Ban Ki-moon (born
June 13 1944) At Harvard, he studied under
Joseph Nye who remarked that Ban had "a rare combination of analytic clarity, humility and perseverance." Ban himself isn't a member of any church or religious group. His mother is reportedly
Buddhist. The Korean press corps calls him "the slippery eel" for his ability to dodge questions.
Ban's work ethic is well-documented. His schedule is reportedly broken into five-minute blocks; Ban claims to sleep for only five hours a night and never to have been late for work. During the nearly three years he was foreign minister for South Korea the only vacation he took was for his daughter's wedding. A major aim of Ban's campaign for UN Secretary-General and a focus of his early days in office was allaying concerns that he was too dull for the job. After
Park Chung Hee's 1979 assassination, Ban assumed the post of Director of the United Nations Division.
In 1980 Ban became director of the United Nation's International Organizations and Treaties Bureau, headquartered in
Seoul. In 2003, the new Korean President
Roh Moo-hyun selected Ban as one of his foreign policy advisors. Ban became actively involved in issues relating to inter-Korean relationships. In September 2005, as
Foreign Minister, he played a leading role in the diplomatic efforts to adopt the Joint Statement on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue at the Fourth Round of the
Six-Party Talks held in
Beijing.
As foreign minister, Ban oversaw the trade and aid policies of South Korea. This work put Ban in the position of signing trade deals and delivering foreign assistance to diplomats who would later be influential in his candidacy for Secretary-General. For example, Ban became the first senior South Korean minister to travel to the
Congo, a Security Council member, since its independence in 1960.
Awards
Ban has been awarded the Order of Service Merit by the Government of the
Republic of Korea on three occasions: in 1975, 1986 and 2006. For his accomplishments as an envoy, he received the Grand Decoration of Honour from the
Republic of Austria in 2001. He has received awards from many of the countries with which he's worked diplomatically: the government of
Brazil bestowed the Grand Cross of Rio Branco upon him, the government of
Peru awarded him Gran Cruz del Sol Sun, and the
Korea Society in
New York City honored him with the
James A. Van Fleet Award for his contributions to friendship between the United States and the Republic of Korea.
Campaign for Secretary-General
In February 2006, Ban declared his candidacy to replace
Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General at the end of 2006, becoming the first South Korean to run for the office. Though Ban was the first to announce a candidacy, he wasn't originally considered a serious contender.
Over the next eight months, Ban made ministerial visits to each of the 15 countries with a seat on the Security Council.
September 14,
September 28, and
October 2.
In the period of those polls, Ban made major speeches to the
Asia Society and the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York. To be confirmed, Ban needed not only to win the support of the diplomatic community, but be able to avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members of the council:
People's Republic of China,
France,
Russia, the
United Kingdom, and the
United States. Ban was popular in Washington for having pushed to send South Korean troops to Iraq. But Ban also opposed several U.S. positions: he expressed his support for the
International Criminal Court and favored an entirely non-confrontational approach to dealing with North Korea. Ban has repeatedly acknowledged his limitations at French, but assured French diplomats that he was devoted to continuing his study. At a press conference on
January 11,
2007, Ban remarked, “my French perhaps could be improved, and I'm continuing to work. I've taken French lessons over the last few months. I think that, even if my French isn't perfect, I'll continue to study it.”
As the Secretary-General election drew closer there was rising criticism of the South Korean campaign on Ban's behalf. Specifically, his alleged practice of systematically visiting all member states of the Security Council in his role as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to secure votes in his support by signing trade deals with European countries and pledging
foreign aid to
developing countries were the focus of many news articles. According to the
Washington Post, "rivals have privately grumbled that Republic of Korea, which has the world's 11th-largest economy, has wielded its economic might to generate support for his candidacy". Ban reportedly has said that these insinuations are "groundless". In an interview on
17 September,
2006 he stated: "As front-runner, I know that I can become a target of this very scrutinizing process," and "I am a man of integrity."
In the final informal poll on
October 2, Ban received fourteen favorable votes and one abstention ("no opinion") from the fifteen members of the Security Council (the polls were secret, and it's unknown which country abstained). More importantly, Ban was the only one to escape a veto; each of the other candidates received at least one "no" vote from among the five permanent members. After the vote,
Shashi Tharoor, who finished second, withdrew his candidacy and
China's Permanent Representative to the UN told reporters that "it is quite clear from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly."
On
October 9, the Security Council formally chose Ban as its nominee. In the public vote, he was supported by all 15 members of the council. On
October 13, the 192-member
General Assembly acclaimed Ban as Secretary-General. Ban's statements contradicted long-standing United Nations opposition to the death penalty as a human rights concern. He quickly clarified his stand in the case of
Barzan al-Tikriti and
Awad al-Bandar, two top officials who were convicted of the deaths of 148 Shia Muslims in the Iraqi village of
Dujail in the
1980s. In a statement through his spokesperson on
6 January, he “strongly urged the Government of Iraq to grant a stay of execution to those whose death sentences may be carried out in the near future.”
Cabinet
In early January, Ban appointed the key members of his cabinet. As his
Deputy Secretary-General he selected
Tanzanian foreign minister and professor
Asha-Rose Migiro, a move that pleased African diplomats who had concerns of losing power without Annan in office.
The top position devoted exclusively to management, Under-Secretary-General for Management, was filled by
Alicia Bárcena Ibarra. Ibarra was considered a UN insider, having previously served as Annan's chief of staff. Her appointment was seen by critics as an indication that Ban wouldn't make dramatic changes to UN bureaucracy. Ban appointed
Sir John Holmes, the British Ambassador to France, as
Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs and coordinator of emergency relief.
The appointment of many women to top jobs was seen as fulfilling a campaign promise Ban had made to increase the role of women in the United Nations. During Ban's first year as Secretary-General more top jobs were being handled by women than ever before. Though not appointed by Ban, the president of the General Assembly,
Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, is only the third woman to hold this position in UN history.
Early reforms
In his first month in office, Ban proposed two major restructurings: to split the UN peacekeeping operation into two departments and to combine the political affairs and disarmament department. His proposals met with stiff resistance from members of the UN General Assembly, who bristled under Ban's request for rapid approval. The proposed merge of the disarmament and political affairs offices was criticized by many in the developing world, partially because of rumors that Ban hoped to place American B. Lynn Pascoe in charge of the new office.
Alejandro D. Wolff, then acting American ambassador, said the United States backed his proposals.
After the early bout of reproach, Ban began extensive consultation with UN ambassadors, agreeing to have his peacekeeping proposal extensively vetted. After the consultations, Ban dropped his proposal to combine political affairs and disarmament. Ban nevertheless pressed ahead with reforms on job requirements at the UN requiring that all positions be considered five-year appointments, all receive strict annual performance reviews, and all financial disclosures be made public. Though unpopular in the New York office, the move was popular in other UN offices around the world and lauded by UN observers. Ban's proposal to split the peacekeeping operation into one group handling operations and another handling arms was finally adopted in mid March.
Key issues
The Secretary-General of the United Nations has the ability to influence debate on nearly any global issue. Although unsuccessful in some areas, Ban's predecessor Annan had been successful in increasing the UN peacekeeping presence and in popularizing the
Millennium Development Goals. UN observers were eager to see on which issues Ban intends to focus, in addition to reform of the United Nations bureaucracy.
Global warming
Ban early on identified
global warming as one of the key issues of his administration. In a
White House meeting with U.S. President
George W. Bush in January, Ban urged Bush to take steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions. On
March 1,
2007 in a speech before the UN General Assembly Hall, Ban further emphasized his concerns about global warming. Ban stated, "For my generation, coming of age at the height of the Cold War, fear of nuclear winter seemed the leading existential threat on the horizon. But the danger posed by war to all humanity—and to our planet—is at least matched by climate change."
Middle East
On Thursday,
March 22,
2007, while taking part in the first stop of a tour of the Middle East, a mortar attack hit just 80 meters from where the
Secretary-General was standing, interrupting a press conference in
Baghdad's
Green Zone, and visibly shaking Ban and others. No one was hurt in the
incident. The United Nations had already limited its role in Iraq after its Baghdad headquarters was bombed in August 2003, killing 22 people. Ban said, however, that he still hoped to find a way for the United Nations to "do more for Iraqi social and political development."
On his trip, Ban visited
Egypt,
Israel, the
West Bank,
Jordan,
Lebanon and
Saudi Arabia, where Ban attended a conference with leaders of the
Arab League and met for several hours with
Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese president who had resisted UN peacekeepers in Darfur.
Darfur
Ban took the first foreign trip of his term to attend the
African Union summit in
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, in January 2007 as part of an effort to reach out to the
Group of 77. He repeatedly identified Darfur as the top humanitarian priority of his administration.
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