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.