The UN's new secretary general: Mission Impossible?
UNITED NATIONS — Describing himself as a “Man on a mission,” a mission which could be called 'Operation Restore Trust', UN Secretary General designate Ban Ki-Moon spoke of restoring the “trust in the organization and trust between member-states and the secretariat.” After taking the oath of office before the 192 member U.N. General Assembly, he quipped to correspondents “I hope this mission is not Mission Impossible.”
Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea is on the verge of assuming the helm of the world organization as its eighth Secretary General with a personal mission as “healing the divide and the distrust” which has plagued many of the members. He added that he would try to heal “gaps of trust between and among member states.”
In his address to the General Assembly Ban told assembled delegations, “By strengthening the three pillars of the United Nations—security, development and human rights—we can build a more peaceful, more prosperous and most just world for succeeding generations. As we pursue our collective endeavor to reach that goal, my first priority will be to restore trust.”
As on many occasions before Ban,(62) a career South Korean diplomat and former Foreign Minister stressed his role to “act as a harmonizer and bridge builder.” Ban assumes the role of Secretary General with a mixed inheritance; the scandal-ridden Kofi Annan era has led to loss of respect for the UN as an institution which in turn has hampered the effectiveness of the UN in many operations. The hugely damaging corruption cases such as the infamous Iraqi Oil for Food scandal, have moreover sapped staff morale and have served to undermine the authority of the institution especially with key donors such as the United States.
In an indirect criticism of Annan’s tenure Ban said “The time has come for a new day in relations between the secretariat and member states.”
Ban outlined key areas for immediate political attention, the crisis in Darfur, the Middle East and Iraq. Speaking of the unstable situation inside Iraq, Ban added, the international community would like to bring Iraq “political and social stability.”
Addressing events in his home country Korea, Ban emphasized it is essential that North Korea re-commit themselves to abandon all nuclear weapons and nuclear research programs and stressed the Six Party multilateral formula both South and North Korean governments and the concerned parties, Japan, People’s China, Russia and the USA remain engaged in solving the dangerous East Asian issue He urged the other participants in the Six-Party talks to provide the necessary economic assistance, security guarantees and prospects for normalizing relations with North Korea.
As Seoul’s influential Korea Herald advised editorially, “For Ban, his nationality will be a bonus as well as a burden. His firsthand experience of the Korean situation puts him at an advantage in finding a resolution to the current crisis. Yet it is inevitable that as a world leader, Ban will have perspectives and obligations that differ from those held by the South Korean government.”
Ban’s easy, if studied, style could belie a seasoned South Korean diplomat who assumes the post of Secretary General on 1 January 2007. Yet Ban Ki-Moon’s rise to prominence in a sense reflects that of his home country, Korea. To imagine that a state who was saved by UN multinational intervention during the Korean war 1950-53, which then rose from the ashes of that conflict into an economic power and vital player in East Asia, and whose government joined the world body only fifteen years ago, would today see a South Korean at the helm of the UN remains extraordinary.
How quickly and how well Ban restores the trust and the working relationship with key members such as the United States, will soon prove if in fact the new Secretary General has assumed Mission Impossible.
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