Kofi Annan exits...

Giz

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Snipped from the BBC:

Mr Annan, who received a standing ovation from 192-member assembly, was praised for his efforts during his 10 years in office.

A resolution hailed "his exceptional contribution to international peace and security, as well as his outstanding efforts to strengthen the United Nations system and promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, in the interest of a better world".

Ms Khalifa also paid tribute to the 68-year-old's achievements.

"Kofi Annan will leave a lasting legacy. He has guided the United Nations into the 21st Century with vision and leadership. As a result, the multilateral system is stronger," she said.


- Sorry Ms Khalifa, what planet were you on for the last 10 years?! I understand that it's customary to view the departing through rose tinted spectacles but surely the hagiography should have some connection to reality: "Kofi Annan will leave a lasting legacy. He has guided the United Nations into the 21st Century with vision and leadership. As a result, the multilateral system is stronger,"
"Stronger", indeed.
 
Giz said:
Snipped from the BBC:

Mr Annan, who received a standing ovation from 192-member assembly, was praised for his efforts during his 10 years in office.

A resolution hailed "his exceptional contribution to international peace and security, as well as his outstanding efforts to strengthen the United Nations system and promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, in the interest of a better world".

Ms Khalifa also paid tribute to the 68-year-old's achievements.

"Kofi Annan will leave a lasting legacy. He has guided the United Nations into the 21st Century with vision and leadership. As a result, the multilateral system is stronger," she said.


- Sorry Ms Khalifa, what planet were you on for the last 10 years?! I understand that it's customary to view the departing through rose tinted spectacles but surely the hagiography should have some connection to reality: "Kofi Annan will leave a lasting legacy. He has guided the United Nations into the 21st Century with vision and leadership. As a result, the multilateral system is stronger,"
"Stronger", indeed.
Click to expand...
August 19, 2003, the day strong UN multilateralism was put to the test. . The original "cut and run" wore a blue hat.

DR
 
Thank god he's gone. The new guy looks more professional. And if there's one country a lot of 3rd world/developing countries could learn from, it's South Korea.
 
From today's Wall Street Journal (requires paid subscription):
...presided over the greatest bribery scheme in history, known as Oil for Food. We learned that Benon Sevan, Mr. Annan's trusted confidant in charge of administering the program, had himself been a beneficiary of Iraqi kickbacks to the tune of $160,000. We learned that Mr. Annan's chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, had ordered potentially incriminating documents to be destroyed. We learned that Mr. Annan and his deputy, Louise Frechette, were both aware of the kickback scheme but failed to report it to the Security Council, as their fiduciary duties required. However, we haven't yet learned whether the senior Annan illegally helped his son Kojo obtain a discounted Mercedes, an issue on which the Secretary General has stonewalled reporters.

Earlier this year, Mr. Annan was also forced to place eight senior U.N. procurement officials on leave pending investigations on bribery and other charges. Vladimir Kuznetsov, the head of the U.N. budget-oversight committee, was indicted this year on money-laundering charges. Alexander Yakovlev, another procurement official, pled guilty to skimming nearly $1 million off U.N. contracts...

Mr. Annan came to office after a stint as head of U.N. peacekeeping operations. The period corresponded with the massacre in Srebenica of 7,000 Bosnians and the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda, both of which were facilitated by the nonfeasance of peacekeepers on the ground. It was later revealed that Mr. Annan's office explicitly forbade peacekeepers from raiding Hutu arms caches in Rwanda just four months before the genocide.
The world's worst man-made humanitarian catastrophes have since taken place in Zimbabwe, North Korea, Congo and Darfur. Mr. Annan has been mostly silent about the first two, perhaps on the time-honored U.N. principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states other than the U.S. In the Congo, U.N. peacekeepers haven't stopped the bloodshed, but they have made themselves notorious as sexual predators.

By contrast, Mr. Annan has been voluble on Darfur: In his speech at the Truman Library, he argued that the lesson of Darfur is that "high sounding doctrines like the 'responsibility to protect' will remain pure rhetoric unless and until those with the power to intervene effectively -- by exerting political, economic, or, in the last resort, military muscle -- are prepared to take the lead." Nice words.

However, it is amazing that Mr. Annan should utter them, given his own role in obstructing "those with the power to intervene effectively" -- namely the U.S. -- in other situations. Mr. Annan's first great solo diplomatic venture came in early 1998, when he ran interference for Saddam Hussein to forestall military strikes by the Clinton Administration. Saddam, he said at the time, was a man with whom he could "do business."

...But the larger problem of Mr. Annan's approach is that, by insisting that only through the U.N. could the world act to protect vulnerable populations, he has made vulnerable people hostage to predatory regimes with seats at the U.N. and made it all the more difficult for the world to act. Compare the fate of the Kosovars -- rescued from the Serbs by U.S. military action undertaken without U.N. consent -- with that of the Darfuris, who are still at the mercy of militias supported by the Sudanese government in Khartoum, which has effectively blocked serious international intervention.

Likewise, Mr. Annan's only serious post-Oil for Food reform was in replacing a human-rights machinery that has consistently avoided condemning the world's worst human-rights abusers. Mr. Annan asked for, and got, a new Human Rights Council to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission. Six months into its existence, the new council has succeeded in faulting only one nation: Israel.
Click to expand...
In light of the Oil for Food scandal, his claim that he "could do business" with Saddam Hussein takes on a whole new meaning.

Anyone who thinks Annan did a good job at the UN should imagine how they would react if the first two paragraphs above were modifed slightly:

...presided over the greatest bribery scheme in U.S. history. We learned that Benon Sevan, Mr. Bush's trusted confidant in charge of administering the program, had himself been a beneficiary of Iraqi kickbacks to the tune of $160,000. We learned that Mr. Bush's chief of staff, Karl Rove, had ordered potentially incriminating documents to be destroyed. We learned that Mr. Bush and his vice-president, Dick Cheney, were both aware of the kickback scheme but failed to report it to the Justice Department, as their fiduciary duties required. However, we haven't yet learned whether the Mr. Bush illegally helped his daughter Jenna obtain a discounted Mercedes, an issue on which the president has stonewalled reporters.

Earlier this year, Mr. Bush was also forced to place eight senior General Services Administration procurement officials on leave pending investigations on bribery and other charges. Judd Gregg, chairman of the Senate Budget committee, was indicted this year on money-laundering charges. Alexander Yakovlev, another GSA procurement official, pled guilty to skimming nearly $1 million off federal contracts...
 
Sorry to see the guy go. A good administrator of the UN albeit perhaps not a great one.

I sometimes wish for a kick-ass, no-nonsense head of the UN. Unfortunately, given the mandate/structure of the UN, I don't think such a thing is possible.

I'm not sure whether that is a good or a bad thing.
 
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