At the end of a very long series of twists and turns, the Security Council gave the green light on Friday January 15 to the appointment of the UN representative in Lebanon, the Slovak Jan Kubis, as the new envoy for Libya. If his candidacy had been proposed by Antonio Guterres, it is still his task to definitively validate the profile of the Slovak, expected on the ground. For the UN, it is urgent to act in Libya in order to preserve the fragile ceasefire agreement signed last October.
A diplomat known to be frank and direct
68-year-old Jan Kubis was since January 2019 Special Coordinator for Lebanon. During his career, he headed the UN mission in Iraq from 2015 to 2018 and that in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2015 after having been chief of diplomacy of his country from 2006 to 2009 and secretary general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from 1999 to 2005. Born November 12, 1952, Jan Kubis speaks Slovak, Czech, English, Russian and elementary French. In Lebanon, he quickly stood out with his frank and direct tone and his often virulent criticism of Lebanese leaders. In the Security Council, however, some diplomats remain measured. For Libya, “weary of war, we will follow the consensus, but it does not have a very good reputation for efficiency, it is not a thunderbolt of war,” told AFP one of them on condition of anonymity.
Libyan theater undermined
Proposed to the Council by the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, he will have in his new functions to support a fragile ceasefire and to confirm the withdrawal of foreign troops and mercenaries from a country where the interference is multiple. The process of appointing an envoy for Libya, a post vacant for nearly a year, was chaotic, embarrassing the image of the UN as the clashes did not cease, exasperating many diplomats. After the resignation in early March 2020 of the Lebanese Ghassan Salamé, officially for health reasons, but who no longer hid his weariness in the face of violations of UN resolutions, Africa has long demanded that the post go to an African. In vain. In quick succession, a former head of Algerian diplomacy and a former minister of Ghana were dismissed by the United States. Washington then forced its partners to split the post in two, with a coordinator of the small UN mission based in Tripoli and an emissary in charge of political negotiations based in Geneva. The function of coordinator was assigned to a Zimbabwean, a sort of consolation prize for Africa, and the Security Council had painfully agreed at the end of 2020 that the new envoy would be the Bulgarian Nickolay Mladenov, until then. emissary to the Middle East. Barely chosen, however, the latter announced at the end of December, to everyone’s surprise, his renunciation for family and health reasons, a decision which left many diplomats perplexed.
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