How UN Chief Antonio Guterres Tests the Limits of Quiet Diplomacy

In 1999, then-Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres called US President Bill Clinton to seek international support amid violence in East Timor, where pro-Indonesian militias were destroying the territory after its independence vote. Guterres warned that Portugal might reconsider its Balkan deployments if the international community failed to intervene, forcing Washington to weigh relations with a NATO ally against using its influence on Indonesia. The next day, the White House said Indonesia “must” allow international assistance. East Timor became independent in 2002, and the crisis offered an early test of the multilateral diplomacy Guterres later brought to his role as UN secretary-general.