Javier Felipe Ricardo Pérez de Cuéllar de la Guerra (; ; 19 January 1920 – 4 March 2020) was a Peruvian diplomat and politician who served as the fifth

Secretary-General of the United Nations The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The role of the secretary-g ...

from 1982 to 1991. He later served as

Prime Minister of Peru The president of the Council of Ministers of Peru ( es, link=no, presidente del Consejo de Ministros del Perú), informally called Premier (form of address) or Prime Minister, is the head of the cabinet as the most senior member of the Council ...

from 2000 to 2001. Pérez de Cuéllar was a member of the

Club of Madrid Club de Madrid is an independent non-profit organization created to promote democracy and change in the international community. Composed of 121 regular members from 72 countries, including 7 Nobel Peace Prize laureates and 20 first female heads ...

, a group of former heads of state and government, and the Inter-American Dialogue.

Biography

Early years

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar was born on 19 January 1920 in

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...

, Peru, to a wealthy family of Spanish descent with ancestry from

Cuéllar Cuéllar () is a municipality in the Province of Segovia, within the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. The municipality had a population of 9,730 inhabitants according to the municipal register of inhabitants (INE) as of 1 Jan ...

. He studied at Colegio San Agustín, and then at the

Pontifical Catholic University of Peru Pontifical Catholic University of Peru ( es, link=no, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, PUCP) is a private university in Lima, Peru. It was founded in 1917 with the support and approval of the Catholic Church, being the oldest private ...

Diplomatic career

Pérez de Cuéllar joined the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The enti ...

in 1940 and the diplomatic service in 1944, serving thereafter as secretary at Peru's embassy in France, where he met and married his first wife, Yvette Roberts-Darricau (1922–2013), in 1947. He also held posts in Britain, Bolivia and Brazil, and later served as ambassador to Switzerland from 1964 to 1966, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

from 1969 to 1971, and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

from 1977 to 1979. From his first marriage, he had a son, Francisco, and a daughter, Águeda Cristina. He was a member of the Peruvian delegation to the

first session of the United Nations General Assembly The first session of the United Nations General Assembly opened on 10 January 1946 at the Methodist Central Hall in London. Gladwyn Jebb, executive secretary of the UN, notified Dr. Eduardo Zuleta Angel Eduardo is the Spanish and Portuguese ...

, which convened in London in 1946, and of the delegations to the 25th through 30th sessions of the Assembly. In 1971, he was appointed

permanent representative A permanent representative is a diplomat who is the head of a country’s diplomatic mission to an international organisation. Organizations that receive permanent representatives from their member states include the United Nations, the World Tr ...

of Peru to the UN and led his country's delegation in the Assembly until 1975. In 1973 and 1974, he represented Peru in the

UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

, serving as its president at the time of the Cypriot coup d'état in July 1974. On 18 September 1975, he was appointed

Special Representative of the Secretary-General A Special Representative of the Secretary-General is a highly respected expert who has been appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to represent them in meetings with heads of state on critical human rights issues. The representati ...

in Cyprusa post he held until December 1977, when he rejoined Peru's foreign service. Also in 1975, Pérez de Cuéllar divorced his first wife and married Marcela Temple Seminario (1933–2013), with whom he had no children. On 27 February 1979, he was appointed UN under-secretary-general for Special Political Affairs. From April 1981, he also acted as the Secretary-General's personal representative on the situation in Afghanistan; he visited Pakistan and Afghanistan in April and August of that year to continue negotiations initiated by the Secretary-General some months earlier.

United Nations Secretary-General

President Ali Khamenei and Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

In December 1981, Pérez de Cuéllar was selected to succeed

Kurt Waldheim Kurt Josef Waldheim (; 21 December 1918 – 14 June 2007) was an Austrian politician and diplomat. Waldheim was the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981 and president of Austria from 1986 to 1992. While he was running for t ...

; he was unanimously re-elected for a second term in October 1986. During his two terms as secretary-general, he led mediations between the United Kingdom and

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

in the

aftermath of the Falklands War The aftermath of the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina affected world geopolitics, the local political culture in Argentina and the UK, military thought, medical treatment, and the lives of those who were directly invol ...

and promoted the efforts of the Contadora group to bring peace and stability to Central America. He also interceded in the negotiations for the independence of Namibia, the

conflict in Western Sahara The Western Sahara conflict is an ongoing conflict between the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic/Polisario Front and the Kingdom of Morocco. The conflict originated from an insurgency by the Polisario Front against Spanish colonial forces fr ...

, the war between Croatian forces seeking independence and the

Yugoslav People's Army The Yugoslav People's Army (abbreviated as JNA/; Macedonian and sr-Cyrl-Latn, Југословенска народна армија, Jugoslovenska narodna armija; Croatian and bs, Jugoslavenska narodna armija; sl, Jugoslovanska ljudska ar ...

(as well as the local Serb forces), and the

Cyprus issue The Cyprus problem, also known as the Cyprus dispute, Cyprus issue, Cyprus question or Cyprus conflict, is an ongoing dispute between Greek Cypriots in the south and Turkish Cypriots in the north. Initially, with the occupation of the island b ...

. In 1986 he presided over an international arbitration committee that ruled on the ''Rainbow Warrior'' incident between New Zealand and France. In 1983, he initiated the

World Commission on Environment and Development The Brundtland Commission, formerly the World Commission on Environment and Development, was a sub-organization of the United Nations (UN) that aimed to unite countries in pursuit of sustainable development. It was founded in 1983 when Javier Pé ...

(WCED) in order to unite countries to pursue

sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The ...

. During the build-up to the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

, he convinced US president George H. W. Bush to send secretary of state

James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President ...

to negotiate with Iraqi deputy prime minister

Tariq Aziz Tariq Aziz ( ar, طارق عزيز , 28 April 1936 – 5 June 2015) was an Iraqi politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s w ...

in Geneva. Shortly before the end of his second term, he rejected an unofficial request by members of the Security Council to reconsider his earlier decision not to run for a third term, shortened to two years, as a search for his successor had not, as of then, yielded a consensus candidate. A suitable candidate,

Boutros Boutros-Ghali Boutros Boutros-Ghali (; , ar, بطرس بطرس غالي ', ; 14 November 1922 – 16 February 2016) was an Egyptian politician and diplomat who served as the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from 1992 to 1996. An academic ...

of Egypt, was agreed upon in November 1991, and Pérez de Cuéllar's second term as secretary-general concluded, as scheduled, on 31 December 1991.

Later life and death

Pérez de Cuéllar ran unsuccessfully against

Alberto Fujimori Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto ( or ; born 28 July 1938) is a Peruvian politician, professor and former engineer who was President of Peru from 28 July 1990 until 22 November 2000. Frequently described as a dictator, * * * * * * he remains a ...

for

president of Peru The president of Peru ( es, link=no, presidente del Perú), officially called the president of the Republic of Peru ( es, link=no, presidente de la República del Perú), is the head of state and head of government of Peru. The president is th ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

; following Fujimori's resignation over corruption charges, he served as

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

and foreign minister from November 2000 until July 2001. After

Alejandro Toledo Alejandro Celestino Toledo Manrique (; born 28 March 1946) is a Peruvian politician who served President of Peru, from 2001 to 2006. He gained international prominence after leading the opposition against president Alberto Fujimori, who held ...

's election as president in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...

, he went to Paris as Peru's ambassador to France, retiring in 2004. In 1997, Pérez de Cuéllar published his memoir in which he recounted his years at the UN. Pérez de Cuéllar celebrated his

100th birthday A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100 years. Because life expectancies worldwide are below 100 years, the term is invariably associated with longevity. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living cente ...

in January 2020, the first UN secretary-general to become a centenarian. He died at his home in Lima on 4 March 2020.

Honours and awards

* 1987:

Jawaharlal Nehru Award The Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding is an international award presented by the Government of India in honour of Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's first prime minister. History It was established in 1965 and is administere ...

* 1987:

Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation The Princess of Asturias Awards ( es, Premios Princesa de Asturias, links=no, ast, Premios Princesa d'Asturies, links=no), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 ( es, Premios Príncipe de Asturias, links=no), are a series of a ...

* 1989: "Golden Doves for Peace" International Award, issued by Italian research institute Archivio Disarmo * 1989:

Olof Palme Prize The Olof Palme Prize is an annual Swedish prize awarded for an outstanding achievement in the spirit of Olof Palme. The Prize consists of a diploma and 100,000 US dollars. The prize was established in February 1987 and is awarded by the Olof Palm ...

for International Understanding and Common Security * 1991:

Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...

, French chivalric decoration * 1991: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George, bestowed by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

* 1991: Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...

* 1991:

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...

, awarded by George H. W. Bush * 1992: Freedom Medal He received several honorary degrees from universities such as the following:

Notes

References

External links

Javier Perez de Cuellar papers
at the United Nations Archives
Official UNSG biography
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Perez De Cuellar, Javier 1920 births 2020 deaths Ambassadors of Peru to France Ambassadors of Peru to Poland Ambassadors of Peru to Switzerland Ambassadors of Peru to the Soviet Union Ambassadors of Peru to Venezuela Candidates for President of Peru Cold War diplomats Foreign ministers of Peru Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Members of the Inter-American Dialogue Men centenarians Peruvian centenarians Peruvian democracy activists Peruvian diplomats People from Lima Peruvian officials of the United Nations Peruvian people of Spanish descent Pontifical Catholic University of Peru alumni Prime Ministers of Peru Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award Secretaries-General of the United Nations