FAREWELL TO THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY GENERAL, AMBASSADOR LUIGI EINAUDI,
AT THE SPECIAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STAFF ASSOCIATION HELD ON JULY 7, 2005 

La PRESIDENTA: Hemos convocado a esta asamblea para expresar nuestros agradecimientos al Embajador Einaudi, despedirlo y desearle muchos éxitos, mucho descanso y que nos tenga siempre presentes, que venga por aquí a visitarnos.  

Muchos de ustedes tal vez no conocen mucho de la trayectoria del Embajador o no saben mucho detalle.  Entonces, el Comité de Personal decidió pedir a una persona que tiene mucho tiempo en la OEA y, además, últimamente ha trabajado con el Embajador muy de cerca, que nos diga unas palabras sobre el Embajador Einaudi.  Linda, por favor.

La señora LINDA POOLE:  Can you hear me?  Oops!!  I think you can hear me.  [Risas.]  One of the worst things about me is I need the mike very close to my mouth or you’ll never hear the projection of my voice. 

I’m going to be very brief.  I know Ambassador Einaudi will appreciate it and Clarita, when she called me asked me to do this, didn’t give me a lot of time to prepare either, which is good, because I’m just going to go, as they say, straight to the grano.  

Ambassador Einaudi is many things.  He is a man of the Americas.  He’s an americanista, he’s a man for all seasons, he’s a man of many facets.  However, yesterday when Sandra, his Chief of Staff, and I were talking about how do you sum up somebody, the word that came to mind about Ambassador Einaudi is that he is a believer.  He believes in the Organization; he believes in the capacity of the region to continue to progress; he believes in people and in their capacity to stand up and be counted for in any process underway, and you will have seen it.  If you have known Ambassador Einaudi in any of his incarnations, you will have seen that one of the things that he does is bring people together, and he brings people together so that there is a synthesis so that people can go forward, and that merging and going forward is part of that belief system which has guided his life and his service. 

If there’s another word that characterizes Ambassador Einaudi, it’s vocación de servicio.  It’s innate; this is not something that has been acquired.  For the staff of this organization, his presence in very, very difficult times for us and for this institution has been crucial. 

I think many of you will recall how we felt one month after a new Secretary General had assumed office and then was gone.  The first thing Ambassador Einaudi did when he took up the challenge of his interinato was to go to the staff and he spoke to the staff, and he talked about the challenge, and he also talked within this phrase that was really subyacente, although never really explained out loud:  “¡La OEA vive!  ¡Carajo!”  [Risas.]  Nobody can knock you down unless you let them. 

So what did he do?  He picked up the pieces and said, “We’re going forward,” and he did it in a way in which he spoke not only for this institution, but for the motor of the institution, which is the staff of this institution.  He stood up and said, “No, the staff is not overpaid; no, the staff should not finance the budget of this organization; yes, the dreaded words ‘quota increase’ should be placed before the political bodies,” which he also did––something that has shined in its absence for many years in the General Secretariat. 

And he did other things.  He put out an executive order reorganizing in a way so as to avoid a reduction in force, something that most secretaries general would have not done, because it would be easier to reorganize and get rid of a bunch of people because, after all, they’re just a bunch of people.  But that’s not what he was about.  He put in force something that is going to grow, but he did it in a way in which the staff were not the ones who were paying the price for a lack of decisions on the part of our member states.   

He put in place the whistleblower policy as an executive order.  If you haven’t seen it, you should see it, because when we came across a very unfortunate happenstance that happened before his time but that was discovered during his time in terms of internal management, a lot of people thought that certain people would, you know, probably be scapegoats and that would be it.  No.  One of the things he did was say, “Hey, you see something wrong, say so, and you will be protected.” 

He stood for the elimination of harassment in this institution, and he has stood for many, many standards and principles that sometimes we thought had been forgotten, and for his capacity to articulate that and continue to do so, in the face of countries who sometimes say, “I don’t think I want to hear that message; please give me a different message,” he continued with that message, and he did it in a way that was nonconfrontational and that has actually managed to bring a number of countries to the understanding that yes, it’s time to look at something other than living within the same budget and being asked to do more and more with less and less until one day they’re going to ask us to do it all with nothing.  And he stopped that process and said, “Think about it.” 

I think there is another aspect to Ambassador Einaudi, and with this I’m going to stop.  He’s a bit like quicksilver.  I don’t know if you know quicksilver, mercury, which is this silver liquid that just when you think you might have it totally captured and you know what it’s about, it’ll slip through your fingers and it’ll come out somewhere else––that’s also Ambassador Einaudi.  He never gets blocked into something; he finds ways through.  That’s another quality that we have to celebrate in these very, very difficult times for us. 

I think it’s fitting that for the first time, if you read the resolution that the General Assembly adopted for Ambassador Einaudi in tribute to his service, you’ll see that they broke the mould.  It wasn’t your standard, run-of-the-mill resolution.  It was one that truly attempted to capture those qualities that Ambassador Einaudi has brought to his service, to this institution, to our colleagues, to our countries, and to our peoples.  To be able to work with somebody who encarna estas características has been for many of us who have worked with him both a pride and pleasure. 

So I thank again the Staff Committee for allowing me to say these few words of presentation to Ambassador Einaudi and without saying anything more, I just want to say, on behalf of all of us, that we truly wish him well and we know that he’s not going to go away.  He’ll be with us in another fashion, another incarnación.  He cannot help it; that’s what he is:  a man who believes and a man who serves those beliefs.  [Aplausos.] 

La PRESIDENTA:  Thank you so much, Linda. 

Now, I would like to say the Staff Committee had announced the Terry Woods Award, thinking that we were going to have the pins’ ceremony on April 14.  We went ahead with the concurso and selection. The ceremony didn’t happen, yet, but I’m very pleased to say that Ambassador Einaudi is the winner of one of the two awards.  [Aplausos.] 

The staff members’ presentation of Ambassador Einaudi reads:   

Dr. Einaudi has demonstrated courage, intelligence, and a humane and appreciative approach to the staff in dealing with the difficult circumstances surrounding the resignation of former Secretary General Rodríguez and the in some instances undignified start of the restructuring of the Organization.  He correctly honored the established practice of salary parity with the United Nations and has been imaginative in seeking ways to mitigate the hardships accompanying renewal of the Organization, avoiding across-the-board staff cuts that might have impaired the work of the General Secretariat. 

Ambassador Einaudi, this is a way for us to say thank you very much.  [Aplausos.]

Would you like to read it? 

El SECRETARIO GENERAL ADJUNTO: Well, what this actually says is:   

The 2004-2005 Terry Woods Memorial Award of the OAS Staff Association is awarded to Ambassador Luigi R. Einaudi––correctly spelled, thank you all [risas.]––for his courage, intelligence, and his humane and appreciative approach to staff members, as well as his decision to honor parity with United Nations salaries. 

I like this very much because, among other things, it shows that you haven’t forgotten your origins and that you are, after all, a staff association at war with management. [Risas.]   

Would you allow me to say two words? 

La PRESIDENTA:  Of course! 

El SECRETARIO GENERAL ADJUNTO:  The first thing I want to say is that Linda Poole has worked in my office, where we have a reputation of editing each other as we speak, and I would not edit the words she said just now.  I am very proud of them, I am very pleased by them, and I think she only missed one thing, which to my mind was the most important thing about working with you all. She got it right: I do believe in what we do and I do believe in you.  It’s actually one of the reasons why, from the beginning, I sought to work with the Staff Association, which I think the Staff Association at first didn’t quite believe.  They were wondering what arrière pensée, what secret agenda might be hidden there.  In fact, what I was trying to do was both reassure and build.  Unfortunately, I leave before we are finished the building, and before you have finished, and that’s the way the world works. 

The word that Linda left out is a very simple word which I used when I spoke to you and others: “fairness.”  I believe very much in the dignity of the individual and in the capacity of the individual to respond to challenge and to opportunity, and I believe that it is the job of good leadership to create that kind of environment.  As I said, we have not finished, and I think it is also true that I have not succeeded.  I have succeeded at some levels, and I am very grateful for the manifestation of acceptance and support that you are giving me.  There are other levels, including the unfortunate incident to which Linda referred, that we have not yet been able to settle and where some of the actions that have taken place under my watch have not been marked fully by fairness.  The way in which human relations, time and events work does not always allow for one to achieve what one wants and hopes for, so there are going to be missteps and failures. 

I think we did do one fundamental thing.  We did lay the foundation for the member states to begin to reassess the support they give the Organization.  I am very afraid that unless we find ways to continue, and I am thinking about that and I haven’t reached any conclusions yet, this opportunity could still escape us, and if it does, it really will be too bad, because I think the opportunity does exist.   

I was very impressed that among the member states, I think we have the opportunity of a revolution from below. During the Gaviria secretary generalship, the discussion of quota increases was not always balanced: I can remember one occasion when there was a lunch to which the six major contributors (ambassadors) were invited, and the Chairman of the Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs (CAAP) was left out, because, after all, his   country was a small contributor.  So when I speak about revolution from below now under way, I think that there is a consensus among many of the smaller countries that the time has come to move forward on the quotas and the OAS budget, and I think that we will hear more on this subject from the current Chairman of the Permanent Council.  

And to support the revolution from below among the member states, we need a revolution from below led by you, the staff.  I’m not sure what form it will take or should take, and I think that’s a tremendous responsibility for Clara and members of the Staff Committee and all members of the Association.  It is very important to work with the new team.  One of the great strengths of the new Secretary General is that he is a thoroughly experienced and skilled political being and that he understands that there are times when, even if the member states don’t want to hear certain things, he will have to respond and take the lead. 

So I am convinced that it is important for you to act with the same devotion, pride, belief that we have shared and try to support and make sure that in your work and in your contact with the member states, you make clear that this is not just a chance.  The fact that we have put together the plans for a special session of the General Assembly is not something that is to be lost.  We need to try to go the extra mile to make sure that these points are made.  Let me quickly make a couple of relevant points. 

I found myself speaking to a recently appointed U.S. Ambassador, who has not yet taken up her post in South America, and I told her that it was very nice that she called on me, but she should be calling on the Secretary General since she has time before she goes to post, and that she should keep in mind that one of the great utilities of the OAS is that it is invisible.  Why is it invisible?  It’s because we are of the Americas and not of any one country, because the teams and the people we send out are responsive because they symbolize a higher collective ideal and interest and not the interest of any one particular country.  In a world that is becoming fragmented and controversial and where it is bad to be visible, in a funny way that makes the OAS the kind of institution that one desperately needs, that will support the common good. So in some ways, what appear to be our weaknesses––the fact that we don’t appear in the newspapers all the time, that all too often people forget us––are actually a strength. 

Now it is not a strength that an enormous number of you do not have career protection.  It is not a strength that we continually are forced to offer jobs to people on short-term contracts, without either the competition or security.  Linda, you are right, I believe that people have talent, people are good when motivated and when put in a situation that rewards them.  So we will still get good people, but we don’t get their best work because they can’t do their best work under conditions of insecurity. 

And one of the things that needs to be made clear to all concerned is that if the OAS does so well that the United Nations is forced to raid our mission in Haiti to get our best political officers, because, yes, we do have parity at a certain level, but the Organization cannot put people in the field and pay them the way the UN does with all of the extras.  So this parity is not even really real.  It’s partially fictional, and you cannot let yourselves be clubbed with that when in fact you need that and more.   

And I guess that’s all I have to say.  I hope you will collectively and individually respond to this challenge that you’re living and which I have tried to articulate and which, yes, I will continue to try to support, one way or another (though I am not promising how) and I’ll say to you the same thing I say to everyone else:  “Ask me in October.”  I’m now thinking that that really should be November.  [Risas.]  

[Aplausos.] 

La PRESIDENTA: Gracias, Embajador.  Sabe, entonces, que cuenta con todo nuestro agradecimiento y, además, lo vamos a extrañar mucho.   

Antes de terminar, el Comité quiere también agradecer a una persona que ha sido muy importante en las relaciones nuestras con el Secretario General Interino, Ms. Sandra Honoré.  

[Aplausos.] 

[La Presidenta hace entrega de un arreglo floral a la señora Sandra Honoré.]  

Se levanta la sesión.  Los invitamos a un café.