She was born on Tuesday the 13th. Away from the curse, that seems to have made her bulletproof. When he took over Virginia Gamba the position of director of disarmament at the United Nations, she innocently promised her mother that she would not go to countries at war. He lied. He was in many and saw rockets and missiles fly and fall. Not only that, he negotiated with senior leaders of various ethnic groups, investigated those responsible for the chemical attack in Syria, reached agreements to stop using and abusing children with armed groups in conflict with each other, got leaders of African paramilitary groups who for years had refused to enter into negotiations with the UN and who minutes later would be declared “war criminals” by international sanction.
Long before, she was the only English defense expert in Argentina and the Malvinas War caught her right on this land. When the door opened to the elections, the Armed Forces called her to train the new soldiers in Strategy, she also did so later with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the request of the already elected Raúl Alfonsín.
In the midst of his journey, he learned to recognize weapons, deactivate them, load them and shoot. To avoid minefields and put out fires. To jump from one car to another and hide in public places. They kidnapped her in lieu (in the middle of a training session), they hooded her and tied her up, and she ended up negotiating with the captor with a four-movie voucher that she describes well in her latest book. “On the tightrope” (Edhasa). At first, she had been a bilingual secretary in a multinational company. Furthermore, she grew up spread between the Buenos Aires town of San Martín (where she was born), Bolivia, Peru, England and several African countries.
He lived many lives in one. And now she is very confident that she will be the next secretary general of the UN. “I didn’t live, I survived many lives,” she laughs and defines herself as a realistic person. Despite having come into contact with human misery and poorly exercised power, in his book he encourages: “It is a true privilege to be alive. Courage! There is so much to explore, so much to find and so much to live. That is why put on the captain’s hat of your destinations and dare to navigate this new sea of this new world.”
News: Why is it defined as “realistic”?
Virginia Gamba: I think the best realism is positive. I’m a big believer in preparation, but I’ve learned that you don’t control where destiny or events take you. Since I was a child I have thought that one does not choose to be born. When you are born, you are invariably on a highway that leads to your own death. But if you learn that being here is giving you a great opportunity, it’s like traveling. You cannot choose the obstacles that will come your way, but you can choose to understand them almost as a competition, a challenge, a mystery. An obstacle on the road gives me adrenaline to look for a solution. So I have fun even if it’s a bit tragic. I enjoy finding solutions.
News: Did you have to learn that or is it something that came with you?
Prawn: I learned it the hard way. There comes a time when you can no longer be a spectator, you have to act; not react but act. I have seen horrible things, man’s ability to be cruel to man has no limits. And I made the decision to have faith in human beings and to never lose faith in God. Unlike hope, which is thinking that something is going to change, having faith does not involve any type of conditioning, it involves risk and pain. I am not so stupid as to blindly believe in human goodness, but I always do a cost-benefit analysis. I have an infinite capacity to destroy people, I know it, and I made the decision to never make a strategy against a human being, because it is morally indefensible. It scares me very much because we have so many monsters in the history of humanity. And those monsters were brilliant people who made the decision to use their abilities to advance their own interests, no matter by stepping on who.
News: Are you very afraid, being a brilliant person, of turning into a monster or do you say this because of others?
Prawn: I’m afraid of my own power. I made a decision at a very young age: I was not going to use my abilities for my own benefit if it meant harming others. Where my influence ends is where the influence of third parties begins. And since my capacity for influence is infinite, it is unfair and an abuse of power to put that in front of the people around me.
News: She is nominated as Secretary General of the UN, a position and an enormous responsibility. What internal tension did the decision generate in you?
Prawn: It was a very important internal confrontation. My wish is that they leave me alone, I am tired of adventure. My desire is to do what I always wanted to do: have a house, a family, enough food and, if possible, study archeology, which is what I like, write mystery novels. But there is the obligation, because with every ability comes great responsibility. Since September 2024, I would tell you, with all the situations of violence and global conflict that were emerging, I was within the organization as undersecretary general. He tried in every way to provide solutions and saw the possibilities of solving issues very quickly, but he was one voice among many. It is a time when the United Nations is destroyed, it has a very bad reputation, there is no belief in its capacity or its role and, on top of that, it is bankrupt. It is the worst of the formulas. If there’s any person on the planet who can handle that kind of weight, it’s me. Because it is not a reward to be general secretary today, perhaps it was ten years ago, but today it is not a reward but a heavy burden. And I am a workhorse, I am confident that I am resilient. So I realized that I couldn’t take my head off the topic: I am suitable, I have the necessary expertise, the experience, the academic base, the humanity. I have traveled and lived on so many continents that I understand people and their needs. I know the United Nations, its problems, the policies within the Security Council, the schizophrenia of the big countries, and they know me. So I have a moral obligation to show up. I am very good at bringing commitments.
News: What about the current leaders? Are you scared of Trump?
Prawn: I was lucky to meet statesmen, I can tell you that there are no statesmen alive today. The statesman is the person who works for the common good of his people and humanity.
News: Let us remember that he worked alongside Nelson Mandela, for example.
Prawn: And I learned a lot from him, I think he was the last statesman we had. He gave me many life lessons. Almost all people who rise above their own smallness and have political power use it to fortify and help humanity become stronger in the future. Today there are no statesmen, but what does that matter? You asked me if he (Trump) scares me, no, he doesn’t because anyone who tells you “I have political power,” you tell them: “If he is in power it is because he came through a vote or with weapons and he is occupying that space, but does he have authority?” A statesman has authority even if he is not president. I am not afraid of the positions of president. I have had to do with so many in my life, and some who were very powerful, like Gorbachev, I met them all.
News: Did you see any common patterns in the great powers?
Prawn: In general, I can confirm that power corrupts. People get used to having it and then, when the relationship changes or they leave their role, they have nothing to hold on to, they walk around like headless chickens. You become blind. I prefer to make decisions wide awake and not asleep, I was always Virginia Gamba. In every office I occupied, I grabbed my staff and told them: “You have only one mission: don’t let me make a mistake. If you hear that I’m thinking about doing something that you think I’m not doing, tell me.”
News: How do you see Argentina?
Prawn: For me, as for the rest of the world, it is a great mystery, because we are still alive and have survived anything for many years. I do not see any change in the Argentine people, which is my great consolation. I know that Argentina will survive anything and I know that the Argentine is resilient, I have admiration. For me, Argentina is the best refuge in a world in chaos, no matter who governs. Because? Because it is Argentina.
News: Are you worried about Javier Milei’s leadership?
Prawn: I do not see that the president of Argentina is different from global trends in all regions of the world, he is a local manifestation of a global trend. We are at that stage where international standards no longer represent today’s reality, because it is a different context. So all the political and morality rules that were generated at the end of World War II do not reflect reality. That gives an excuse to many governments and political leaders to go around saying: “I am going to make my own reality.”
News: In the middle is artificial intelligence.
Prawn: That really scares me. Because I have seen the abuse on social networks, the damage done to children and adolescents with cell phones and how it leads to violence. Now imagine that if you add artificial intelligence to this, you lose completely. It scares me a lot because there are vulnerable people: children, millions of stateless people, people with disabilities. Is that the defense of a minority? No, let’s understand, the total is all of us, everyone has to contribute to the civilization that is coming, which has to evolve for the better.
