Omar Halim learned human rights, equality early in life

Omar Halim learned human rights, equality early in life

By Listi Operananta

JAKARTA (JP): Omar Halim spent 30 years working for the United
Nations, serving the last seven years as a negotiator for the
body's peacekeeping missions in a number of far-flung countries
including Namibia, Lebanon, Somalia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and
Liberia.

He also served as a UN special envoy to Cameroon and Nigeria.

Upon retirement two years ago, he returned to Indonesia and is
currently a lecturer at the University of Indonesia's school of
social and political sciences, as well as a researcher at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He also has written a number of books on the UN and the its
peacekeeping missions, including a yet to be finished book
entitled Strengthening the United Nations' Dispute and Conflict
Resolution Mechanism.

By any standards, the 60 year old father of two adult
children, is a high achiever. He attributes his motivation to
childhood lessons from his father about respect for other
people's rights and equality, and to a heart-wrenching wartime
memory when he saw a girl weeping beside her mother's dead body.

"I worked for such a long time for the UN because I believed I
could contribute toward developing countries by protecting the
weak and the victimized," he said.

"It's something my father always showed me: each person
counts," he said.

Omar was born in the Central Java town of Purwokerto on Nov.
10, in 1937, but spent the first 16 years of his life in Tegal
before his parents, who owned several home industries in both
cities, moved to Jakarta in 1952.

Business was booming for Omar's father, who also supplied
films to small theaters, and its expansion into new markets
brought Omar and his brothers and sisters to the capital city.

"We were not rich but not poor either -- although I think with
Father's... business we could have lived even more
(comfortably)," he said, adding that it was the way his father
treated his employees that taught him about basic rights and
equality.

Idealistic

Omar said his father employed many workers for his various
businesses. "Every time he wanted to expand a certain business,
he gave a percentage of that business to the workers," he said.

"Father was such an idealistic person that Mother used to joke
that he put his workers first, even before his own family," Omar
said.

Omar vividly remembers an experience that also helped shape
his life.

"It was in late 1940s, maybe when I was around three years
old. Tegal was under aerial attack from bombers and we had to
hide in a bunker when I saw a very young girl, probably the same
age as me, crying in her mother's lap who was sitting there
silently."

"I think I understood then that the mother was already dead.
Over time, I began to think why some people had to experience
something like that while others did not," he said.

Omar continued his studies at the University of Indonesia in
1959, majoring in economics. He said he wanted to become an
economist to help fight poverty in the country.

Upon graduation, he was given a scholarship to further his
knowledge at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, United States.
In the early 1960s, he was granted another scholarship -- this
time for a doctorate at Harvard University. It was during his
study there that he met and later married a fellow student from
Ecuador, who is also an official of a UN body now posted in
Bolivia.

"I studied at one of the most prestigious schools, but still I
had to struggle to make ends meet. I had to work at three jobs on
top of my studies -- starting early in the morning until late in
the evening," he said.

In 1965, Omar was offered a job as an assistant professor at
Emmers College in Connecticut. At that time he had been applying
for a position at the World Bank.

"I had actually been more interested in working with the World
Bank, but they processed my application so slowly and I had to
make a quick decision. So I chose Emmers."

Omar taught for one year. He was 28 when the United Nations
offered him a position as an associate economic affairs officer,
to research economic surveys and policies.

He held the position for three years, from 1967 to 1971. "But
I began to realize that my job, collecting documented economic
data from various countries, did not serve my goals of
contributing support to developing countries or protecting the
weak and victimized," he added.

Merely analyzing data in the bowels of the UN building was
useless, Omar said. "I'd never been to any of the countries whose
economic data I analyzed. I wouldn't know whether the data was
correct or not, or if they were going to be implemented," he
said.

"What I wanted from the beginning was to be involved and solve
problems -- especially ones that had to do with humanitarian
issues. So I asked for a transfer to another department," he
said.

After a series of transfers, Omar was assigned to the UN
Peacekeeping Mission.

"It was an exciting assignment because I was able to work in
the field and physically help those who needed help," he said.

Omar served as deputy director for the UN special
representative's office in Namibia (1989-1990), as a senior
adviser to the peacekeeping force commander in Lebanon (1990-
1992), as chief of staff for the UN special representative's
office in Somalia (1993-1994), and as executive director for the
UN special representative's office in Liberia (1994-1995).

Despite his long journey in the UN's peacekeeping activities,
Omar said he was still amazed at how cruel a human being can be
toward another during conflict and war.

Omar recalled his horror of witnessing how people, in the
regions that he served, could be so cold-hearted as to shoot
people or to place bombs, boobytraps and electric fences to
injure others.

"I just can't believe that those things are made by us, that
they are being used to destroy others for reasons such as land or
border disputes. The victims are always innocent people," he
said.

Although he has spent most of his life abroad, Omar said he
still believes that what he had done in the UN, especially in the
Peacekeeping Mission, had indirectly supported his goal of
contributing to the development of Indonesia.

"Although all of my missions had nothing to do with any
situation in Indonesia, I believe that by supporting other
developing countries, I also supported my own country in
eliminating poverty and social gaps," he said confidently.