人物 | 联合国侯任秘书长古铁雷斯何许人？- 大数跨境

阳光创译语言翻译

2016-10-07

导读：葡萄牙前总理安东尼奥·古特雷斯将成为下一任联合国秘书长。

It’s official: António Guterres, former socialist prime minister of Portugal, will be the next secretary general of the United Nations.

这是官方的：葡萄牙前总理安东尼奥·古特雷斯将成为下一任联合国秘书长。

Guterres had been the rumored frontrunner for months, but the selection still came as a bit of a surprise because many UN diplomats and observers believed that Moscow would only accept a candidate from Eastern Europe. (The current UN head, Ban Ki-moon, comes from South Korea; Ban’s predecessor, Kofi Annan, was from Ghana.)

传言数月以来，古铁雷斯在竞赛中领跑，但他的当选仍令人有点惊讶，因为许多联合国外交家和观察者认为莫斯科只接受一位来自东欧的候选人。现任秘书长潘基文来自韩国，潘的前任科菲·安南来自加纳。

In the end, Guterres, a consummate UN insider, easily beat out other top contenders like Argentinian Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, either of whom would have been the first woman to lead the world body.

最后，纯正的联合国圈内人轻松击败了其他有力的竞争者，包括阿根廷外长苏珊娜·马尔科拉和新西兰前总理海伦·克拉克，后两人本有机会成为第一个领导这一世界机构的女性。

Guterres’s victory was hailed by UN watchers, who describe Guterres in glowing terms. Formerly the UN high commissioner on refugees, Guterres is well-liked, with a reputation for being eloquent and outspoken on human rights.

联合国观察者欢迎古铁雷斯获胜，他们盛赞了古铁雷斯。曾任联合国难民事务高级专员的古铁雷斯人缘好，在人权事务上能言善辩，直言不讳。

He also has a history of challenging powerful countries to do more to help the vulnerable rather than deferring to them. It’s a bold choice for an organization better known for making the safe one.

他还曾要求诸强国更多去帮助弱者而不是听之任之。对于一个以打保险球著称的机构而言，这是个勇敢的决定。

Now that the internal politicking is done, the big questions become: Who is Guterres? What does his selection mean for a UN beset by peacekeeping scandals abroad and a failed effort to stop the carnage in Syria? And how much can a secretary general — no matter how skilled — actually accomplish?

既然内部斗争搞定了，最大的问题在于：谁是古铁雷斯？选任他对深陷全球维和丑闻及无力阻止叙利亚大屠杀的联合国而言意味着什么？不论手段高低，联合国秘书长究竟能干点什么？

The last question may be the most important one. The UN secretary general wields no armies and controls no economies. And Guterres is coming into office at a time when two major powers, the US and Russia, are sharply at odds over the world’s most pressing crisis — Syria. It’s a hell of way to start his term.

最后一个问题是最重要的。联合国秘书长既没枪，也没钱。古铁雷斯走马上任，正值美国和俄罗斯两个大国在世界上最迫切的危机叙利亚问题上针锋相对。他的任期一开始就注定多舛。

Who is Guterres, anyway?

Guterres, who has a background as an academic, has been a politician nearly his entire life. In 1974, Portugal’s fascist dictatorship was toppled in a coup and replaced by a democracy. Guterres helped organize the Socialist Party, which soon emerged as the country’s main center-left faction.

古铁雷斯学者出身，一生从政。1974年，葡萄牙发生政变推翻了法西斯独裁统治，民主取而代之。古铁雷斯协助组建了社会党，很快成为该国主要的中左派别。

In 1995, the Socialist Party won Portugal’s national election; Guterres, the party’s leader, became prime minister. At the time, Portugal was facing a fairly alarming rise in the rate of heroin addiction. Guterres’s response was to push through an unprecedented law decriminalizing the use of all drugs.

1996年，社会党在葡萄牙全国大选中获胜，党魁古铁雷斯成为总理。当时吸食海洛因的人数暴增，古铁雷斯的应对办法是推动吸毒非罪化，这一法律史无前例。

It turned out to be fairly successful. Portugal’s drug addiction rate is five times lower than the EU average; the number of new HIV infections per year has fallen by 95 percent since decriminalization came into effect.

结果相当成功。葡萄牙的毒品成瘾率比欧洲平均水平低五倍，非罪化实施以来，每年HIV新感染人数降低了95%。

It’s hard to say, for reasons my colleague German Lopez explains, that decriminalization was responsible for all of these benefits. But at the very least, it shows that decriminalizing drugs didn’t have any major negative effects on Portugal.

我的同事洛佩兹解释，很难说所有这些益处都归功于非罪化。但至少，这表明吸毒非罪化对葡萄牙未造成任何重大负面效果。

During his time in office, Guterres developed a sterling reputation among Portuguese politicians. Even his political opponents in Portugal’s center-right Social Democratic party respected him.

古铁雷斯在任期间在葡萄牙政坛政声斐然，连葡萄牙中右翼社民党的政治对手都敬重他。

“I left the country 11 years ago, but I have a very vivid memory of how strong his reputation was,” André Corrêa d'Almeida, an adjunct associate professor of political economy at Columbia University who has written about Guterres, told me.

“我11年前离开祖国，但我还清楚地记得他的声誉有多好。”哥伦比亚大学政治经济学兼职副教授Andre Correa d'Almeida说，他正在写古铁雷斯。

Guterres resigned from office in 2002, after the Socialist Party did poorly in local elections. He then turned to international politics. For a time, he led Socialist International, the global organization of social democratic parties, and in 2005 became the UN high commissioner for refugees, putting him in charge of its semi-autonomous agency tasked with assisting those fleeing wars, famines, and other forms of manmade and natural disasters.

2002年，社会主义党在地方大选中表现不佳，古铁雷斯辞职。此后他开始涉足国际政治。他一度领导“社会国际”，这是社会民主党的全球组织。2005年，他成为联合国难民事务高级专员，开始负责这一半自治的机构，帮助那些逃离战争、饥荒和其他人为及自然灾难的人。

Guterres earned plaudits in his new post, as well.

在新岗位上，古铁雷斯也赢得赞誉。

“He consistently positioned himself as the voice of world refugees; a sort of moral center who would put his own career prospects on the line by calling out powerful countries,” Mark Leon Goldberg, a journalist at UN Dispatch who covers the world body closely, writes.

“他一直将自己看成世界难民的发声筒，这是某种道德中心，他吁请强国，将自己的事业前景置于险境。”跟踪报道联合国的记者Mark Leon Goldberg写道。

Goldberg continues:

A couple years ago at an event at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington, DC I saw Guterres give an address about the Syrian refugee crisis. And in a way that would be uncharacteristic of someone who needed Washington’s support to become the next Secretary General, he stood before US government officials at a US government institution and sharply criticized the Obama administration for its (then) paltry commitment to resettling Syrian refugees.

Goldberg说：几年前在华盛顿特区美国和平研究所的一场活动上，我看到古铁雷斯就叙利亚难民危机发表讲话。他说话的方式和那些想靠华盛顿支持当选下一任联合国秘书长的人迥然不同，他在美国政府机构里，当着美国官员的面，尖锐批评奥巴马政府当时对叙利亚难民安置所做的承诺微不足道。

Despite this, he remained popular enough with America for the United States

to support his bid to become UN secretary general.

尽管如此，他在美国还是很受欢迎，美国支持他成为联合国秘书长。

He also developed a reputation as an effective manager. According to figures provided by d’Almeida, Guterres slashed expenditures on headquarters and staff by about half, while simultaneously growing the organization’s capacity to handle larger numbers of refugees. This is fairly impressive given the UN’s famous tendency toward bloat and outright corruption.

他还管理有方。根据d'Almeida提供的线索，古铁雷斯总部开销和员工削减了一半，同时提高了机构应对更多数量难民的能力。考虑到联合国一贯倾向于臃肿和全盘腐败，这令人耳目一新。

This record of success at a particularly difficult task likely explains why he beat out other candidates like Malcorra and Clark, who would have been historic selections.

正是这种攻坚处难的成功经历让他击败了诸如马尔科拉和克拉克等其他竞选者，后者当选本该是具有历史性的。

“He was generally seen as an effective advocate and a competent humanitarian,” David Bosco, a professor at Indiana University who studies the UN, tells me. “Obviously, the fact that he’s being selected at this moment, as the refugee situation in the world is at the top of everyone’s list in terms of urgency — I think that helped him a lot.”

“人们都认为他是做实事的倡导者和能干的人道主义者。”印第安纳大学联合国专家David Bosco说：“显然，应对世界难民形势就其紧迫性而言刻不容缓，他此时当选，我想这帮了他的忙。”

Will Guterres matter?

A key qualification of Guterres is his skill for public outreach — his ability to make a case for refugees and the need to assist refugees that grabs the attention of the world. Public advocacy isn’t the strong suit of Ban, a soft-spoken diplomat who chooses his words carefully and is, to his critics, far too hesitant to criticize major powers like Washington and Moscow.

古铁雷斯的核心竞争力是他的社交技能——他让难民和援助难民的需求辩护，让其获得世界关注。宣传不是潘基文的强项，他温文尔雅，字斟句酌，批评者认为他不愿批评华盛顿和莫斯科等强国。

“In this day and age, the expectation is that the secretary general will have some kind of persuasive power, some ability to use the bully pulpit,” Bosco says. “I don’t think Ban was really able to do that. In that sense, his tenure was kind of crippled.”

“现在，人们期盼联合国秘书长具备某种说服力，有能力发声。”Bosco说。“我认为潘基文没法做到。在这种意义上，他在任期内无所作为。”

This is especially important because the UN secretary general doesn’t have much in the way of formal powers. It’s an important sounding post — leader of the UN.

这尤其重要，因为联合国秘书长没什么正式的权力。那是一个重要的发声器——联合国领导人。

The true power of a secretary general rests in perception: The sense of legitimacy that comes from being in charge of the world’s largest and most famous international organization.

联合国秘书长真正的权力在于观感：合法感来自于执掌了世界上最大、最有名的国际组织。

This sense of “speaking for the world” confers a level of notoriety and moral authority; a canny secretary general can leverage that to broker negotiations or spearhead major new humanitarian initiatives.

这种“为世界代言”的感觉赋予了某种程度的名声和道德权威，精明的秘书长可以利用它去斡旋谈判或领导新的、重要的人道主义议程。

So the influence of the position — whether, as Bosco puts it, “the secretary general [is] more secretary or general” — depends heavily on the persona in it, as well as the willingness of other countries to listen to the UN at that moment in time.

因此不论——用Bosco的话说——“秘书长更像个秘书还是更像个长”，这一岗位的影响力都主要依赖于谁在任上，还有其他国家在当时是否愿意听联合国的。

Guterres will have his work cut out for him. Both Bosco and d'Almeida think his first international priority will be Syria, a problem that no one has a good solution for.

古铁雷斯上任可谓量身定做，Bosco和d'Almeida都认为他的首要的国际事务重心将是叙利亚，解决这个问题没人比他更有办法。

US-Russian negotiations over the country’s future have collapsed, owing largely to Russian support for a renewed Assad offensive against the war-battered city of Aleppo.

就该国未来进行的美俄谈判崩溃了，主要因为俄罗斯支持阿萨德对饱受战争蹂躏的阿勒颇市的新一轮攻势。

And even when the US and Russia seemed more on the same page, there was serious doubt that they have the leverage to be able to persuade the actual main parties to the conflicts — the rebels and the Assad government — to arrive at some kind of deal.

就算美国和俄罗斯看起来更加勠力同心，他们能否劝说冲突中的两个派别——反对派和阿萨德政府——达成某种协议也着实令人怀疑。

It’s not clear if Guterres, no matter how charming or compelling he may be, will be able to persuade anyone to act differently. That’s especially true since the secretary general can’t pick sides in a conflict where the permanent members of the UN Security Council are divided.

不论古铁雷斯多有风度，他能否劝说任何一方做出改变，这尚不清楚。况且秘书长不能对冲突一方有所偏袒，因为联合国安理会常任理事国意见分裂。

But because he’s in charge of the UN, and Syria is the world’s most visible and devastating conflict, Guterres has to at least try. It’s a dilemma that illustrates the basic problem with his new job: The secretary general is supposed to speak for the world, but the world rarely wants to speak with one voice. Without that unity, it’s basically impossible to get anything done.

可他既然执掌联合国，叙利亚又是明摆着的最具毁灭性的冲突，古铁雷斯必须姑且一试。这是他新工作面临的困境：秘书长要为世界代言，可世界很少只有一种声音。缺乏团结，做任何事都基本不可能。

“The first UN secretary general, Trygve Lie, describe it as ‘the most impossible job in the world,’” Bosco says. “You have all of this demand that the organization respond — but you don’t have the power to make [it].”

“第一任联合国秘书长特吕格韦·赖伊说那是‘世界上最不可能干好的工作’。”Bosco说。“我们总是要求联合国作出反应，但你又没有权力作出反应。”

原文自:英文联播

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