, and cheap and subsidized raw materials, including fuel. But after the fall of communism, Russia not only stopped providing fuel and other materials but started demanding payment at international market rates in hard currency, which DPRK did not have. This plunged the North Korean economy into a massive crisis.


When I first visited North Korea in 1998, I went to the port city of Nampho, some 50 km south-west of Pyongyang, to inspect the shipment and storage of UNICEF-provided relief supplies. Nampho is connected to the capital by an impressive highway, parts of which can be used as a runway for military aircraft. When visiting delegates from poor countries (including some of Nepal’s leftist leaders) saw this highway, they were bound to be impressed by North Korea’s development, as they were likely to be awed by Pyongyang’s high-rise buildings, huge monuments and public squares.


But there were more pedestrians and animals on this highway than motor vehicles. Along the way, I saw many factories closed because of the fuel shortage. The closure of fertilizer factories led to the collapse of agriculture and those of pharmaceutical factories led to rapid deterioration of health services.

To compound the misery, in the mid-1990s North Korea suffered a series of major natural disasters – alternating floods and droughts. Combined with its self-imposed isolation and limited interaction with the world economy, this led to a sharp economic downturn seriously constraining the country’s ability to feed its people. For a year or two the DPRK Government tried to keep this tragedy a secret, but when the news of famine and mass starvation began to filter out, it finally acknowledged the crisis, blaming it all on natural disasters and seeking international aid.

UNICEF was one of the first agencies to respond to DPRK’s appeal to the international community in 1995, as children were among the most vulnerable victims of the crisis. Many other donors were interested in helping but the DPRK Government made it difficult as it was very secretive and unwilling to allow transparent and independent monitoring of external aid. Donors were naturally suspicious as there was great risk that aid meant for civilians could be diverted to North Korea’s disproportionately large army with over one million soldiers, the fifth or sixth largest in the world.


Very exceptionally, and after tough negotiations, the government allowed UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) greater freedom and access to inspect where and how our assistance was being utilized. We were allowed to post about a dozen international staff in Pyongyang. All our local Korean staff were seconded government officials, some undoubtedly serving as spies. Our international staff could not travel freely and had to be accompanied by government guides, facilitators and translators. But that was better than any bilateral donors could expect, so many donors channeled their support through UNICEF and WFP.


When our international staff started visiting rural areas and public institutions, we began to get a picture of the magnitude of the humanitarian disaster and the extraordinary level of control and oppression that had been going on for so long that for most people it had become “normal”. The unrelenting propaganda praising the North Korean system and its leadership as the best in the world was such that probably many, if not most, people believed it was true, as they were deprived of access to any different information.


Even according to official government figures, from 1993 to 1998, per capita income had declined from US$991 to US$457; infant mortality rate had increased from 14 to 24 per thousand live births, and under-five mortality from 27 to 50. During this period, malnutrition had reached the point of large-scale famine in which perhaps a million or more children and women died of starvation.


Massive emergency food aid from China, Europe, US, Australia, Japan and South Korea helped prevent a catastrophic famine. UNICEF focused on high energy food supplements for children and helped run several nutrition rehabilitation centers. China also provided some sustenance to the North Korean army.


Though much of the food aid and supplements were being provided in response to large-scale hunger and malnutrition which were visible during our field visits, we had no idea of the exact level of malnutrition and how much impact our programmes were having. We wanted to undertake a comprehensive nutrition survey but the government was uncooperative, wanting WFP and UNICEF to provide funding for its own staff to undertake the survey as it was afraid of letting international experts have direct contact with its people. However, we could not trust that any survey carried by government personnel would be reliable. Our donors too wanted an independent international assessment.


It took over a year of tough negotiations for us to get the government’s agreement for UNICEF/WFP and the EU to undertake an independent nutrition survey, with expatriate experts allowed to visit families to administer questionnaires and undertake nutritional measurements. Even then, we were not allowed access throughout the country, particularly in the sensitive northern border provinces. The objectivity of the survey may also have been slightly compromised because of the need to use government-designated interpreters. Still, we were able to undertake two important and fairly comprehensive nutrition surveys in the late 1990s and early 2000s – the first such independent surveys carried out in North Korea.


The results of the nutrition assessment were published in 2002, revealing that 42 per cent of the country’s children below seven years of age were chronically malnourished, nine per cent were acutely malnourished and 70,000 were severely malnourished, requiring hospital care for their survival. The same survey reported 32 per cent maternal malnutrition, contributing to a high level of stunting in children. These figures probably reflected an improvement over the situation prevailing at the height of the crisis in 1995-97 before the international community was able to respond.


The survey repeated in 2004 showed an improvement in the nutritional status of young children. It showed the prevalence of stunting at 37 per cent, underweight 23 per cent and wasting seven per cent. A significant improvement was reported among children 1-3 years old, the main target group for UNICEF support, but even to this day high rates of child malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies continue due to chronic food shortages and the limited capacity of the country’s social services.


A particular issue I focused on in my advocacy with DPRK officials was childhood immunization. It was believed that the coverage of basic childhood vaccination against DPT (three doses of vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus) was above 90 per cent in the early 1990s. But by 1995-96 it had tumbled to 25-30 per cent. The fuel shortage had led to the breakdown of the cold-chain to keep vaccines potent, as the DPRK was unable to import or locally produce the vaccines it needed.


In the 1990s, UNICEF was giving high priority to universal childhood immunization. During my conversations with DPRK officials, I emphasized that one thing DPRK should be able to do relatively easily was to boost immunization to pre-crisis levels. It already had trained manpower and experience of high level coverage of vaccination, and I committed UNICEF to mobilize international support to provide vaccines, needles, syringes and the cold-chain equipment. Along with our country rep, Dilawar Khan of Pakistan, and HQ colleagues, I lobbied energetically with many donors and mobilized significant funding. I was very proud that, with concerted efforts, we were able to help raise childhood immunization levels quite dramatically in just a few years.



A 1998 survey found coverage for DPT at 37 per cent and for measles at 34 per cent. By 2003 these had increased to nearly 70 per cent and 95 per cent respectively. Later, together with WHO, UNICEF helped launch a project which facilitated regular immunization of infants and pregnant women nationwide, including the elimination of neonatal tetanus. Polio eradication was very successful with 99.5 per cent of children vaccinated.


In the education sector, the condition of schools had deteriorated sharply. Shortages of basic supplies and degradation of school infrastructure severely impacted on the quality of education. Teaching methods had also not evolved in step with international developments. Field observations and reports from the Ministry of Education indicated that prolonged hardships, such as illness and lack of adequate heating exacerbated absenteeism. Girls and boys in the mountainous northeast of the country were particularly vulnerable. It was difficult for UNICEF to mobilize support for basic education, partly because donors feared it was likely to be used for political indoctrination. Still, UNICEF managed to allocate funding in support of basic education out of its regular resources.


An issue that was under-emphasized in DPRK was the role and status of women. In theory, women had equal status with men, but they also shouldered the double burden of full-time employment and all household responsibilities. No wonder the maternal mortality ratio was relatively high, estimated at 105 per 100,000 live births in 1998, despite low fertility (average of two children per family) and high average age of women at marriage (24-26 years).



I was convinced that humanitarian assistance alone could not provide a sustained solution to the ongoing emergency in DPRK. Extensive development cooperation was needed. However, given its adventurism with nuclear weapons and the priority it accorded to military prowess, donors were not keen to support normal developmental activities. Within its limited means, UNICEF and the UN tried to engage in some development cooperation. But we realized much needed to be done to build the country’s capacity for development which was not possible without major political changes.


During my visits to North Korea, I noticed it had an extensive network of health and education institutions. It had a very high rate of school enrolment, near universal literacy and well-trained human resources. Health institutions in DPRK had plenty of doctors and nurses. In terms of skilled manpower, DPRK was better off than most developing countries. But all these institutions were dilapidated, poorly equipped and crumbling.


The saddest thing was to see how people were thoroughly indoctrinated, giving standard answers to all questions. At the UNICEF office in Pyongyang, I talked to local staff, some of whom were seconded from the Foreign Ministry, had served abroad as diplomats and had seen the world outside. Many were very intelligent and would give quick, thoughtful answers to technical and programme-related questions. But they would either keep silent, pretend not to know, or parrot official party line answers when questions were asked about political or policy matters.


One subject they would never discuss was South Korea. I remember asking some simple questions to one of our senior national officers who had served as a diplomat in Europe and at the UN. He simply smiled and said he didn’t know anything about it and looked the other way. If pressed to answer, all North Korean officials would make disparaging remarks about South Korea, spouting official propaganda about how it had a corrupt, un-patriotic, puppet regime loyal to the US and Japanese imperialists.


North Korean officials never met foreigners alone. They would always be accompanied by at least one other person, and it was understood that one would report on the other to their superiors. This posed a problem for UNICEF and other UN agencies when, for example, we organized training or seminars for our staff or government officials outside DPRK. We could never invite a single official, as the North Koreans were not allowed to travel alone. Often we had to invite and pay for a second official, sometimes a translator, even when we knew the main participant was fluent in the working language of the training or seminar.


I took every opportunity to encourage donors to help the children of North Korea. For example, I encouraged the Korean National Committee for UNICEF (KCU), an NGO in South Korea, to explore innovative ways to help North Korean children. The South Koreans had great empathy for the children of the North and would do whatever they could to mobilize support. Many South Korean school children were keen to collect school supplies, sports equipment, toys and clothing for their counterparts in the North.


Once, school children in South Korea collected over 500 footballs to send to the North through KCU. But the North Koreans refused to accept this donation, saying it was too little. I felt sad as the feelings of South Korean children were hurt by this cruel refusal. Obviously, the feelings of children who had gone out of their way to show empathy and solidarity did not carry much weight in the calculations of North Korean apparatchiks.


On another occasion, there was a proposal for collecting used computers from South Korea and sending them to the North. South Korea’s schools and hospitals replaced their computer equipment every few years. By the standards of most developing countries, and even some industrialized ones, these “used” computers were quite new. Certainly for North Korea, these would have been very new and high-tech. But the North Korean bureaucrats sniffed at such “used” gifts, preferring to keep their schools and hospitals in primitive conditions rather than accepting something “second-hand” from South Korea.


There was much hypocrisy in North Korean state behaviour. Its propaganda denounced South Korea as corrupt, capitalist and a militaristic lackey of the US, in contrast to the North Korean regime that claimed to be clean, uncorrupt, progressive, nationalistic and pro-people. In reality, the North Korean regime was scandalously corrupt, unprincipled and extortionist.


In diplomatic circles, the DPRK was notorious for its unorthodox and corrupt behaviour. Many North Korean embassies were involved in all kinds of smuggling and racketeering, abusing their diplomatic privileges. Many North Korean diplomats are caught red-handed trading in duty-free goods, in fake currency transactions and in money laundering. One way in which North Korea is able to withstand harsh economic sanctions is through massive state-sponsored smuggling in cahoots with unscrupulous Chinese traders.


I personally experienced a very strange encounter with a North Korean diplomat in Bangkok in 1999. My office got a request for a meeting with a first or second secretary from the DPRK Embassy. Normally, as Regional Director I only met ambassadors but the diplomat insisted he needed to see me urgently on behalf of his ambassador who was out of the country. When I met this gentleman, he had a strange request. He prefaced it by saying how much his government appreciated UNICEF assistance and my strong personal support for North Korea’s children at the UNICEF Eecutive Board. He then went on to say how much his own government was doing to help the women and children of DPRK. In that context, he said, his government had decided to make an arrangement with a Kuala Lumpur-based subsidiary of a US bank to borrow about US$80 million to purchase foodstuffs to feed the children of North Korea.


He went on to say that the bank had advised his government that to facilitate this transaction, it would help if they could get a letter from someone senior in UNICEF certifying how this transaction would help the women and children of DPRK. He had come to me, on the instruction of his ambassador and the Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang to request that I provide such a letter. He added that the matter was urgent and he needed the letter right away.


There was something very suspicious in this unorthodox request. I knew there was a US economic embargo against North Korea and US financial institutions were barred from transactions with it without Treasury and State Department approval. It would be highly unusual, therefore, for any legitimate subsidiary of a US bank to enter into such a transaction. So, I told the diplomat politely but firmly that I could not help him because UNICEF had nothing to do with this transaction.



The diplomat kept trying to persuade me. He even tried emotional blackmail by saying his career would be in danger if I didn’t help him. I asked him to ask his Foreign Ministry to deal directly with UNICEF HQ but he kept begging and cajoling. After wasting over an hour, I literally had to threaten that if he did not leave my office I would get help to get him out.


Before leaving, he said he had a gift for me in his car from his ambassador and wanted to bring it up from the car park. I told him I did not accept gifts and asked him to take it back to his embassy with my thanks and apology to the ambassador. But he said his country’s protocol did not allow him to take the gift back and begged me to accept it. When I firmly refused, he said he would get into trouble if he took the gift back, so he left a bag of gifts in my office and went away looking distraught.


As per UNICEF practice when we receive unsolicited gifts, I asked my assistant to prepare a note for the record explaining the circumstances in which the gift was received, and pass on the gift to our staff association to raffle for fundraising purposes. It turned out the gift bag included some bottles of expensive alcohol. I shared the details of this strange encounter and how I dealt with it in a note to UNICEF HQ.


I have always felt a special empathy for the people of North Korea and my heart sinks when I think about their plight. Unlike most other oppressed people, who sooner or later either revolt against an oppressive regime or secure external support to liberate themselves, North Koreans have had to live in what is essentially the world’s largest concentration camp for over seven decades. The totalitarian control and inhuman brutality of the North Korean regime against its 24 million people is a true affront to humanity. What is particularly sad and dehumanizing about North Korea is that many North Koreans might not even realize how oppressed they are.


North Korea is the only country in the world where citizens cannot freely travel inside their own country, let alone abroad. Travel by North Koreans is strictly controlled, and violators are subject to harsh punishment. Any movement outside an individual’s home village requires a travel pass. Only government officials and trusted celebrities, such as athletes and artists, are granted passports and exit visas.


However, the humanitarian crisis in the mid-1990s became so severe that many North Koreans were compelled to illegally cross into China in search of food. There were also reports of North Koreans fleeing to escape human rights violations and political oppression. The number of North Koreans who have taken refuge in China is variously reported at 1000,000 to 500,000. North Koreans fleeing into China do so at great risk. China does not recognize them as refugees but considers them illegal migrants or criminals. When caught, the Chinese often forcibly repatriate them.


There is tough surveillance by North Korean border guards and anyone caught fleeing is harshly punished, as are their families and associates. When repatriated by China, returnees are equally harshly punished and sometimes even killed. North Korean authorities are particularly brutal toward those suspected of making contact with South Korean NGOs, missionary groups or other foreigners. Many repatriated pregnant women carrying the children of Chinese men, to whom the women were often sold by human traffickers, are subjected to forced abortions. Many Korean refugees prefer to hide and mingle in the ethnic Korean Chinese communities in the border areas even if they are exploited and forced to live in dire conditions, working in menial, low-paying jobs.


The ultimate goal of most North Korean refugees is resettlement in South Korea but only a few succeed. Those seeking passage to a third country face severe restrictions from Chinese authorities. But a small number do reach as far away as Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam with the ultimate hope of making it to South Korea.


China denies access by UNHCR and other UN agencies to its border areas. It also refuses access to INGOs. So there has been no survey of the refugee situation, nor have there been any organized aid efforts. However, over the years an informal network of South Korean, Japanese, US and European NGOs have discreetly accessed the border areas and provided some limited food, shelter and employment services to North Korean refugees. Some have even succeeded in helping resettle a small number of refugees in South Korea.


It is estimated that nearly 75 per cent of the refugees are women and vulnerable to prostitution, rape and forced marriage. These women, as well as their children, are badly in need of special protection. On several occasions, some humanitarian organizations as well as officials in South Korea and the US asked UNICEF if we could find a way to help these women and children. As I had developed good rapport with several Chinese leaders, and UNICEF was already collaborating with China in a cross-border Mekong sub-regional project on child protection along its southern borders, I discreetly explored with the Chinese if we could do something similar along China’s border with DPRK.


I acknowledged that China would not wish to disrupt its good relations with DPRK and that it did not recognize North Koreans as refugees. My query, therefore, was what could we do – on strictly humanitarian grounds – to help the vulnerable Korean women and children who happenned to be in China’s territory? Reminding China of its obligations under the CRC and CEDAW, as well as on moral grounds, I said it was China’s duty, just as it was UNICEF’s obligation, to help vulnerable women and children, regardless of their legal status.


The Chinese made it clear that this was a sensitive subject, and they did not wish to pursue it officially. However, it was hinted that as UNICEF had good relations with the All China Women’s Federation (ACWF) – a “non-governmental” organization – I might wish to exchange some views with the ACWF.


I had several friendly exchanges on this with ACWF. It was informally agreed that ACWF would look into the situation of women in the Jilin and Liaoning provinces across from DPRK and try to ensure that all women there were protected from abuse and exploitation. I was happy to learn that ACWF did, indeed, pay special attention to women in these areas and some modest extra protection was provided to North Korean women following my intervention.


Nothing matches the pain of Korean families who have been separated since the Korean War. North Korea does not allow its citizens to visit even parents, siblings or spouses in South Korea, or allow South Korean relatives to meet them in the North. I was, therefore, happy to learn that family reunion was an important agenda when Kim Dae-jung visited Pyongyang for a Summit meeting with Kim Jong-il in 2000. His “Sunshine” policy rightly won him the Nobel Peace Prize. One of its outcomes was agreement to allow periodic family visits. Since then, several visits have been organized in South Korea with the help of the Korean Red Cross. But North Korea has insisted these be short and closely supervised. While it is heart-warming to see these family reunions, it is sad that even before their tears have dried, the relatives are forcibly separated again.

From time to time, North Korea has cruelly cancelled or threatened to cancel these family reunions when South Korea has suspended its aid programme in response to completely unrelated issues, such as DPRK’s nuclear weapons threats or unprovoked attacks on South Korean navy ships or islands. I consider it the height of inhumanity to make these family reunions bargaining chips in political or economic negotiations.


I would like to conclude my North Korean odyssey by recalling a touching story that affirms that even in the most oppressive totalitarian state, the human spirit cannot be suppressed.


In one of my visits, I travelled with a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, (whose name I will not mention for obvious reason) who was in charge of UN and European affairs, on a field trip outside Pyongyang. During this trip, we visited the old capital of Korea, Kaesong City, and the nearby demilitarized zone (DMZ) of Panmunjom separating North and South. I also visited the pavilion where the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement was signed. I have thus had the privilege of visiting the DMZ from both the North and South Korean sides.


There were four people in our limousine: the minister and I in the back seat, and the driver and an interpreter in front. Although the minister understood English, as per North Korean practice he had to go through the interpreter. In the long drive, the interpreter fell asleep. I tried to strike up a conversation with the minister but he seemed uncomfortable speaking to me in English and discreetly asked if I spoke French. When I told him I did, he smiled and started to speak in a very soft voice in French. I guessed the interpreter did not speak French.


As we started conversing, softly so as not to awaken the interpreter, I noticed the minister, who always recited the party line in earlier conversations, became a bit informal and warm. Taking advantage of this, I told the minister I had a dream I wanted to share with him.


I then told him that during the civil war in Lebanon, UNICEF had organized a summer camp in which we brought together children from various communities in the Bekaa valley. The children loved the programme and told their parents how much they enjoyed being friends with the kids from across the dividing lines in their neighbourhoods in Beirut. This feedback created an atmosphere of goodwill and encouraged dialogue and friendly exchange between the communities that contributed, in a small way, to eventual peace in Lebanon. The gist of my message was that, while adults are often full of prejudice, suspicion and hatred, children can be messengers of goodwill and even contribute to ending conflicts.


I then shared with the minister my dream of a summer camp for children from North and South Korea. I said I would love to be personally involved in helping organize such a camp, ensuring it would be child-friendly and fun-filled with no discussion of politics. This would create an atmosphere in which children from the North and South could learn about each other and develop friendship and mutual respect that might contribute to creating an atmosphere for peaceful reunification of Korea one day.


The minister listened attentively and I saw his face was filled with emotion. Suddenly, the otherwise dour official became misty-eyed. He said, “Mr Gautam, your dream is truly beautiful. I too wish such a dream could become a reality one day. I would love to see my own children and grandchildren participating in such summer camps”. Then he paused, closed his eyes and said, “However, I do not see such a dream becoming a reality in my life time”. He then looked out at the horizon and remained wistfully silent for quite a while.

I felt at that moment that even the harsh North Korean system, so full of self-righteous bombast, could not dehumanize its citizens completely. I felt I had penetrated this senior official’s heart. He became unusually warm to me when nobody else was watching, though he reverted to the tough and self-righteous propagandist in the presence of others.


This deputy minister often led the North Korean delegation to the UNGA where he was North Korea’s point-man, aggressively defending its nuclear programme, fending off accusations of human rights violations or abuse of humanitarian aid, and fiercely attacking the US, Japan and South Korea.


When he visited New York, he usually made a point of coming to UNICEF, to thank us for our humanitarian assistance and to ask for more, and often sought me out. Some of my colleagues and DPRK diplomats expressed surprise at how this fiery man at the UNGA acted friendly and grateful in meetings with me. This made me feel that indeed the human spirit is indomitable.


The international community has imposed tough punitive sanctions against North Korea for its adventurism with nuclear weapons and threatening behaviour towards South Korea, Japan and the US. However, although the regime’s horrific record of oppression of its own citizens has been known for a long time, no effective international action has been taken in that regard. Until 2015, China routinely opposed international sanctions against domestic violations of human rights. However, recently even China has felt so exasperated and embarrassed by DPRK’s dangerous and irrational behaviour that it has refrained from using its veto power in the UN Security Council to shield North Korea from punitive sanctions.

I was especially happy that the UN Human Rights Council established a Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in DPRK in 2013 headed by a prominent Australian jurist Michael Kirby. After a year-long investigation, the commission found gross violations of human rights, and "unspeakable atrocities" against its own citizens perpetrated by the North Korean regime for which it held the country’s leadership responsible.

By all accounts, the atrocities committed by the Kim dynasty are on par with those perpetrated by Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and other brutal tyrants. As the Commission said, "At the end of the Second World War so many people said 'if only we had known the wrongs that were done… Well, now the international community does know... There will be no excusing of failure of action because we didn't know". It then urged that the UN "must ensure that those most responsible for the crimes against humanity" must be held accountable and recommended sanctions against the DPRK and increased monitoring of the human rights situation.

In December 2014, UNGA voted overwhelmingly to recommend that the Security Council refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for committing crimes against humanity. As expected, China vetoed the motion but I was delighted that an overwhelming majority in the UN Human Rights Council, UNGA and the Security Council put the North Korean regime on notice.

While I was proud that UNGA condemned North Korea’s gross human rights violations (albeit belatedly), I was disappointed that many developing countries, including Nepal, abstained in the voting. I was also disappointed that S-G Ban Ki-moon did not show the courage to personally present the case against North Korea to the Security Council. This was especially disheartening because as a South Korean, Ban obviously knew the cruel realities of North Korea better than most.

For over seven decades, perhaps longer than any other large group of people in recent world history, the North Koreans have suffered in silence, gross violation of their human rights and freedom at the hands of an eccentric, irrational and oppressive political regime. I cherish the hope that this long nightmare of totalitarian rule will end in my lifetime, and North Korea too will join the community of free and prosperous nations, and that this will eventually lead to the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula as have the previously bifurcated states of East and West Germany and North and South Vietnam.

In 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un adopted a surprise charm offensive committing to complete denuclearization and improved relationship with South Korea, USA and other countries at Summit level meetings. In return, those countries have agreed to soften and drop international sanctions and offer more aid and trade facilities for DPRK. While this is a welcome move in the right direction, it should not lull us into ignoring the harsh reality of a brutal regime that continues to deny its people their basic human rights and dignity. At the very least, I believe that the benefit of doubt and concessions given to the DPRK regime should be conditional on it agreeing to honour minimal human rights standards for its citizens comparable to those that the Soviet Union and its allies had agreed to under the Helsinki Accords.


Memorable Audience with Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej

His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand who died in 2016 at the age of 88, was a revered monarch. Even after his death, visitors to Thailand are struck by the ubiquitous presence of his photographs at every office and street corner, and even in temples and gambling dens. Thailand has had periods of harsh military rule as well as liberal democracy. However, regardless of the nature of the government, one never hears public criticism of the King or members of the royal family.

This is largely due to the genuine reverence for King Bhumibol. However, the lack of dissenting views is also because of the strict lèse majesté laws which prohibit criticism of the royal family, royal development projects, institution of royalty, Chakri Dynasty or any previous Thai kings. The lèse majesté laws are invoked to imprison critics for up to 15 years. Books that are even indirectly critical of the king are banned, as are foreign newspapers and magazines if they contain critical comments about the king or Thai monarchy. The only publications about the king are full of unadulterated adulation.

It is common knowledge that military leaders and politicians often abuse lèse majesté laws to intimidate their critics and rivals rather than to honour the king. King Bhumibol himself did not like the lèse majesté laws. As he said in 2005: "I must also be criticized. I am not afraid if the criticism concerns what I do wrong, because then I would know. If you say the king cannot be criticized, it means that the king is not human. If the king can do no wrong, it is akin to looking down on him because the king is not being treated as a human being.” It was perhaps in that spirit that King Bhumibol routinely pardoned most people jailed for lèse majesté.


I have always been republican by conviction and opposed to any cult of personality. I feel uncomfortable having to glorify or accept glorification of any person, as no human being is flawless. I had seen efforts to glorify King Mahendra during the Panchayat regime and how his critics were labeled “anti-national elements”. But there were many free-thinking Nepalis who were prepared to challenge his flawlessness, both in public and in private. As a diplomat and international civil servant, I followed all due protocol in Thailand, but the excessive obsequiousness towards royalty bothered me quite often.


I was certainly very appreciative of the many good things King Bhumibol did. His patronage and personal interest in public health and nutrition, focusing on children, was immensely helpful to UNICEF.

King Bhumibol espoused the philosophy of a "sufficiency economy", as an alternative to the export-oriented policies followed by many Thai governments. Although some people privately said that was an inadequate prescription for a modern economy, no Thai politician or economist dared to question this concept. Indeed, all recent constitutions of Thailand enshrine "sufficiency economy" as a primary goal.

Like King Bhumibol, one of his daughters, Princess Mahachakri Sirindhorn, was widely admired by the Thai people. Sensing the public mood, Sirindhorn was given the title of "Siam Boromrajakumari" (Princess Royal of Siam), often translated as "Crown Princess" in English. The Privy Council even amended the constitution to allow it to appoint a princess as successor to the throne but only in the absence of a male heir.


I met Princess Sirindhorn a number of times and had a long conversation with her when I made my farewell call in March 2000. I was deeply impressed by her knowledge of development issues, particularly nutrition. She told me about her visit to southern Nepal to observe maternal and child nutrition activities. I was wowed by the depth of her knowledge and memory of details.


Given all of this, I was very eager to meet King Bhumibol. An opportunity to do so came on 12 November 1998 when I joined UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy for an audience with His Majesty at Chitralada Palace.


We entered the audience hall following elaborate protocol, accompanied by Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan. I was a bit taken aback to see Khun Surin, a jovial and dynamic personality, being unusually servile and genuflecting as per Thai protocol. After kowtowing and shaking hands with the king, Bellamy and I sat down for a conversation that was supposed to last no more than 15 minutes. To our pleasant surprise, the audience lasted for one hour and fifteen minutes, with the King doing most of the talking in a serious and contemplative manner.


The King started by praising UNICEF’s work, saying how deeply he identified with its noble mission. He said that most of the royal projects that he was supporting involved promoting the wellbeing of children.


Bellamy thanked His Majesty for his long-standing patronage and support of many UNICEF-assisted programmes of public health, nutrition and education in Thailand.

Introducing myself as a Nepali, I briefly mentioned how much I enjoyed reading a book written by the King entitled ‘The Story of Mahājanaka: The Virtuous King’ in which King Bhumibol traced the links between the ancient Kingdom of Mithila in the southern plains of today’s Nepal, with a vast geographic area in Southeast Asia, then called ‘Suvarnabhumi’ or the Golden Land, which included contemporary Thailand. I noted how happy I was that the King had personally chosen the name Suvarnabhumi for Bangkok’s new international airport, apparently drawing on this historical link.

The King acknowledged Bellamy’s and my brief remarks with appreciation. He then went on a long and heart-felt discourse on the evolution of childhood in Thailand during his lifetime. He said that the condition of children in Thailand in 1998 was incomparably better than during his own childhood. Virtually all Thai children now went to school. They had access to fairly good health care. The nutritional situation of children had dramatically improved, and no child went to bed hungry. Infant mortality had been drastically reduced, and childhood immunization coverage was near universal. Children wore good clothes and shoes. They looked much smarter than Thai children of his generation.


Then, after a long pause, the King said that despite such progress, there was something that deeply troubled him about today’s Thai children. He said that in the course of much material progress, Thai children seemed to have lost their sense of community and collective responsibility for their family and neighborhood at large. He recalled how children of his generation went to temples and wats, performed community duties, and carried a sense of responsibility for their siblings, parents, neighbours and the nation. Today’s children, he said, had become excessively self-centred, seeking instant gratification of their consumerist wishes, but did not care as much for their community. This called for better guidance and support for youngsters by parents and teachers.


The King also commended on a few more mundane concerns. He said that during his childhood, students were encouraged to have nice handwriting, and children as well as their parents and teachers took great pride in the ones who had beautiful handwriting. He lamented that most kids these days had sloppy handwriting and did not make the effort to improve it, partly because of the ready availability and use of typewriters initially, and computers and other electronic gadgets more recently. He was worried that worried that children had become so dependent on computers, calculators and mobile phones that they could no longer do simple mathematical calculations and did not even know the multiplication tables.


Above all, the King was worried about children worldwide were becoming too self-centred, thinking always about “I and me” rather than about “we and our community”. He advised UNICEF not only to care about children’s survival and material wellbeing, but also to help inculcate in them community spirit, moral and ethical values, and a spirit of volunteerism. We deeply appreciated the King’s profound advice.


The King also expressed deep anxiety about the financial crisis engulfing Thailand and other Asian countries and how the poor and vulnerable communities were being impacted. He said that some of the royal projects that he patronized tried to mitigate the impact of the crisis, and he constantly encouraged the government to do the same. And then, in a philosophical mood, he said that the underlying causes of the crisis needed to be better understood. He felt there was a need to rethink the whole consumerist and export-oriented economic philosophy and to adopt what he called the “sufficiency economy” model of more self-reliant and sustainable development.


He then shared with us a fascinating account of how funds were raised for his royal projects. He said that there were many rich people who wanted to contribute big amounts of money for the projects. But he was not keen to receive such large donations. He much preferred receiving smaller contributions from a large number of ordinary people.


He then recounted the story of a sweeper who had been working in Chitralada Palace for nearly four decades. The King recalled this sweeper as a young man decades ago. Now he was quite old, but continued to do his duty diligently. He said the sweeper did not know that the King knew him, and that he, the sweeper, had been consistently contributing 20 baht each month for the royal projects for the past 30 years. Then, in a rather choked voice, the King said that was the kind of small contribution he valued deeply, rather than big contributions from wealthy donors. We were very touched by the King’s heart-felt sentiments.


I mentioned to His Majesty that UNICEF had a similar experience in fund-raising in Thailand with the help of our GWA and former prime minister, Khun Anand Panyarachun. We found that the poor people were the most generous in helping other poor people in the midst of the financial crisis. The King acknowledged and appreciated UNICEF’s collaboration with Khun Anand.


At the end of our audience, the King said something I will never forget. In a wistful and philosophical way he said that, working for UNICEF we must surely know how each child grows up in a unique manner. All parents try to raise their children in a loving and caring way to the best of their ability. But not all children grow up to meet their parents’ expectations. After another long pause, the King said this was a universal phenomenon, which also applied in his own family. As I looked around the room, I saw Khun Surin Pitsuwan and the other Thai officials with their heads bowed in respectful empathy.


After the audience with the King, I dropped off Bellamy at her hotel and went straight to the office. Although it was late in the afternoon, well past normal office hours, I saw that most local staff were still there, eagerly waiting for me. They wanted to know how the audience with His Majesty had gone and why it had lasted so much longer than scheduled.


We organized a quick informal staff meeting and I briefed them about our audience with the King. Our Thai staff listened with rapt attention.. When I told them about the King’s account of the palace sweeper, I saw many staff with misty eyes. When I ended with the story of the King saying how children grew up differently even in the same family, including his own, many staff members could not control their emotions and started sobbing. I could then understand, more fully than I did before, why the Thai people loved King Bhumibol Adulyadej with such loyalty and reverence.