New UNHCR Head Named

The New York Times reports:

Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday chose António Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister, to become high commissioner for refugees, replacing Ruud Lubbers, who quit in February after being accused of sexual harassment.

. . . Mr. Guterres beat out a field of seven other candidates. Among them were Bernard Kouchner, a former French minister of health and a founder of Doctors Without Borders; Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister; and Soren Jessen-Petersen of Denmark, the United Nations special representative in Kosovo.

. . . .

Since 1999, Mr. Guterres has been the head of the Socialist International, an organization of 166 social democratic, socialist and labor parties and organizations. Elected as the head of Portugal’s Socialists in 1992, he was credited with moving the party to the center, and became prime minister in 1995.

I can’t say I’m encouraged, particularly when MSF has been so forthright and courageous about the North Korean regime’s conduct. Under Lubbers, the UNHCR made occasional pro-forma protests but mainly sat in its offices in Beijing, never forcefully demanding access to North Korean refugees in the border areas, and never really pressing the point of that they were “refugees.” More. Meanwhile, the Chinese police were leading them back to the North Korean gulag with wires through their noses.