In a 1996 article in Foreign Affairs, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali referred to the use of the "Group of Friends of the Secretary-General" as one of the tools available to him in carrying out his functions at the United Nations. Very little other information has been available to the public on this phenomenon, and very little is recorded in United Nations documents. Yet the use of the "Group of Friends" concept has been growing. In conducting the research for this paper, it was necessary to interview people within the United Nations system.

The Friends groups are made up of a small number of Member States, usually three to six Members, which keep in close contact with the Secretary-General and support his efforts to find a peaceful solution to a specific crisis. Keeping the Groups small is essential so that meetings can be called quickly and easily and a consensus can be maintained. A Group is formed around a specific issue, usually a country in crisis, i.e., The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Haiti. The countries that make up the Group give the Secretary-General the leverage he needs to bring the parties to a conflict to the negotiating table. The formation and meeting process is ad hoc and informal. Each Group has come together under different circumstances and for different reasons, at times being assembled directly by the Secretary-General and at other times being formed through a self-selection process. Therefore, each Group needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a pattern to the phenomenon. In most instances, the Group contains at least one Member of the Security Council and, in fact, all the countries in the Group may be current Members of the Security Council, forming a combination of Permanent and Non-Permanent Members. This may vary, though, and Members not on the Council may also be an important part of the Group. Interestingly, as was pointed out by a member of the Secretariat, the Friends of the Secretary-General were originally conceived as a counterbalance to manipulation of the Secretary-General by the Permanent Members of the Security Council. This is explained further in the case studies that are presented below.

The initial formation of any Group appears to be dependent on the issue and on which countries are already engaged in the crisis. Initially, it was the Secretary-General who formed the Groups and selected the memberships, i.e., the Groups on El Salvador and Haiti. Later, Groups were established by States that then approached the Secretary-General, in a kind of self-selection process. However, once a Group of Friends is formed, it tends to stay very stable. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Groups of Friends are formed, how they operate, and how they are used to keep a peace process on track and prevent a breakdown and a return to hostilities.

Function and Purpose of a Group of Friends

In a speech given in New Zealand in May 1995, the Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali explained:

As mentioned above, the Group of Friends also serves to mediate conflicts that arise throughout the process and to act as a clearinghouse for mediation. It can prove extremely difficult to find a solution to a conflict if a number of actors are trying to carry on separate mediation efforts simultaneously with the parties involved. A Group of Friends can coordinate those efforts into one ongoing process. In December 1989, Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar began the process to establish The Group of Friends on El Salvador, the first such group, as a way of support for the Secretary-General's role in using his good offices. The Group of Friends concept was specifically conceived by Alvaro de Soto with the help of Francesc Vendrell and supported by the Secretary-General. It was understood to be a tool specifically at the service of the Secretary-General in his efforts on the issue at hand. Thus, it was intended from the onset that any action would be conducted only at the request of the Secretary-General. Members of the Group might contact or meet with one or all of the parties and apply pressure or probe for keys to a solution, always keeping in close touch with the office of the Secretary-General. It might be described as mediation within a mediation process. Some members of the Group may be more active than others. An example in the Salvadoran peace process is the very active role played by the Venezuelan President, Carlos Andrés Péres, who would call the guerrilla leaders directly and summon them to Caracas for face-to-face meetings with him.

The Group can be used during the negotiation process before reaching a formal agreement, or the Friends might be used to aid in the implementation of an agreement after the parties have found some common ground but are dragging their heels. The advantage that a Member State provides is that of leverage. Representatives of the country that is part of the Friends group can contact one of the parties to the conflict and offer incentives or clarify potential repercussions in order to push the process forward. A Friend can also invite one or more of the parties to its capital for a round of serious talks to probe for solutions. In the Salvadoran case, both Mexico and Venezuela as Friends invited the parties to their countries to meet and carry on negotiations. In this sense, a head of government can facilitate negotiations by supplying a venue for dialogue and can deliver or withhold rewards in a way that the Secretary-General cannot.

After an agreement is signed by the parties, the language in the agreement is usually general in nature and needs further clarification when it comes time to implement its provisions. The language needs to be translated into practice in a way that is faithful to the spirit of the agreement and acceptable to the parties. This requires a continued process of negotiation between the parties with the help of the Secretary-General and the Friends, who keep in contact with the parties to ensure that implementation is staying on course. At this point, pressure from the Group of Friends can be very important for keeping the peace process from breaking down. For example, the agreement on El Salvador called for the parties’ military forces to withdraw to confined areas. The government forces were to return to their garrisons, and the rebel forces, known as the FMLN, were to withdraw to camps. However, the agreement did not contain a map specifying the location of the camps. Some of the camps were established in areas where there was not enough drinking water or in areas that were subject to flooding. UN agencies had to coordinate efforts to alleviate these problems and were aided by donor support through the Friends and others, i.e., Norway. Failure to establish adequate camps for the FMLN had already slowed the process and could have derailed it altogether.

There is often a key leader in the Group, one that can apply leverage and pressure and get an intransigent party to see the wisdom of complying with the terms of the agreement. A Member State can carry out a certain amount of carrot-and-stick diplomacy that the Secretary-General could not. In the case of El Salvador, the Mexican government, through its Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Montaña, and the President of Venezuela, Carlos Andrés Péres, were personally engaged in the process. Both contacted the Salvadoran government or invited the rebel leaders for discussions. President Péres personally invited the parties to Caracas to pressure them to move forward.

The Friends were also important in El Salvador during the implementation stage in various ways, which included pressing the government to comply with the military reform provisions and urging the FMLN to demobilize the guerrilla fighters as agreed upon in the final settlement. For example, the United States, which became a Friend after the agreements had been reached, provided funds for judicial reform and training for the new national police. In addition, the United State came to the aid of the demobilization process when it began to break down. In the agreement it was stated that a land distribution plan had to be implemented. The FMLN forces were threatening not to turn in their weapons until the land distribution plan was under way. To support this part of the agreement, the U.S. provided money to the lending institutions in El Salvador in order to make loans to those eligible to purchase small plots of land. Spain furnished a large police contingent, along with financial and technical support for the new national police. Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia also provided police contingents.

However, if the mediation is to work, it is extremely important that the Group and all its members be perceived by the parties to be impartial and that their actions not be perceived as favoring one side or the other. If a Friend is seen to be taking sides, the process is likely to break down. Without impartiality, the parties will lose confidence that the negotiations will serve them fairly. They may decide that they can do better by returning to the fighting to achieve what they want. It can be a delicate balancing act, and outsiders may see the Group of Friends as having a stake in the outcome. However, the key is the perceptions of the parties and the careful, beyond-the-scenes orchestration by the Secretary-General and his staff to ensure that impartiality is maintained during any interaction with either side.

In addition to keeping the process on track and presenting a common policy on the issue, the Group takes on a number of other functions. It meets and prepares language for resolutions that are being considered by the Security Council or the General Assembly. In many cases, the Secretary-General, after having been in close contact with the members, prepares a draft of the language for their response. Then the Friends become a vehicle to deliver and support the resolution, using their weight to persuade other Member States to come on board. They have also been instrumental in preparing resolutions that renew a peacekeeping operation in the field when a mission is about to expire. In preparing draft resolutions, they encourage a consensus on the issue. Because they are focused on the day-to-day events surrounding the process, they are generally considered to be the best informed and most engaged Members. Their view is usually accepted by other Member States that may not be following the issue as closely. Their engagement in the issue does not necessarily need to be interpreted as having an interest in one side or the other gaining an advantage in the outcome of the peace process. The Group of Friends may only be interested in restoring peace so that relations in the region can be normalized. However, as explained above, their involvement in the process will be productive only as long as the parties are willing to accept their role as intermediaries. Through these activities, the Group of Friends provides another "channel for multilateral action by Member States" ancillary to the more formal UN bodies.

In their capacity as concerned Member States, the Group of Friends can fill another very important role. The Secretary-General touched on this function in his May 1995 speech:

The Friends of the Secretary-General on Haiti have also continued to offer support. In a letter signed by the Friends — Ambassadors Cardenas (Argentina), Fowler (Canada), Merimee (France), Tejera-Paris (Venezuela), and Albright (United States) — which was circulated as an official document of the UN on April 17, 1995, the Group underlined its "firm support for President Aristide and the Government of Haiti" and "the importance of immediate and sustained international assistance in supporting the Haitian people through international financial institutions and bilateral and multilateral programmes." The letter also stated that "the Friends join the Secretary-General’s call of 23 March for Member States to contribute to the creation of an adequate police force in Haiti and to the international police monitoring programme." This sustained support offers the United Nations a low-cost, yet ongoing, mechanism carried out by a group of Members that are sincerely concerned with the maintenance of peace in the country in question.

Countries That Form a Group of Friends

Most Groups consist of three to six members and, as stated above, tend to include at least one country that is a Member of the Security Council. They are usually constituted in response to a crisis in a country where the UN is involved to some degree and often where there is an ongoing UN operation. They usually include some countries that represent the region concerned, as well as a major power; at times, they include the former colonial power. The following Groups of Friends of the Secretary-General have been formed:

Origins of the Group of Friends

The term "Group of Friends of the Secretary-General" emerged from the El Salvador process. The members were recruited through the office of the Secretary-General to form the Group. (For further details on this process, see the section on case studies, below.) As mentioned earlier, some of the Friends were already engaged in the issue through the Contadora process. Though the name "Group of Friends" originated at this time, the concept of drawing support for the Secretary-General through the formation of a small group of key Member States seems to have appeared earlier, under Dag Hammarskjöld during the Suez Crisis of 1956.

Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar also seems to have used this mechanism on other occasions without specifically calling it a Group of Friends. On Namibia, starting in 1977, there had been a self-created group of Member States, later referred to as the "Contact Group." They were five Western powers, including the three Western Permanent Members plus two Non-Permanent Members serving at the time, Canada and West Germany. Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar began to interact with this group during the late 1980s. While a Contact Group is similar to a Group of Friends working as Member States who offer support for a peaceful solution, the two groups differ in one major way. Whereas a Group of Friends operates in coordinated support of the Secretary-General and his efforts, much as friends might do, a Contact Group is less cohesive and may take initiatives independently of the Secretary-General. A member of a Contact Group may, in fact, seek a specific solution in line with its own interests.

In 1989, another group of Member States came to the aid of Namibia at a crucial point after the UN Namibia operation was established but was still not fully deployed. A crisis developed when South West African Peoples’ Organization (SWAPO) forces crossed the border into Namibia, threatening to disrupt the peace process. A secret emergency meeting of a handful of Member States (Angola, Cuba, South Africa, the Soviet Union, and the United States) took place in Namibia and got the process back on track by intervening between the parties. In another part of the world, the Secretary-General had formed a support group on Central America that focused primarily on the situation in Nicaragua after the 1990 elections. But in this case, the members of the group could never agree on whether they would cooperate on donor policies or on political efforts aimed at national reconciliation.

How long a Group of Friends stays in existence and continues to meet depends on the members and the issue involved. The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador still meets from time to time, as does the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Haiti. (These two Groups are discussed more fully below.)

How the Group of Friends Functions

The Group of Friends functions as a kind of triangle, with the following pivotal apexes of activity: 1) New York, 2) the field (in the country in question), and 3) the capitals of the members of the Group. The Group is constituted in New York but usually has a counterpart in the field. The ambassadors of the Group who are in the country where the operation is taking place tend to move back and forth between that country, their own capitals, and New York, where they meet with the Secretary-General.

The Group does not always have to meet physically. Contact may take place by phone or one-on-one between the members or with the Secretary-General. Sometimes they may want to meet but cannot. Or, they may work better by not coming together. Or, because of political sensitivities beyond the issue at hand, certain members may not want to be seen working with another member. However, for some Groups, meeting as a whole is essential for developing and maintaining a consensus. These meetings generally take place in New York between the Secretary-General and the ambassadors to the United Nations from the Member States. Meetings are usually held in New York if a consensus needs to be developed within the Security Council on the drafting of a resolution or the formulation of policy, or when it is necessary to meet individually with the parties to the dispute.

Members of the Group can also meet in the field where the UN operation is established. These meetings tend to take place after an agreement has been reached between the parties to the conflict and implementation is under way. The discussions are held with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the ambassadors to the country in question from the countries that are members of the Group of Friends. Hence, the Group can be active in many places. If the Secretary-General is traveling, and the need arises, he may call a meeting together of the Group of Friends by meeting with their ambassadors in whatever country he might be visiting. This is one of the very useful aspects of this particular mechanism. For example, during a visit to France, the Secretary-General convened a meeting with the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Haiti and met in Paris with a representative of the French government and the other ambassadors to France from the Group.

Policy decisions, however, are made in the capitals of each of the Member States involved, on the basis of information reported by the ambassadors. Ideas can come from any point in the triangle, but decisions are made by the governments. Ambassadors from small countries may have more leeway to make policy decisions on their own, but ambassadors from larger countries will receive instructions from, or at least confer with, the government back home. The ambassadors are appointed by and serve their governments and must take their direction from government leaders. So the link to the capitals is essential, particularly when governments are asked to apply leverage and then need to deliver on promises made to the parties. In El Salvador, Spain contributed resources to the camps where demobilization of the military factions took place. The camps were suffering from a lack of funding, and demobilization was in jeopardy. This information was transmitted from the field to Madrid, and funding was made available to get the demobilization process back on track.

Problems arising in the field could be conveyed by the Special Representative to the local ambassadors, who in turn might contact their capitals. Simultaneously, the Special Representative could be in contact with the Secretary-General in New York, who could call an emergency meeting of the Group, could meet with them individually (which was often the case), or could reach them by phone. New York can be a useful venue because all the members are in close proximity and can meet with the Secretary-General very quickly and easily. Also, New York has the advantage of allowing discussions to take place invisibly. Diplomats are often reluctant to make a symbolic statement by traveling to another country for a meeting.

The UN Secretariat can also play a key role in this mechanism by providing background information and supporting the work of the special political advisor to the Special Envoy or Representative of the Secretary-General on the country in question. These political advisors have been within the Office of the Secretary-General or the Department of Political Affairs serving at the regional division (or desk) for the country in question. The special advisor reports directly to the Envoy or Representative of the Secretary-General and not to an Under-Secretary. A special political advisor may have language and diplomatic skills that enhance the negotiating process and may travel for the Secretary-General, or his Envoy/Representative, when needed. For example, Alvaro de Soto of the Secretariat played a major role in assisting the successive Special Representatives to El Salvador (Iqbal Riza, Augusto Ramirez-Ocampo, and Enrique ter Horst) and provided an important continuity to the process when these Representatives replaced one another. On Haiti, Francesc Vendrell played a significant role in assisting Special Envoy Dante Caputo, who was also assisted by Nicole Lannegrace of the UN Department of Political Affairs. Ms. Lannegrace continued on to assist Special Representative to Haiti Lakhdar Brahimi when Caputo resigned.

Other Groups Similar to the Group of Friends

There have been and are other groups of Member States that have assumed a role similar to that of the Group of Friends but have not been called by that name. For example, on Angola there is the "troika," which consists of Portugal, Russia, and the United States. The Contact Group on the former Yugoslavia was not a Group of Friends of the Secretary-General: it was not created to help the Secretary-General on this issue. The word "Contact" is an accurate description of the Group’s function. The members were in contact with the parties to try to find a solution, but the Contact Group itself did not have a common view on the situation or how it should be resolved. The members did not move with the consensus that characterizes a Group of Friends. In Bosnia, those in the region had such strong interests in a particular outcome that they did not trust each other and therefore were not able to form a Group of Friends. They blamed each other for the conflict. Germany was blamed for recognizing breakaway states too soon; the United Kingdom was blamed for not wanting to take any action; Russia was blamed for supporting the Serbs; and the United States was blamed for being pro-Muslim and not committing troops to UNPROFOR, while calling for NATO to bomb the Serbs. Each member had its own interests, and the Group lacked a unanimous purpose. The effect of the Contact Group was minimal, and the United States, with pressure from France, ended up taking the lead in bringing about the Dayton accord.

The "front-line states" on apartheid and on Namibia also worked as a pressure group of Member States, with some effective results. These African Member States are those that border the countries at issue. They stayed with the process, continuing to keep the issue alive at the United Nations and pressuring the parties to end the conflict. A support group of Member States also stayed in close touch with the UN operation in Mozambique.

On Cambodia, the group of Member States that kept the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) process on track was referred to as the "Core Group," whose members were the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Australia, Germany, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, and Thailand and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The group operated in a rather fluid, informal manner and attendance at meetings would vary at times. When matters got off track, the Group was called on to put pressure on the parties. The meetings took place in New York, but the members also met regularly in Cambodia with UN Special Representative Yasushi Akashi.

The key to the success of these groups, whether they are specifically linked to the Secretary-General or not, is being able to maintain 1) a unanimity of purpose, 2) impartiality in dealing with the parties, 3) a will to stay with the process, and 4) the capability to deliver incentives, or threats, when the parties need a push. The advantage of the Friends of the Secretary-General is that the Group can benefit from the impartiality of the reputation that the good offices of the Secretary-General maintains and from the coordination and consensus that the Secretary-General and his staff can orchestrate to keep the process on track.

Circumstances Under Which a Group of Friends Is Formed or Not Formed

For a number of reasons, it may not be possible to form a Group of Friends. Certain conditions are needed. First, it is necessary to have credible players: those in the region who do not have a national stake in the outcome that serves one party over the other, and do not have a tainted history in the region that cannot be overcome. It is helpful to have one or two credible players outside the region who have the capacity to apply pressure through power or by offering resources: in El Salvador, for example, U.S. loans for land reform and Spain’s significant contribution to military and police observers. Second, it is important to have countries that have enough political will to take on the issue and stay with it through various crises and that are in consensus with each other and the Secretary-General. Third, there must be a legitimate contact in the country, one that can be dealt with consistently and that has requested outside assistance. In Somalia, there was no one to deal with; in Burundi, the government has told the UN to stay out.

Several circumstances will prevent a Group of Friends from coming together. First, a Group will not form if there are no countries that can trust each other or can reach consensus on a common policy. The Contact Group in Bosnia, for example, included countries that were looking for a particular outcome to the conflict that might favor one side or the other or serve their own interests rather than the interest of peace. Second, a Group will not form if the crisis comes at a time when the key Members are already overloaded or they feel they should not get involved in a hostile situation, i.e., Burundi and Liberia. Third, a Group will not form if there is no one in the country in crisis to deal with and Member States are not prepared to mount the necessary means to deal with the situation by force, without being invited.

It was difficult to rally support in Rwanda to stop the genocide, because countries were hesitant to get involved in the midst of hostilities. The Security Council had been unable to take speedy action. France was the only nation willing to deploy troops to Rwanda during the crisis, and even though the French had a history of interests in the region, there was no one else willing to intervene and no capacity to form a Group. As with France’s involvement in Rwanda and Nigeria’s involvement in Liberia, a country with an interest in the region may be especially willing to intervene. While the country may provide the needed assistance in a crisis, the international community needs to be careful that the interested intervener is not pursuing its own hegemonic goals at the cost of the country in crisis. The trade-offs here are complex. The UN may be willing to take that chance, however, as in Rwanda, in order to avert further human disaster.

If a Group cannot come together to apply common pressure on a specific issue, the Secretary-General will try to keep an informative process going and will try to keep the dialogue alive by continuing to meet with key ambassadors to the UN and by maintaining close contact with UN agencies to encourage preventive action.

A Useful Tool

The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General is emerging as one of the more useful tools available to the Secretary-General. Members of the Group offer him the ability to take action in a way that would otherwise be impossible. The Group can apply pressure on the parties to a conflict, help mediate, and develop common ground among Member States in the United Nations. They can help develop and implement peaceful solutions to conflict and prevent a return to violence by continuing to watch over the peace process. The Group can also maintain pressure on the parties to adhere to the terms of an agreement and mediate future disputes after the UN has withdrawn its operation from the field. The Group of Friends phenomenon seems to be proliferating (six more have been added since 1993); yet some of these Groups may not prove to be as effective as others. Nevertheless, this innovative mechanism seems to hold promise for aiding the UN in preventing a return to violence in areas of crisis.

While the Group of Friends can be, and has been, a very useful tool, it has not always worked, particularly when members are unable to maintain a consensus or separate their own interests from the peace process. The Friends of Tajikistan is a case in point: one of the Friends, Afghanistan, is deeply embroiled in a war of its own. Moreover, the concept has been viewed with skepticism by some Members of the UN. During the period 1993–4, several Members that were serving on the Security Council viewed these groups somewhat negatively, seeing them as highly undemocratic. At that time, the Group of Friends on El Salvador and the one on Haiti were both active. In addition, during that period, Groups of Friends formed on Western Sahara, Georgia, and Guatemala.

Some Members serving on the Security Council at the time felt that the whole Security Council should be involved in the work of the Group of Friends, not just an elite few. These Members were angry that the Groups met privately and refused to inform the other Members of the Security Council what they were doing. Some of the other Security Council Members that were not in the Group of Friends resented the fact that drafts of resolutions were presented to the Council as a finished product. They felt that the role the Groups were playing, in fact, was that of the entire Security Council, which is the institution within the United Nations designated to handle these kinds of issues. They particularly resented that, after the end of the Cold War, just when the Security Council was finally capable of taking action, these other elite groups were usurping that right and marginalizing the work of legally constituted bodies. Their concern rose as the number of the Friends Groups began to grow. These Members requested that the work of the Friends be made more open and available to the entire Security Council. Their requests later led to greater communication between the Groups and the Security Council. Those who were highly critical of the process now feel that the procedure is evolving in a positive direction, i.e., it is becoming more open and democratic.

These UN Members recognize that it is useful to have a clearinghouse for mediation. They also recognize that countries with leverage can play a useful role from time to time doing some heavy arm-twisting when parties to a conflict have become intransigent. But there was a concern that these Groups of Friends were not acting in a manner that was accountable to the Security Council or the General Assembly and were bypassing these institutions. Critics’ characterization of Groups of Friends as elitist will have to be reckoned with by the Secretary-General if the Groups are to function positively within the larger context of the Organization. This can be done through greater communication to the Security Council, the General Assembly, or both. While it is fair to ask Friends groups to be in communication with the Security Council, efforts to curtail the use of Friends under accusations of elitism are counterproductive to the goals of the Organization, namely international peace and security.

CASE STUDIES

The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador

The idea of forming a group of like-minded states supportive of the Secretary-General’s effort was conceived by Alvaro de Soto in December 1989. The purpose was to work out a negotiated political solution to the conflict in El Salvador through the support of governments that were not allied to either party to the conflict and had no stake in its outcome. The term "Group of Friends of the Secretary-General" evolved later. The countries did not begin to operate as a formal group until well into 1991. De Soto and Francesc Vendrell, both in the United Nations Secretariat during the tenure of Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, worked together to develop the idea over the first several months. At this point the UN, though it had been involved in Central America, particularly in Nicaragua, was not yet involved in El Salvador.

In the summer of 1989, the UN had been invited as an observer to meetings between the parties in which the Salvadoran Catholic Church was operating as an intermediary. But by the fall of 1989, talks between the two sides had broken down. In November the rebel forces, the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), had launched the largest attack of their nearly ten-year campaign, taking much of the capital, San Salvador. In reaction, the military attacked and killed several Catholic priests, an event that provoked outrage in the international media and the U.S. Congress – which threatened to withhold support for the government. The church could no longer serve as an intermediary, and the UN was still not invited to take its place.

What followed was a series of contacts by both sides to explore a greater role for the UN. Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani, elected to office in the spring of 1989, contacted the Secretary-General to ask his assistance. At about the same time, the FMLN, through Rubén Zamora, contacted Alvaro de Soto. Because the FMLN leaders were unable to obtain U.S. visas during that era, a secret meeting was arranged in Canada on December 6 between the FMLN and de Soto. The timing was important, because there a December 8 meeting of the Central American Presidents was planned, at which they hoped to have the Presidents announce the new role of the United Nations. The result of contacts with the two sides, which was formalized at the Central American meeting two days later, was that the UN would take up the role as intermediary using the good offices of the Secretary-General to get the talks started.

The Secretary-General and de Soto knew that they would need the leverage that could only be provided by countries willing to take on the issue. They were searching for a way to create a group of countries that would act as a support for the Secretary-General. For the negotiations between the parties to succeed, it was essential that the impartiality of the Secretary-General not be compromised. It was also vital to counterbalance attempts at manipulation of the Secretary-General’s efforts by one or another Member of the Security Council acting as an ally for only one of the parties to the conflict, i.e., the United States’ support for the Salvadoran government. Loss of impartiality would lead to the defection of one or both of the parties from the negotiations.

The Secretary-General believed that what was needed was a group to offset the political weight of the Security Council. At the time, the United States was still an ally of the Salvadoran government and took sides with the government rather than maintaining impartiality. The Security Council might have played too dominant a role in pressuring the Secretary-General to favor the government and risk his impartial status. While U.S. support of the Salvadoran government was essentially bilateral in its relations with El Salvador, U.S. views were well known and compromised the impartiality of the Security Council. The United States apparently complained that some Members of the Secretariat ( de Soto, for one) were pro-FMLN (the rebel faction), and the Secretary-General had to discuss this with the U.S. President. In fact, if the Secretary-General needed protection from pressure, it was more directly from the United States than from the entire Security Council.

At the time, de Soto thought that the Secretary-General might borrow a device that is frequently used in intergovernmental bodies, the notion of "friends of the chairman" or "friends of the president." Frequently, when there is a standoff on an issue and it is clear that a small negotiating forum is needed to achieve results, the chairman might simply gather a group of friends. There is no commitment placed on any participant. However, the chairman will chose the members carefully so that he will have inside the room all those he feels need to be a party to any deal that might be worked out. The chairman retains a certain deniability, to the extent that he can always say that he was just meeting with a "group of friends." There are many occasions where agreements that could not have been achieved in a formally constituted group, or in a large gathering such as the 185 Members of the General Assembly, can emerge from such a format.

On El Salvador, Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar, with his staff, formed a three-level diplomatic strategy, consisting of 1) the parties to the conflict (the government and the FMLN); 2) a group of very interested States (the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba); and 3) countries that were not directly interested but that wanted to support peace in the region and could strengthen the position of the Secretary-General, the Group of Friends. The Nordic countries were also consulted, but they played a less direct role. The original members of the Group of Friends were Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Spain. The first three countries were also the original members of the Contadora group, along with Panama. Because the Secretary-General decided not to include any Central American countries in the Friends group, Panama was excluded. If one Central American nation were included, then it would be hard to exclude others; and the others were too directly involved in the conflict to be impartial. Furthermore, in December 1989, the United States had invaded Panama to remove President Noriega, and the country was still in crisis over that event.

When the Central American Presidents met on December 8, 1989, at the summit in Costa Rica, they requested that the Secretary-General help them obtain the cooperation of countries outside Central America whose assistance in the process was necessary to make it work. Simultaneously, the Secretary-General was requested by the parties to offer his good offices in mediating the conflict.

As stated above, the Group of Friends started with four members: Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Spain. Each had a unique role to play, but all were committed to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict, and all four had openly expressed a commitment to removing the conflict from the entanglements of the East–West rivalry. The United States had seen the rebels as a threat in the spread of Communism and Soviet influence in the Western Hemisphere; in fact, the rebels had been receiving Cuban and Soviet support. But the Friends believed that the conflict grew out of poverty rather than ideological differences and wanted to prevent the war from becoming a large-scale regional war with weapons flowing in from both major superpowers.

The Four Countries

Mexico played a key role, perhaps the largest one of the four. Because of its proximity to the Central American region and because of its economic and cultural links with the countries in the region, Mexico had long between interested in developments in its own neighborhood. Since the beginning of the crisis, starting with Nicaragua and the overthrow of the Samoza family by the Sandinistas, Mexico had formally maintained that this was an internal problem that needed to be solved politically by the people. Mexico was instrumental in initiating the Contadora group, which sought a nonmilitary, peaceful solution to the crises in the region. The Friends group was a logical evolution in the role Mexico was already playing.

In addition, Mexico had a policy of allowing political exiles to reside within its borders, and many of the important FMLN leaders met regularly with Mexican officials well before the Friends group was initiated. Mexican leaders also had strong ties with the Salvadoran government and held the confidence of both parties. Mexico hosted many of the initial dialogues between the parties and covered all the costs for transportation of the rebels and all the hotel, meal, and support staff costs for all the meetings, including security. The final signing of the peace agreement took place in Chapultepec, Mexico, in January 1992, largely as a gesture to Mexico in recognition of its long support for the process.

Venezuela was also a pivotal player. As a member of the Contadora Group, Venezuela had been involved for many years in trying to solve the conflict. The very active personality of Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Péres had a strong effect. Before becoming President of Venezuela in February 1989, Péres had been Vice President of Socialist International, an organization of all Social Democrat parties, not only in Latin America but also in Europe and other regions. The Social Democrats had been very supportive of the peace process in Central America and the cessation of superpower intervention.

A few months before Péres took office, he sent his Deputy Chief of Staff (later to become Chief of Staff), Beatrice Rangel, to consult with some of the heads of state of the Contadora Group and the four additional countries that formed the support group, now called the Group of Eight. The intent was to lay the groundwork for an informal meeting that would take place at the time of the inauguration, when all the heads of state would be present in Caracas. At the inauguration it was agreed that Venezuela should launch a new initiative on Central America.

Péres also met with Felipe González of Spain and Fidel Castro of Cuba, who were both in Caracas for the inauguration. President Péres asked Castro to withdraw his support for the war and allow a peaceful solution to emerge. He informed him that the Latin American Presidents were in agreement that there was a need for disengagement in Central America and that his cooperation was necessary. Castro did not admit that Cuba had been supporting the war, but he appeared to understand two things: 1) the war was never going to be won by the guerrillas, and 2) the Latin American mood was not in favor of continued Cuban support for the guerrillas.

Péres continued to pursue the issue. Immediately after the inauguration, he sent Ms. Rangel to Costa Rica to meet with President Arias. At this meeting, it was agreed that President Arias would send a secret mission to the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, at the town of San Juan, to meet with the representatives of Ortega and discuss the terms of peaceful disengagement in Nicaragua. The document that emerged from the meeting was taken by President Arias to the meeting of the Central American Presidents in El Salvador later that month. That document for the first time called for the Organization of American States (OAS) and the UN to become directly involved in the peace process, beginning with the Nicaraguan elections. The OAS representatives in Washington quickly passed the necessary procedures to involve the organization in the process and adopted the formal request needed to invite the participation of the United Nations. The Venezuelan representative to the UN immediately took the OAS resolution to the appropriate bodies at the UN. President Péres continued to play a very active role throughout the process.

Colombia had also been a member of the Contadora Group and was a logical addition to the Group of Friends because of its proximity to the region and its membership in the OAS. Colombia had an interest in resolving the conflict because of its own internal civil unrest. Representatives of the Colombian government felt that if they could offer support to the peace process in Central America, and specifically in El Salvador, they would have a better chance of gaining support from the international community in finding a peaceful solution to their own problems. Colombia did not, however, play as active a role as the other Friends in pressuring the parties to reach a peaceful agreement.

Spain was also important. In addition to the original Latin American members (Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela), the Secretary-General, in consultation with de Soto and Vendrell of the Secretariat, added Spain to the Group. Spain, as an interested former colonial power with ties in El Salvador, also offered a link to the European Union. In addition, Spain had just undergone a process of democratization and was actively supporting democracy-building in Latin America. Furthermore, Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González was particularly involved in Latin America and was well respected by both sides. He was very active, along with President Péres, in Socialist International and the policy that the organization had promoted on the Central American peace process. He was also known to the rebel leaders because of his leadership role in the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español).

Spain became particularly engaged after November 1989 assassination of the Jesuit priests by government-associated military death squads. As a number of the priests were Spanish citizens, Felipe González had immediately contacted President Cristiani in El Salvador demanding an explanation. This put additional pressure on the military to cooperate in the peace process.

The "Four Plus One"

The United States later joined the Friends in what was called the "four plus one." In the beginning, the United States was still sympathetic to the government of El Salvador and was reluctant to support the UN, which was working with both sides. The U.S. position began to change after the assassinations of the Jesuit priests. When the FMLN rebel faction launched its biggest offensive in November, they proved themselves a force to be reckoned with. The government, and U.S. leaders, were beginning to believe that the rebels could not be defeated by force.

The United States, though not formally a Friend until after the agreements were signed, was actively involved behind the scenes. The change in administrations, as President Bush succeeded President Reagan, made a significant difference. The Bush administration was seen as much more pragmatic and less ideological than that of President Reagan. President Bush was fully briefed on plans for the peace process when he attended the 100th anniversary of democracy in Costa Rica in October 1989. Many of the Latin American Presidents were there, and President Bush gave his support to the peace process. This was in stark contrast to the Reagan policy of clear support for the Contras in Nicaragua and the Salvadoran government in their battle against the leftist guerrillas. President Bush and his staff, including National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, State Department official Bernard Aronson, and UN Ambassador Thomas Pickering, were in constant communication with the Friends and with the UN. Thomas Pickering had been U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador before his appointment to the UN, spoke Spanish, and knew the situation well.

Still, the United States did not formally join the Group until the end of the conflict and the signing of the final peace accords in January 1992. After the signing in January in Chapultepec, Bernard Aronson introduced himself to the negotiating teams from the two sides, but they already knew who he was.

The Group

Each of the countries played an important role both in maintaining the consensus of the group and in providing a unique contribution to the process. Mexico was important because the FMLN leaders had had a kind of asylum there and thus felt they could meet there with relative confidence. Colombia had been faced with inner conflict itself and was concerned about achieving a peaceful solution. Colombia, which was serving on the Security Council at the time, had been instrumental in ensuring that the Secretary-General was given the mandate by the Security Council to use his good offices. Venezuela's President was particularly active. He contacted the guerrilla leaders, summoned them to Caracas, and talked directly to them. He also called the President of El Salvador and talked to him. There were times when Secretary-General was concerned that, by being so active, the Venezuelan President might take over the process. But the Secretary-General and his staff kept in close touch with the President to brief him, consult with him, and prepare talking points for him. Spain was also a key player because of President Felipe González’ influential activism in the region.

Both Mexico and Venezuela maintain that they used no leverage, neither carrots nor sticks, during the negotiating process. Their support was considered unconditional. Both countries had such close ties to El Salvador that they almost seemed to possess an implicit moral authority. For example, as oil-producing countries, Mexico and Venezuela had long-standing agreements with all the Central American and Caribbean countries on the sale of oil. These agreements, called the San José Program, were instituted in the mid-1970s. Under the program, Venezuela would sold oil to El Salvador at current market prices; the Venezuelan , a publicly owned facility, would open a credit account with El Salvador equivalent to 30 percent of its oil bill; and the funds could then be used for development projects. The plan lasts for 14 years, with a seven- year grace period and seven more years to pay it off at very low interest rates. Mexico has a similar plan. But neither country used this program as a negotiating tool during the brokering that they engaged in as Friends, nor at any other time during the peace process.

The Role of the Friends at Each Stage of the Process

1. The Negotiations

Between 1989, when the four countries were first asked to become Friends of the Secretary-General, and January 1992, when the final agreements were signed in Mexico, the Friends were engaged in the process on a near-daily basis. The Friends took on the task of writing draft resolutions for the Security Council and reviewing reports by the Secretary-General on the situation. By that time, Venezuela and Spain were both on the Security Council, which facilitated this arrangement.

In addition to writing draft resolutions, Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Venezuela hosted a number of the negotiating sessions, which often lasted several weeks and continued all day and into the early morning hours. The host country paid for everything, including the hotel bills, meals, staff support, and security. They also arranged and paid for transportation and visas for the guerrillas, who lacked government funds or access to airplanes.

Venezuela and Mexico held official meetings with the two parties and the UN in attendance, as well as secret meetings, for which they covered all expenses. On at least one occasion, President Péres, frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations, sent planes for the parties, brought them to Caracas, and introduced his own plan. It was not accepted, but the gesture seemed to get the process going again. In addition, while Venezuela was brokering the agreements with the government and the rebels, President Péres invited the chief of staff of the military of El Salvador to Caracas for a two-day meeting with the chiefs of staff of the Venezuelan military to discuss how the nation’s armed forces had been transformed into a professional army that supported a democracy.

Later, in 1991, when the negotiations moved primarily to New York, the Friends met with each delegation separately, mainly in the conference room at the Mexican Mission. First, one side came: for example, the government delegation, which usually consisted of President Cristiani’s chief of staff Oscar Santamaría, head of military operations Colonel Mauricio Ernesto Vargas, Minister of the Interior Colonel Juan Martinez Varela, David Escobar Galindo, and Rafael Hernán Contreras. They met with all members of the Group of Friends and discussed their position. They then left. After a short interval, the other delegation arrived: in this case, the representatives of the FMLN, which usually included military commander Shafik Hándal, Salvador Samayoa, Roberto Cañas, Miguel Sáenz, Joaquín Villalobos, and two women, Ana Guadalupe Martínez and María Marta Valladares (also known as Nídia Diaz). The Friends conveyed the positions of each side to the other party and the issues were discussed. The delegation then left to discuss its response; the process continued the next day.

In general, the Friends did not offer solutions but only conveyed the positions of each side. UN officials also attended and held their own meetings with the parties. The U.S. representatives did not join these meetings. However, they were kept informed, and on occasion the Friends met at the U.S. Mission to brief the Americans.

On at least two occasions, however, the Friends did intervene. One intervention took place in September 1991 during a series of meetings in New York. The parties had reached an impasse over how to reform and reconstitute the new police force. This was a critical part of the negotiations, and it was feared that the process was breaking down. The disagreement was over whether to allow any of the previous military police to continue to serve in the new civilian force. If none of them were allowed to remain, it would take perhaps two years before El Salvador would have a new police force to patrol the streets. The Americans also were concerned about how to maintain law and order with no deployable trained or experienced police during the transition period. The Friends proposed that for a two-year transition period, a certain number of the currently serving national police as well as an equivalent number of FMLN ex-combatants could enroll in the new police academy. But the two groups together would not exceed the total number of new police who would make up the student body of the academy. In other words, at least 50 percent of the new civilian police would have to be people who had never served in either the military or the FMLN; after two years, all recruits would have to be new members. Later, during the implementation of the agreement, the figures became 20 percent government, 20 percent FMLN, and 60 percent new recruits. The Friends proposal became a part of the agreement and broke the impasse.

The other intervention by the Friends took place in December 1991, a few days before the end of Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar’s tenure. It appeared that the parties were not going to be able to reach an agreement before Pérez de Cuéllar’s departure. All the Friends felt strongly that to lose this opportunity could spell disaster for the peace process. It would take up to six months to fully brief the new Secretary-General, and there was no guarantee that the parties would have his full attention or that he would demonstrate the same impartiality that had characterized Pérez de Cuéllar’s oversight of the process.

The four ambassadors of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Spain went collectively to meet the Secretary-General and told him of their concern. Usually they did not see him in person, but on this occasion they wanted to impress upon him the urgency of the situation. They thought that at this point he needed to hear directly from them, not just through their intermediary, Alvaro de Soto. They also were worried that too much pressure was being placed on President Cristiani and that he would have trouble bringing the military along with the agreement if he was pushed too far.

President Cristiani had come to New York for the final negotiations but did not personally attend the meetings with his delegation. At this point, the Friends as a group went to visit him at his hotel, where they met with him, his wife, and members of his staff. They listened to his concerns, put forth certain positions, and then left to meet with the FMLN leaders. During the last few days, both delegations stayed on different floors of the UN Secretariat building in New York, with President Cristiani in his own office. The Friends shuttled between floors of the building.

The meetings lasted all night, not ending until 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. The final agreement was signed at 15 minutes past midnight on December 31. Everybody wanted to stop the clock. They decided to agree in principle on a number of issues and work on the details before the formal agreement was to be signed on January 16. They began meeting again on January 3 and 4, and the process continued intensely until the signing in Chapultepec.

2. The Implementation Stage

During the implementation stage, the center of activity moved from New York to El Salvador, and the process now involved the ambassadors to El Salvador from the Friends countries. At this stage the Friends played a lesser role but at times a key one. Their responsibility was now to oversee that the points in the agreement were implemented and within the time frames set up by the Chapultepec agreement. Complaints by the FMLN fell into several categories, including the following: 1) as part of the reform of the police, certain military units had been illegally folded into the new police force; 2) the distribution of land had met with innumerable delays, 3) full compensation for those injured during the war had not been made by either side, and 4) modifications in the judicial system were being delayed. If the FMLN had made the complaint to the Friends meeting at the Mexican Mission in New York, the Mexican ambassador would contact the embassy in El Salvador and ask for verification. If the complaints were substantiated, the ambassador would contact his government. Then the Mexican President or his foreign minister would contact President Cristiani directly and explain the situation. For the most part, this process achieved results, and implementation moved ahead.

The government side had two major complaints during the implementation stage. One concerned the discovery that, contrary to the agreement, the FMLN had been secretly hiding large numbers of weapons. The Friends put pressure on the FMLN to hand over the weapons, and there was some compliance. But the military is still not satisfied that all the weapons were turned over. It was pointed out that after the agreement was signed, FMLN weapons started appearing in Guatemala and other parts of Central America.

The second major complaint by the government focused on the release of the report by the Truth Commission. The agreement at Chapultepec called for the creation of such a commission as an independent investigative body. The Secretary-General proposed names to head the Commission, and then they were approved by the parties. The three Commissioners were all from the Friends countries: Belisario Betancur of Colombia, who served as Chairman, Reinaldo Figueredo Planchart of Venezuela, and Thomas Buergenthal of the United States. The report is very detailed and lists people by name, along with the crimes they committed. Before the report was released, it was learned that it would contain names, many of them military officers and some of them high-ranking government officials. Government officials complained to the Friends, who passed their objections on to the Commission. Respecting the independence of the body, they did not make a recommendation to the Commission. The report was released with the names. Shortly after the report was made available, the Salvadoran national legislature passed a law granting amnesty to everyone listed in the report.

Also during the implementation phase, the Friends countries provided police personnel to train and help the interim police force and provided peacekeeping troops to the UN operation, ONUSAL. Spain contributed significantly to the reorganizing of the entire justice and security system and funded some of the implementation. The United States played perhaps the largest role in providing resources for the implementation and money for the loans needed in the land distribution plan. In addition, a fund was created to support the implementation process. The first contribution to the fund was $100,000 from Venezuela, which was followed by contributions from other Friends and Members of the UN.

3. The Follow-up Stage

As the UN operation was phased out and most of the provisions in the agreement were achieved, the role of the Friends diminished and the Security Council no longer focused on the issue. The matter was passed to the General Assembly, where the Friends group continues to review reports on El Salvador and otherwise monitor the situation.

In interviews, the parties and several of the Friends voiced general agreement that the relationship had been intense and had operated almost daily. One of the Friends described it this way: "Who clinched the deal? The United States. Who supported the deal politically and made it possible to clinch the deal? The Friends. And who created the groundwork to be able to conduct the two-year-long process of negotiations, the patience, the perseverance? De Soto and his team. That is a major truth. Each one played its role."

In summary, the Contadora group had been unable to provide the pressure needed to end the conflict in El Salvador, and their efforts had come to a standstill. The entry of the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General helped to move the process forward and played an ancillary role in eventually finding a manageable solution. The Friends were able to apply leverage when needed, provide a clearinghouse for coordinated mediation, and help the Secretary-General gain the support within the UN needed to pass Security Council resolutions pertinent to maintaining an active role by the UN.

The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Haiti

The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Haiti was founded during the tenure of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. In December 1992 he had named Dante Caputo, former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Argentina (and former President of the UN General Assembly), to be his Special Envoy to Haiti. In January 1993, the Secretary-General of the OAS, which had been addressing the issue since the coup in September 1991, also named Caputo as his Special Envoy. The fact that Caputo was from Argentina gave him a useful link to the Latin Americans in the OAS. Francesc Vendrell, a member of the Secretariat, was appointed by the UN Secretary-General to assist Caputo. Vendrell, who had worked with de Soto on El Salvador and knew from close experience the efforts of the Group of Friends on El Salvador, suggested to Caputo that the same be done for Haiti.

Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali agreed to the idea to form a Group of Friends as suggested by Caputo and Vendrell. He carefully chose the members: Canada, France, the United States, and Venezuela. Canada, the United States, and Venezuela are all members of the OAS, which had been playing a key role in trying to restore democracy to Haiti and was still very involved. Canada also had business interests in Haiti and was very involved in the country. The feeling at this time was that it was important for the United States to be a direct member. With the Group of Friends on El Salvador, the United States had remained on the periphery, particularly in the beginning. However, the United States was much more directly affected by the Haitian refugee problem, and it was felt that the United States should meet in person with the others in the Group and hear their point of view. The United States had ties to the military in Haiti, which could be useful but which also needed to be balanced by those who were sympathetic to the ousted President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. France was chosen because of its long ties with Haiti and the common language.

Venezuela was also an important member of the Group. Venezuela had given asylum to President Aristide when he fled Haiti during the coup. Elsa Bocceciampi, Venezuela’s Ambassador to Haiti, was dynamic and very helpful to Aristide. In addition, Venezuela was a Member of the Security Council at the time and had played an important role in the Group of Friends on El Salvador.

Venezuela was the only member of the Friends of El Salvador, other than the United States (which had joined later), that also was a member of the Friends of the Secretary-General on Haiti. Venezuela has a little-known but historic tie to Haiti. At a time when it was prosperous, Haiti had financed Simon Bolivar’s war of independence for Venezuela from Spain. Also, Venezuela’s ambassador to Haiti had been very involved in the democratic transition in that country and was well connected in the diplomatic community there. When the coup was under way, Ambassador Bocceciampi notified President Péres of Venezuela, who, with his chief of staff, immediately telephoned Bernard Aronson of the United States and the chief of staff for Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney. In Port-au-Prince, the ambassadors of France, Canada, the United States, and Venezuela (countries that eventually constituted the Friends) went to the Haitian military headquarters to try to negotiate the release of President Aristide, who had been captured during the coup. The four ambassadors were able to secure his release and, although he had been badly beaten, managed to get him to the airport. The United States had contacted President Péres and asked if he would send a plane to meet Aristide. When the plane arrived back in Caracas with Aristide on board at about 2:30 a.m., the ambassadors to Venezuela from France and Canada, along with Péres’s chief of staff, were there to greet him. President Péres treated Aristide as a visiting head of state and gave him his official guest house, with a staff, for his stay during the next three months. In summary, from the beginning of the crisis these four countries had demonstrated that they were concerned enough to become directly involved and take action.

Prime Minister Mulroney of Canada became actively engaged in the process immediately and contacted President Mitterrand of France and President Bush to encourage them to take on the role of members of the Group of Friends. President Péres of Venezuela was also heavily involved, and Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Dr. Diego Arria, promptly began to pressure the Security Council to receive President Aristide at a formal meeting in New York. There was resistance on the Security Council by Members who saw this as a domestic issue and did not want the Council to become involved. But Aristide was allowed to give an informal presentation to the Council.

By January 1992, Venezuela was on the Security Council along with Permanent Members France and the United States. Thus, three of the four Friends were now members of the Council. Much as they had on El Salvador, the Friends kept the Security Council advised of the matter and wrote draft resolutions.

When Venezuela left the Security Council and was replaced by Argentina, that country joined the Group of Friends and Venezuela stayed on. Likewise, when Argentina left the Council and was replaced by Chile, Argentina stayed on and Chile joined the Group, which by now had six members. It was important to maintain a Latin American link to the OAS within the Security Council but not to lose the effectiveness of Venezuela, or later Argentina, once they were no longer on the Council. Furthermore, it would have been undiplomatic to exclude them from the Group once they were no members of the Council. The Group worked primarily in New York, but the ambassadors in Haiti also met with the Special Envoy there. Sometimes the meetings took place at the ambassador level, at other times at the staff level. This flexibility of venue and participants adds to the viability of the Friends mechanism. The United States also assigned the State Department’s Coordinator for Haiti, Lawrence Pezzulo, to work closely with Caputo.

A consensus existed among the Group on a policy towards Haiti, namely, the restoration of democracy. The Group was trusted by other UN Members, with some exceptions, to devise a strategy for handling the crisis. They were well informed, following events on a day-to-day basis, and were the most interested in finding a solution. Furthermore, it was important to maintain continuity and have all negotiations on the issue go through one body, in this case the United Nations Group of Friends. It would have been disruptive for several countries to be working separately at the same time, or at cross-purposes, to mediate the crisis. The Group of Friends not only kept the issue alive and on track at the UN but also became the focal point and clearinghouse for all negotiations.

It was important to the Secretary-General and to the process that the Haitian military was not given the opportunity to play one country off against another. The Haitian military, because of its ties to the United States through the Central Intelligence Agency, might have had an opportunity to gain U.S. support and deflect pressure to accept the return of Aristide. Having the United States belong to the Group of Friends and participate in a unified policy to return democracy to Haiti weakened the military’s ability to use its U.S. contacts to control the peace process. In other words, it was very important to maintain a common front within the Group. Caputo kept in constant touch with the members of the Group and they met frequently as a unit. On occasion, if the Secretary-General, or Caputo as his Envoy, wanted something communicated to the parties, this would be done by the Friends, as representatives of the consensus of the international community.

As mentioned, the Group helped to prepare drafts of Security Council resolutions. This input was pivotal, because without the Group’s support it would have been very difficult to implement any decisions made by the Security Council. For example, if sanctions called for by the Council were to be effective, as in Security Council Resolution 841, adopted by the Security Council on June 16, 1993, it was essential that the Group of Friends be on board from the beginning. The Group of Friends helped to sell the idea of sanctions to the Security Council and the other Members. The OAS and Caputo had supported sanctions early on, as a way to pressure the military, but the United States had not initially been in favor. Venezuela and the Caribbean countries helped to push the concept. Once sanctions were approved by the Security Council, it was critical for the Friends to keep the other Members in favor of the concept during the implementation phase. For the most part, consensus was maintained throughout the process. Maintaining that consensus was possible because the Friends tended to want the same thing, a situation that did not exist, for example, among the Contact Group in Bosnia. But it was important for the key players not to lose their focus or shift their support during the process. They also had to play an important leadership role for the other Members within the UN.

Friends of the Guatemalan Peace Process

Although this paper does not go into great detail about the Friends of Guatemala, the Group is important because of its relationship to the Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador. The Group was established in 1994, initially at the request of the President of Guatemala, who had contacted the presidents of Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia asking them to form a Group of Friends of the President of Guatemala (note that his request was not for a Group of "Friends of the UN Secretary-General"). The presidents called their ambassadors to the UN and asked them to go to Guatemala to meet with the president.

Ambassador Arria of Venezuela and Ambassador Manuel Tello of Mexico went to Guatemala, where they met with the ambassadors to Guatemala from Norway and Colombia. In meeting with the president, Ambassador Tello explained that the Group could not be simply "Friends of the President," because they would be seen as taking sides with the government, which would eliminate their effectiveness in dealing with the guerrillas. Ambassador Tello preferred that, to preserve impartiality, they be "Friends of the Secretary-General." A compromise was reached, and they agreed to be called "Friends of the Guatemalan Peace Process."

However, the ambassadors believed that if they were to be effective, they would need to meet immediately with the guerrilla leaders. Because the Guatemalan rebel leaders lived in Mexico, the ambassadors flew directly from Guatemala to Mexico City. Deputy Foreign Minister Rosario Green hosted the meeting between the ambassadors and the rebel leaders. The meeting, which lasted several hours, aimed mainly to convince the rebels that the Friends were impartial and did not represent the interests of the president. In the end, the rebels agreed, and the process began.

The negotiation process continued much as it had on El Salvador, but most of the meetings took place in Mexico, which covered the bulk of the costs. In the case of Guatemala, it was a matter of which issue, among many, should be addressed first: a cease-fire, disarmament, the integration of guerrillas into civil society, land reform, Indian rights, or human rights. Once an agreement was reached about the main issues that had to be included in the peace agreement, it was necessary to decide which should come first.

Like the pattern set by the Salvadoran process, the first agreement to be resolved was on human rights; the next, on indigenous peoples. A practical solution had to be reached to put an end to abuses of human rights. The impunity of the Guatemalan authorities became a critical issue. Once the human rights agreement was resolved and signed, it was a clear indication to the Front (the insurgency group in Guatemala, La Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG). that the negotiations would continue until a final peace agreement could be reached. The Friends maintained the process through the signing of the final agreement in December 1996, and they now function much the way they did on El Salvador for the implementation phase.

The Friends of Rapid Reaction

In various reports, the Secretary-General has asked Member States to explore the possibility of developing a rapid reaction or rapid deployment capability, particularly in the aftermath of the tragedy in Rwanda. The Friends of Rapid Reaction was formed during the period of the General Debate of the General Assembly in the fall of 1995, the 50th anniversary of the UN. The Canadian government, whose General Romeo Dallaire had been the UN force commander in Rwanda during the crisis, had developed a report released in September 1995, "Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability for the United Nations." One result was the formation of a group of like-minded countries that have reached a consensus based on many of the concepts in that report. The cochairs of the Friends of Rapid Reaction are Canada and the Netherlands. The group has an additional 22 members, including all the Nordic countries, some representatives of the G-77 countries, and other supporting Member States.

The Rapid Reaction Group deliberately excludes all five Permanent Members of the Security Council: the cochairs consider it politically advisable for the United States and other Permanent Members not to be seen to dominate the process. Furthermore, because during the 104th Congress the United States was delinquent in paying its assessments, many countries did not want to join a group of which it was a member. There appears to be widespread anger at the United States for withholding its payments, leaving the UN in the worst financial crisis of its 50-year history. The Group has kept in communication with the five Permanent Members, however, mainly through the Military Staff Committee. The Group also consults regularly with the UN Secretariat in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).

The Friends of Rapid Reaction represents an expansion and evolution of the Friends concept. While earlier Friends were centered on a crisis in a country or region, this new Friends group focuses on an operational reform of the United Nations. Its mandate is significantly different and its role is, therefore, changed from the small, tight groups that meet in confidence and carry out sensitive diplomatic negotiations. This group is much larger: 24 members instead of the usual three to six. The purpose is to develop a broad consensus and to build the means to launch the plan.

Currently, the consensus of the group seems fairly broad: 1) the UN should have a rapid reaction capability; 2) the Member States would second officers to establish and maintain an operational-level headquarters in New York, which would be responsible for planning and for advance preparations; 3) when necessary, the UN would be able to assemble from Member States a multifunctional force of up to 5,000 military and civilian personnel and rapidly deploy it under the control of the operational-level headquarters; 4) forces would be provided through the standby arrangements that have already been established with over 50 countries, stating what troops and equipment could be made available to the UN as needed on a case-by-case basis.

Members of the Friends of Rapid Reaction have expressed their enthusiasm for the progress the Group has made. The Group has a good representation of various regions (including Latin America, Africa, and Asia, as well as Europe), which are in agreement with each other. It has also been working with DPKO. The advantage to DPKO is that this operational headquarters could be deployed immediately and intact into the field and would not require DPKO to quickly find military officers to send on mission. DPKO would also not have to give up its own staff to go into the field and could continue its role of arranging the logistics for deployment and liaising with the Secretary-General and the Member States through the UN base in New York. DPKO now has a staff of about 400, only 100 of which are military officers; the rest are support and planning staff. With 16 UN operations now in the field, DPKO cannot afford to lose officers to a sudden crisis situation.

The Rapid Reaction headquarters would have about 200 officers seconded from different countries. These officers would be on loan from their governments for a two-year period, during which they would be under the authority of the UN. The one area in which the governments would retain control would be in reassignment: an officer on loan would be expected to fulfill the role that had been initially agreed upon by the government, but if the officer's duties were changed, the government would retain the right to recall the officer if it did not approve of the reassignment.

There is a great deal of optimism about the implementation of the Rapid Reaction plan. The Friends feel that the headquarters will be operational in about two years. The Member States will cover all the costs, with no costs to the UN. This is an advantage at a time when the UN is under severe budgetary stress.

CONCLUSION

The formation of a Group of Friends of the Secretary-General has become a useful tool when a consensus is needed to move a process forward to resolve a difficult problem. It offers the Secretary-General a mechanism for taking action to resolve an issue through the support and leverage of like-minded Member States, an outcome that would otherwise be difficult. The Group of Friends helps keep the process on track, channels mediation through one consistent source, helps formulate policy, and applies pressure on the parties to a conflict to cooperate in implementing an agreement. The Friends offer the Secretary-General a clearinghouse to coordinate various channels of mediation and a sounding board for ideas to resolve conflicts.

At a time when the Security Council is confronted by numerous global issues, a Group of Friends, along with the Secretary-General, can focus on a specific issue and gather policy-relevant information for the rest of the Members, forming a kind expert committee. One of the advantages of the mechanism is its versatility. Ambassadors anywhere in the world as representatives of the members of a Group of Friends can meet when needed to keep the process going. The personalities of these actors are important. Active leadership can keep the process on track, but a player who tries to take over the action and take initiatives outside the consensus of the Group can undermine efforts to achieve a peaceful solution.

As seen with the Friends of Rapid Reaction, this tool can also be used to support the implementation of a new concept or structural reform and is not limited to dealing with a country or region in crisis. It gives the Members of the UN, whether on the Security Council or not, a greater role in the functions of the Organization. Where there is sufficient will by the Friends, they can stay with an issue and maintain a presence after the United Nations has officially ended its mission. There are times, discussed above, when a group cannot be formed, and there may be times when a group will not be effective.

It is also important to take into account the negative reaction by some Members to the formation of what they may see as elite groups operating outside the legitimate bodies of the Organization without some kind of accountability. Guidance by an impartial Secretary-General is important in preventing self-selected Member States from banding together to promote a solution that serves their interests and ignores the interests of the parties involved. However, this innovative mechanism continues to grow and evolve. Adjustments can be made, as they already have been, to make the Friends more effective and more acceptable to the other Members of the Security Council and the UN as a whole. It would be useful to examine additional cases in greater depth to see when and why this mechanism works or does not work. In the meantime, it has clearly emerged as another useful tool for the Secretary-General as he seeks to resolve conflicts and prevent the parties from returning to violence.