For years she was often described as the “gentle face” of the peace-building forces of the United Nations — the “boots” — who maintained a presence in places mired in or devastated by civil war and armed conflict, with the civilian population facing the constant threat of death, starvation and a bleak future.
She donned the role of assistant secretary general, the “right hand” of the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, when it came to peace-building endeavours under the auspices of the world body.
Malaysia-born Judy Cheng-Hopkins was appointed in September 2014 by the UN secretary general as a special adviser on the University for Peace (UP). However, it was her earlier five-year stint as assistant secretary general and head of the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) that left a deep imprint on the UN’s peace-keeping operations.
Heaped with all kinds of accolades that keep pouring in for her work — she was conferred the title of a Dato, a sort of a knighthood, in September 2014 from the governor of her home state Penang. Cheng-Hopkins was involved for many years in the UN peace-keeping forces, the “blue helmets”, as they are popularly called because of the blue-coloured helmets worn by UN peacekeepers.
Cheng-Hopkins has been “Malaysia’s most visible face” at the United Nations, as some UN staffers say, in a career spanning 36 years at the world body.
She reached the peak in her career in April 2009, when she was appointed assistant secretary-general and head of the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), which acts as the secretariat of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), the United Nations inter-governmental body that works to keep countries emerging from conflict from sliding back into anarchy and violence.
It was a challenging environment: aside from the perception that peace-building is a “man’s world” — many still are trapped in that anachronistic notion that police and soldiers belong to what they believe is a male domain — she broke some “invisible barriers” resulting from this old-fashioned thinking.
As observers privately told Weekend Review, Cheng-Hopkins broke these outdated notions with a combination of charm, professionalism and firmness that impressed many of her peers. Undeterred by the responsibilities resting on her shoulders, she picked up the gauntlet and became involved in the peace-building process in countries and places that were ravaged by civil wars and other conflicts.
Countries at present on the PBC agenda are Burundi, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and the Central African Republic, each of which has a dedicated “Country-Specific Configuration” of interested countries plus relevant regional and financial institutions and UN representatives. The PBSO also manages the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) to support peace, often funding immediate needs in countries emerging from conflict when sufficient resources are not available elsewhere.
Before joining the PBSO in New York in 2009, Cheng-Hopkins was the UN’s assistant high commissioner for refugees from February 2006 to August 2009; prior to that, she was director of the Asia Bureau and the Balkans at the World Food Programme, and worked at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Africa for 10 years.
In an interview with Weekend Review, in her office at the UN headquarters, the picturesque glass building overlooking the Hudson, Cheng-Hopkins reminisced about her 36-year long career at the world body.
Cheng-Hopkins, who attended St George’s Girls’ School and St Xavier’s Institution in her native Penang and later completed her higher education with a masters in international affairs from Columbia University in New York in 1978, was honoured by her university in 2013 with a global leadership award and called “one of the most distinguished alumni” by the Dean.
Her extent of influence can be gauged from the fact that in 2011 she made it to Forbes’s list of the 10 most powerful women at the UN for her work with the Peacebuilding Commission and managing the $100 million (Dh367 million) annual peacebuilding fund.
Married to Dr Thomas J. Hopkins, the mother of two daughters, says: “I remember I was with the UN Development Programme. I worked in Kenya, Zambia, etc, and even had to deal with liberation movements, though our focus was on development issues. Then I went to the World Food Programme, where we dealt, mainly, with disasters. Before the peacebuilding operations, I was assistant high commissioner for refugees, dealing with issues related to refugees and displaced people. But in all these areas there’s been an element of peacebuilding,” she said.
Peace-building has evolved beyond the notion of merely stopping an armed conflict. “Stopping an armed conflict is not an end in itself. There is almost always the danger of a relapse into the conflict if there is no all-inclusive development work in the conflict area,” she explained, citing South Sudan’s example of a country falling into a relapse. “But as we see countries falling into a relapse, we also seem to be getting better at putting our fingers at the real causes of these conflicts. However, there’s only so much external actors can do,” she says.
Major contributing nations to peace-building, in terms of soldiers and materials, include Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nepal, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Egypt, etc.
Asked about her own country Malaysia’s role in peace-building efforts, Cheng-Hopkins said Malaysia has made an important contribution to the overall peace-building efforts. “Malaysia provides not only boots but also specialised experts on the ground such as engineers, aircraft technicians, etc. And this is appreciated in UN circles,” she says.
She also retraced the evolutionary transformation of the peace-building office created some eight years back, and the other peace-building institutions under the UN auspices.
“In the early part of the last decade, we learnt that countries that had just come out of conflict rarely come out of conflict for good .... Despite peace accords signed, there is need for improving governance, strengthening institutions, providing healthcare and education for the population, etc. Indeed, the old bitterness and resentment between the groups involved in the conflict can easily flare up all over again,” Cheng-Hopkins explains.
“A country having gone — and still going — through a conflict is fragile, and there is need to support it as it passes [through it],” she said.
She proposed bringing together member states that are “stakeholders” in a post-conflict country such as neighbouring nations interested in preventing inflow of refugees and displaced persons into their territory, and avoiding instability in the region. But there are also donors who have invested millions of dollars, and want to see their investments put to good use.
“The point is to bring these governments together to discuss the issues, to support them, to provide funding and to bring in other member states to help,” she said.
The PBC, a “very, very young” institution which deals with “highly complex political situations”, faces huge challenges; however, there have also been instances where the peace-building forces’ presence has been beneficial to a country or region torn apart by conflict. “One indicator of how well the PBC did was, for example, in Burundi where one insurgent group even registered itself as a bona-fide political party. That, for me, was proof of a significant move towards peacebuilding, conveyed through an insurgent group laying down arms and participating in the political process,” she says.
Burundi has, however, had some international trouble related to its constitution and tolerating the opposition, with some young elements of the parties becoming fiercely militant.
Cheng-Hopkins also explained the negotiating strategy in a country caught in civil war. “It is important to listen to and analyse the position of the main party and then formulate a reply suggesting that while we do understand that position, don’t you also want to consider what the other side has to say?”
But she is also realistic enough to acknowledge that nobody can prevent a conflict if the actors involved are bent on it. The PBC, she adds, can mitigate a conflict, as it did in the Central African Republic (CAR), but that in itself is not a guarantee that there would be no relapse. The CAR later got embroiled in a religious conflict. It was, after all, not the first time that religious divisions have been exploited by political leaders.
Does she have a sense of optimism about the future of peace-building? “Yes, I do. The PBF is getting health funding from donors every year. I only hope that this will continue. We also seem to be getting better in exactly pinpointing the causes of conflicts as is happening in the relapse noticed in South Sudan. But that’s the limits of external actors involved in the peace-building process.”
The conversation turned to Malaysia. Would she someday like to permanently return to Malaysia? “Malaysia is never out of my system. I visit Malaysia a couple of times each year. You can take me out of Malaysia but you cannot take Malaysia out of me!” she laughs.
Manik Mehta is a commentator on Asian affairs.
