The story of Houda and Mowaffak

In November 1977, just as rumors emerged about Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visiting Jerusalem, the Syrian ambassador to the UN in New York, Mowaffak Allaf, urgently cabled Damascus for instructions about the official reaction he should convey.  As luck would have it, he was scheduled to be the first speaker at the General Assembly the following Monday morning.
For two days, there was no response from Damascus, and no declared position from Syrian media. At 10pm on the eve of his intervention, he looked gravely at his wife and said, “Houda, what I do tomorrow might cost me my job. Are you ready to bear the consequences with me?” She asked him what he meant, and he explained, “I can only follow my convictions and my conscience, and I must strongly condemn the Jerusalem visit. Since I still have no response and with only 12 hours left, I must start preparing my speech.” “Do it. I am with you,” she replied.Throughout the night, Allaf wrote and passed his wife one sheet after another, reading and commenting together on the various parts. They did not sleep that night and were wide awake when journalists began calling the next morning, asking what he would be saying later that morning. Houda told them to wait until he spoke, and accompanied her husband to the United Nations to watch him speak, as she did on special occasions. At the UN, they ran into the Egyptian ambassador, a friend, to whom Mowaffak said, “you do understand that I have to criticize Sadat.”His friend answered, “yes, and you do understand that I have no choice but to leave the hall when you do.”
The speech was cabled to the Foreign Ministry in Damascus after the session, and there was still only silence. Finally, at 4 am the next morning, the phone rang, dragging Houda and Mowaffak out of an exhausted sleep: it was the Foreign Minister who jokingly wanted to know why Allaf had not criticized him even more, and who congratulated him on his position.
These were the characteristics that Houda loved about her husband: his principles, his self-reliance and independence, and his nationalism. Never in his life had he joined a political party, nor received help through a connection as he climbed the diplomatic ranks. If he believed in something, he would do it no matter the price, and he was led by passion for his work and for his nation, and his family. The Saudi ambassador to Geneva once joked to Houda, “we are a total of 15 Arab ambassadors in Switzerland, and none of us can control Mowaffak Allaf! How in the world can you do it alone?”

The ambassador’s wife
Houda Wattar was born and raised in Damascus, the daughter of a renowned physician and a culturally and socially active mother. It was right after graduating from Laique, then the finest secular school in town, that some relatives introduced her to Mowaffak, the chargé d’affaires and first secretary of the Syrian embassy in Cyprus. She was only 17 and was excited about living the diplomatic life. “I thought that the life of a diplomat’s wife would be filled with nothing but receptions and parties. Reality was very different!” She recalls feeling unsure about herself and all the new responsibilities that suddenly faced her, especially as she found herself living without family and friends for the first time, and fondly remembers Lydia al-Aris, the wife of the Syrian ambassador who was posted to Cyprus a year after Houda’s marriage, who had a great influence on her, helping her enter the diplomatic circles and learn the rules of protocol.
The first reception Houda ever hosted was on the occasion of the Syrian National Day, a responsibility that fell on her because of the absence of the ambassador’s wife. “I was only 18,” she recalled smiling, “one of the youngest diplomat’s wives there.” She added, “I would get embarrassed with casual talk related to someone’s health. All of a sudden I had to play hostess, engage in conversation, and welcome the country’s VIP society! It’s a good thing I already had learned French in school.”
Houda had no political background but became an avid reader, developing her knowledge and her position as the wife of a polished and seasoned diplomat. As time went by, her husband would increasingly request her views on particular affairs or incidents. Houda also developed a great social life and a rich list of cultural, social and even business events. When she became an ambassador’s wife in Geneva (24 at the time, and the youngest of all ambassadors’ wives), her work continued to increase and her responsibilities became more varied. “Ambassadors represent their governments and political positions, but ambassadors’ wives represent the people, the culture, and the civilization of the country,” she explained. Even with the limited resources of the Syrian embassy, she always strived to host perfect dinner parties with the best possible mixture. “I did not want anyone to say one day that Mowaffak Allaf’s wife neglected her guests,” she said. “I did not want my house and my dining table to be of lower standing than that of the American or French ambassador.”
Peace talks
In 1978, Allaf left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to become deputy director general of the United Nations Office in Geneva. This move had come at the request and insistence of then-Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who admired Allaf’s personality, dedication and self-reliance, and who convinced the Syrian leadership that his move to the UN would be memorable. Indeed, when Allaf was named Director General of the UNO in Vienna, four years later under Secretary General Javier Perez De Cuellar, he also became the first Arab in the history of the UN to receive the level of Under-Secretary-General, the highest grade possible. When Waldheim became president of Austria, he conferred on Allaf the Grand Order of Merit, the highest decoration, recognizing his contributions.
He had been heading the Austro-Arab Chamber of Commerce, which he co-founded after friends from both sides showed eagerness for the idea, when the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and all subsequent events brought him back to the heart of Syrian foreign affairs. At the request of President Hafez al-Assad, Allaf was asked to head the Syrian negotiating team, which would attend the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991, and the subsequent bilateral talks with Israel. This was not a request he felt eager to fulfill. During their initial meeting, President Assad told Allaf how lucky he felt to have him on their team, knowing that he was not happy about this request, and he asked him to consider himself a soldier whose arms were the negotiations. Still, Allaf asked him point-blank, “what is the minimum that Syria will accept?” The president answered, “Every bit of Syrian soil from the Golan.” Allaf said: “Thank you, you have reassured me,” to which the president replied with a smile: “I expected you to ask this, and would have been surprised if you hadn’t.”
The Knight disembarks
Allaf’s beloved Cairo was the place of his first posting as a young diplomat, and it was his last in the Arab League. His sudden death, shortly after turning 69, came as a shock to all those who knew him, and was devastating to his family. As her children were scattered around the world, in Vienna, London and Los Angeles, Houda decided to return to live in Syria, 34 years after she had left it with her groom. Tormented by the loss of her husband and friend with whom she had shared everything, she began writing a book about him but stopped after 200 pages. “I realized that I faced a difficult choice: either give Mowaffak his due and write everything openly, or do him injustice by submitting to the red-lines,” she said. “That is why I retracted.”
Houda recalls his strong and loyal personality, and also his being a loving father and devoted family man, and a “very generous man”– even with the limited salary as a Syrian diplomat. He loved her company and always wanted her by his side, even to go buy a newspaper. He had a passion for philately, and also had a nice voice and would often sing Arabic. The love for music was passed to his children: his son Annas, who studied sound engineering and became a musician after having completed his Bachelor’s in Business Administration; his son Salim who works for the IAEA after studies of Hotel Management and Tourism in Switzerland; and his daughter Rime, a fellow at Chatham House in London, who became a writer and political commentator, inheriting her father’s “hardline” stance on a number of issues relating to Syria and Palestine.
Today, Houda is more involved in charitable societies in Syria, and currently sits on the board of Dar al-Saadeh, the retirement home where the name of Hayat Yafi, her mother, is written on the wall, as one of the founders. Looking back at her life with her husband, she wrapped up saying, “I advise wives not to depend completely on their husbands. I relied on him for 100% of my needs and that devastated me and affected me tremendously after his death.”

The Gentleman Diplomat

Mowafak Allaf was born in Damascus and spent parts of his childhood in Haifa, Palestine, where his father worked as a businessman. The British accused Allaf’s father of supporting the Palestinian resistance, and the police surrounded the family home to search for weapons. It was the young Allaf ’s first exposure to diplomacy when, using the English he had learned at school, he negotiated successfully with the British on his father’s behalf. Allaf then returned to Syria, studied law at Damascus University, and obtained a diploma in international relations in 1949. He joined the Ministry of Economy, becoming commercial attaché first to Cairo, then to Jeddah during the days of President Adib al-Shishakli (1951-1954).
In 1975, President Hafez al-Asad appointed him ambassador to the UN in New York. Allaf remained in that position until 1978 when UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim appointed him under secretary-general of the UN in Geneva, the first Arab to attain such a post. In the late 1980s, Allaf helped establish the Austro-Arab Chamber of Commerce by drafting its bylaws and infrastructure. In February 1987, Allaf was rewarded the Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold in Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria from Austrian President Kurt Waldheim. In 1989, Allaf was elected secretary-general of the Chamber of Commerce, a post he held until his death in 1996.
In 1994, Allaf became head of the Syrian delegation to the Washington peace talks with the Israeli government of Yitzhak Rabin. The Israelis, annoyed by the eloquence of Allaf, a seasoned Syrian diplomat and expert in international law, complained to US President Bill Clinton, ostensibly arguing that Allaf was not politically powerful enough in Syria to make decisions on his own. Two US secretaries of state, James Baker and Warren Christopher, asked President Hafez al-Assad to replace Allaf, but President Assad curtly refused, saying that if need be, he would promote Allaf to deputy foreign minister and private advisor to President Assad himself, thereby giving Allaf the required power.
Allaf served on the diplomatic team until January 1996 when, under President Assad’s insistence that a strong Syrian should be at the Arab League, he became assistant to the secretary-general of the Arab League. Six months after his appointment, however, Mouwafak al-Allaf died suddenly on July 4, 1996.