During my UN years, I served under four different Secretaries-General. Some of them were stronger leaders and some weaker, but all of acted from the position of moral authority and were custodians of United Nations (UN) values.
Never before has the UN been headed by such a petty person with a lack of empathy and distorted sense of priority as its current chief executive Antonio Guterres.
When the entire world froze in horror at the atrocities of the Russian marauding troops in Bucha, Irpin and Borodyanka; and as the Russian invaders annihilated residential areas of Mariupol together with their inhabitants, the Secretary-General seemed mostly preoccupied with food shortages elsewhere in the world.
Yesterday, he confirmed this himself: “Since the war started, I have been underlining the importance of having Ukraine’s food products and Russian food and fertilizer fully available in world markets.”
It looks like the Secretary-General does not care about the origins of the “Russian food and fertilizers” despite the widely known fact that the Russians are looting Ukrainian granaries and destroying the Ukrainian harvest.
Mr. Guterres also stated that the “hopeful news” from the Istanbul talks on July 13 “shows the importance of dialogue.”
A few hours later, the Russians demonstrated what kind of “dialogue” they prefer by bombing the center of Vinnytsia. The Secretary-General managed to squeeze out an indefinite condemnation of “any attacks against civilians or civilian infrastructure” and reiterated his “call for accountability for such violations.”
Not a word about the perpetrator who committed this war crime and who should be held accountable. Apparently, the Secretary-General avoids irritating the Russian ruler, his potential “partner” who may soon start supplying stolen Ukrainian grain to UN humanitarian operations for just a fistful of dollars.
When Mr. Guterres visited the town of Bucha in April, he noted: “When I see those destroyed buildings, I must say what I feel. I imagined my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and blackened. I see my granddaughters running away in panic.”
He looked shocked by what he saw then. Not anymore? Does he not know who killed innocent people in Vinnytsya’s city center?
Does he does no longer imagine his granddaughters running away in panic or being hit by the Russian rocket, or members of his family being buried alive under the rubble of the medical center?
Is striking a deal with Putin more important? And is this a case of lack of integrity or political corruption?
Today I feel lucky that my career has not been tarnished by collaboration with the current UN chief Antonio Guterres. And I hope that every night he will be tormented by images of the civilians killed in Vinnytsia by the Russian war criminals.
Read the original op-ed on Oleksandr Matsuka’s Facebook page.
Oleksandr Matsuka is a former Chief of the UN Security Council Secretariat.
