How to win friends and influence people

People who follow the news on disasters may be familiar with Jan Egeland, the United Nations Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. He usually pops up at disasters and international emergencies starting from his appointment in 2003. Since then, Mr. Egeland has hit the press during Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Sudan and Darfur crises, the second Iraq War and most recently during the Lebanese crisis. In each case, he comes across as a very forthright and outspoken person, who is obviously deeply concerned about these issues and the victims. He wants to care for them and make sure that their suffering is eased. But the way he goes about it is rather curious. Let us take a view on this remarkable gentleman.

We note some of his work as reported in the press with respect to some of the disasters, the reaction to his work and words and his achievements to date. Mr. Egeland succeeded Kenzo Oshima of Japan, a very quiet person, who went about the job with minimal press contact and no waves. Disasters would happen, the UN bandwagon would roll in, Kenzo Oshima could be seen on TV with sometimes nary a word to the press, and humanitarian aid would be distributed and life goes on. Mr. Egeland is different. He obviously belongs to the Bob Geldof school of aid (for those who do not know, during the first Bandaid concert for Aid for Africa, Bob Geldof famously said "Give me your f***ing money"). An interesting and rather unique way to ask for money or aid, I always thought.

Mr. Egeland’s background is very impressive and I have to quote a couple of paragraphs about him from the official UN press release found at: (http://www.un.org/News/ossg/sg/stories/egeland_bio.asp) which is very interesting and helps in understanding him (or not as the case might be).

“Mr. Egeland has gained 25 years of active experience in humanitarian, human rights and peace work through the United Nations, the Norwegian Government, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and other non-governmental and academic institutions. He is currently Secretary General of the Norwegian Red Cross. From 1999 to 2002, he was the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Colombia. Earlier in his career, he served as State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1990–1997)………. Mr. Egeland holds a Magister Artium in Political Science, University of Oslo. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and a fellow at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, and the Truman Institute for the Advancement for Peace, Jerusalem. Mr. Egeland has been Chair of Amnesty International, Norway, and Vice-Chair of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International.”

This man is right up there with very high qualifications and relevant experience. Given that he was also directly involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process leading to the Oslo Accord, the peace process in Guatemala and led the land mine treaty negotiations, he has been a diplomat to the core. And if there is one thing that diplomats have in abundance, it is tact (“Tact is the ability to make a person see lightning without letting him feel the bolt.” – by Orlando A. Battista). For some reason, I think Jan missed this bit after getting this job.

Take his comment after the Asian Tsunami. "It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really…….Christmas-time should remind many Western countries at least, how rich we have become……There are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy…………..politicians in the United States and Europe believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more." This is coming from a person who is i asking for more aid? As one could have expected, most of the western countries went up in smoke, specially the USA. Good one there! The fact that USA actually provided most of the aid for this disaster went totally un-noticed. “Jan, this is not a good way of making friends and influencing people.” I can understand why he said that, coming from an European perspective where governments give more and private philanthropy is comparatively little, so the American way of giving more in private philanthropy and in kind doesn’t compute for Jan. Plus all the military ships, effort, soldiers toiling, transporting supplies, all the aid in kind was not considered as well? But what was the end result? The Asian countries did get aid, and help was given, but the UN got a bad rap and he didn’t really help the image of the UN as a bunch of overpaid pinkos who are stuck in a socialist time wrap.

Recently he has been touring Lebanon during the Israeli bombardment. After seeing the devastation of the civilian areas, he blurted out, "It is horrific. I did not know it was block after block of houses……It makes it a violation of humanitarian law." And he went on and on in the same vein. Then he said, he needs a humanitarian corridor which the Israelis need to agree to, so that aid can flow to the needy victims. Now as you can see, comments like this plainly put the Israelis back up, which lead to the sad and very predictable conclusion that Israeli cooperation is zero or minimal if at all.

So the Israelis got pissed off. But at least, that would have made Hezbollah happy, no? No. Because the day after he made these comments about Israel he also had something to say about Hizbollah. This is what he had to say about Hezbollah: “Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children. I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men.'' So that was all right then. He has managed to hack off both sides, and then the world wants the UN to play a role?

His comments, from my perspective make sense. It is true that both sides have their fair share of blame. But if his objective was to make sure that both parties try to allow the United Nations to look after the civilians and provide them with aid, comments like this cannot really be termed as helpful or tactful. See why I think that he seems to have forgotten to take his tact pills since he took up this job?

This is a recurrent theme, I am afraid. Take Darfur for example. Sudan is the gatekeeper and the main backer of the janjaweed who are terrorising the Darfurians. There are some African Union troops, but they are pathetically useless. The Darfurians need aid and to provide some of that very much needed aid, the support of the Sudanese government is vital. So what does Jan do? He said that the Darfur region of Sudan was one of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises and that a "scorched-earth" campaign of ethnic cleansing was taking place there. He called for an immediate ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access, the restoration of law and order and for prompt and generous donor support. Now given the Sudanese government’s sensitivities, no prizes for guessing what their reaction was. Again, his comments were fair points, and I agree with all of them, but were his comments helpful? Did he, as a coordinator of humanitarian aid, manage to accomplish his primary objective of providing aid? No.

Take another example of Zimbabwe, he said that it was previously the breadbasket of Africa. Robert Mugabe, who in my opinion is certifiably insane and is a cheap tin pot dictator, was directly blamed by Jan. But he said “……we should not condition humanitarian assistance due to the sins of the leaders, but we have a big responsibility, as the UN, to be watchdogs for good governance and to criticize where criticism is due and try to change the behaviour of leaders.” Now this puzzles me. I agree that the situation in Zimbabwe is directly attributable to this blithering Robert Mugabe. But Jan Egeland’s job is to provide humanitarian relief to the civilians suffering from hunger, famine, rampant corruption and mismanagement, etc. and NOT to go about lecturing this paranoid megalomaniac about good governance and calling him a sinner. So for want of a very highfaluting ideal of good governance, he basically cheated millions of poor Zimbabweans out of aid. Why? Because Robert Mugabe told the UN to buzz off. Missing the wood from the trees Mr. Egeland?

Here’s another gem about Somalia. They are very prickly people, in a failed state, with some of the poorest people in the world, trying desperately to get some form of government together, while the United Nations is trying to deliver aid. Now who can provide some form of protection and help to the United Nations so that aid can be delivered? A very fragile government and other leaders, warlords, mullahs and assorted bandits. Still, the objective is to get aid to the sufferers. So what does Jan say? “It is only the Somalis themselves - and I don't hide that fact when I meet the political leaders here - they themselves have to stop their old practices of fighting each other every time they have a problem. They have to learn how to do peaceful conflict resolution.” Again a rather sad and predictable result happened.

The same thing happened in Uganda where he declared the twenty-year conflict in northern Uganda “the world’s worst form of terrorism”. He blasted the government security forces for not providing security and given his rather public comments and the sensitivity around the word terrorism, the Ugandan Government took a very jaundiced view of his comments. End result, not much change I am afraid, the twenty year conflict is well on its way to be extended for some more years.

I can go on and on about his utterances, but you get the idea. The man has got very good intentions, and he says it as he sees it. He is obviously a person who has taken Benjamin Franklin’s words “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are” very much to heart. Nobody can doubt his good intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Perhaps it may be a good idea for Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General to take Jan Egeland aside for a cuppa tea, whisper earnestly to him, “Jan, me old chap, tone it down” and give him a copy of Dale Carnegie’s seminal book, “How to make friends and influence people” for his bedtime reading. And tone it down he must! Humanitarian disasters will keep on happening, and civilians will require aid and help. They frankly can do without self-righteous and platitudinous blather, which makes this drawing room liberal feel good about blurting out harsh truths, but which doesn’t feed, clothe or shelter the victims and antagonises those who would be in a position to assist.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

Note: Perhaps Jan Egeland heard me, because a few days after his comments on both the Israelis and Hizbollah, he made a new one. A plea! Egeland said that, for now, he would ask the Israelis and Lebanese "for at least a 72-hour start of the cessation of hostilities, so that we can evacuate wounded, evacuate children, evacuate the elderly and the disabled from the crossfire in southern Lebanon." Let us hope that they listen to him.