Kofi Annan"s Legacy by Ian Williams, John Langmore, Stephen Schlesinger 6:46pm 4th Jan, 2007   Accra, Ghana. January 25, 2007    Ghana opens arms to beloved native son Kofi Annan. (CNN/AP)    After 10 years as U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan has returned home to Ghana to cheering crowds and murmurs that he might run for president. But Annan told leaders in his homeland that he has a different focus in mind: farming.    Speaking at a meeting with President John Kufuor and opposition leaders on Wednesday, Annan said he was "serious about going into agriculture." The former U.N. chief expressed disappointment that Africa was unable to feed itself.    "There used to be starvation in India and China but that is not the case now. I would in the next phase of my life like to work with international actors and African leaders to take agriculture to a new level," Annan said. "It is my commitment that we find a solution to the problems of agriculture on the continent."    Former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings, a longtime supporter of Annan, said he hoped Annan would take some role in the country"s politics.    "Now that you"re home, I would like you to observe our political scene and offer your advice," Rawlings told Annan at a meeting at his house late Wednesday. "I expect that you will use your expertise and knowledge to straighten the course of peace and stability."    Annan was welcomed home Tuesday night by crowds of hundreds that cheering him and his wife as they stepped off a plane. Troupes of dancers and drummers performed patriotic songs.    Led by President Kufuor, Annan shook hands with a long queue of ministers, chiefs and diplomats that had lined up waiting for his arrival. The chiefs decorated Annan with a white band of cloth, a traditional way of signifying success.    Ghanaians have floated Annan"s name as possible presidential candidate for years, and many in the capital said they"d welcome the country"s most public international figure entering politics in Ghana.    "I bet you, should he decide to contest, not only me and my whole family will vote for him, but I"m sure all Ghanaians will do so overwhelmingly," said Raymond Amevor, a 57-year-old owner of a transport company.    Jan. 2007    UN General Assembly pays tribute to Kofi Annan. (UN News)    The General Assembly today paid tribute to Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s “exceptional contribution to international peace and security…and his outstanding efforts to promote and protect human rights” during his 10-year leadership of the United Nations, and swore in his successor, Ban Ki-moon, who takes the helm of the world body on 1 January 2007.    To spirited applause and a prolonged standing ovation, the 192-member Assembly adopted by acclamation a resolution that took special note of Mr. Annan’s many “bold” political, diplomatic and organizational initiatives, and his many important achievements, particularly with respect to the Millennium Development Goals, peace and security issues, the environment and United Nations reform.    In their respective statements to the diplomats and other dignitaries in the packed Assembly Hall, both Mr. Annan and Mr. Ban stressed the indissoluble links uniting security, development and human rights as the three pillars of the United Nations, without any one of which world peace will not be achieved.    “I depart convinced that today’s UN does more than ever before, and does it better than ever before,” Mr. Annan said, adding that in a time of sweeping change and great challenge, the United Nations had remoulded and reoriented itself. It had become more transparent, accountable and responsive. It had begun to better address the needs of individuals worldwide. Despite many difficulties and some setbacks, “we have achieved much that I am proud of,” he said of his decade-long tenure. “Yet our work is far from complete –- indeed, it never will be,” he said, adding: “It falls to my successor to carry forward the UN"s valuable mission.”    Saying that he was honoured to follow Mr. Annan, who’s “courage and vision have inspired the world”, Mr. Ban pledged to be a “bridge-builder” and do everything in his power to ensure that the United Nations lived up to its name and was truly united, “so that we can live up to the hopes that so many people around the world place in this institution, which is unique in that annals of human history”.    He said “The good name of the United Nations is one of its most valuable assets.    Earlier, Sheikha Haya said that Mr. Annan’s career had been unique. “He has risen through the ranks of the United Nations and devoted his life’s service to the Organization. So, today we are not only bidding farewell to the current Secretary-General, but also to one of the longest serving officials of the United Nations.” She stressed that Mr. Annan had guided the United Nations into the twenty-first century with vision and leadership. As a result, the multilateral system is stronger.    Her words were echoed by the representatives of the various regional groups, who eulogized Mr. Annan’s role in facing the many challenges confronting the world at large and the United Nations itself by promoting peace, humanitarian aid, human rights, development for the underdeveloped and wide-ranging reform for the world organization as epitomized by his 2005 report,In Larger Freedom.    5 January 2007    Kofi Annan and the UN, by John Langmore.    After a decade as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan retired on December 31. It is therefore timely to review his decade as the world’s leading diplomat.    One of my responsibilities when Director of the UN Division for Social Policy and Development was to organise conferences, two of which were the Second World Assembly of Youth which was held in Porto, Portugal and immediately following it the first International Meeting of Youth Ministers held in Lisbon.    As UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan was invited to close the Youth Assembly and next day to open the Youth Ministers’ meeting. As is not uncommon, there was a major international crisis a couple of days before he was due to speak to the youth. His staff told us that they were advising him not to travel and so we made alternative plans.    Yet despite the pressure he flew overnight from New York, arrived at the closing ceremony on schedule at 10am and was given a thunderous standing ovation by the youth delegates. He started his speech by explaining that he regarded youth as so vitally important that he was determined to demonstrate his support for their planning. He emphasised that they were leaders already as well as leaders of tomorrow.    The youth were awed and proud to be able to hand to him the resolution about which they had argued, negotiated and on which they had finally agreed during the early hours of the morning and which included their recommendations. Despite his tiredness, Kofi Annan’s grace shone through his words and the warmth with which he talked with the youth.    During 20 years of political engagement in Australia and seven at the UN in New York I have never met a more gracious person in public life. He is extraordinarily dedicated, attentive to those he meets, administratively tough, a talented diplomat, and careful, thoughtful and wise in his public statements. Kofi Annan has been one of the most outstanding Secretary-Generals of the UN.    Why then has he been criticized? The reason is simple: the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration, were affronted by the opposition of most countries to their invasion of Iraq. The US and Britain were unable to persuade a majority of Security Council members of the necessity for an attack.    We all know that during the occupation it quickly became clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so that the rationale for the hugely destructive, destabilising military action did not exist. The assessment of the majority of nations and peoples was correct.    As leader of the whole membership of the UN, Kofi Annan expressed this opposition and did so carefully. Yet supporters of the invasion made him the target of their hostility. They also thought that inefficiencies and dishonesties in the Oil-for-Food program offered a weapon for their condemnation. Yet the exhaustive Volcker inquiry found no evidence of corruption by the Secretary-General. On the other hand, 2,000 corporations bribed Saddam Hussein’s apparatchiks.    There are lessons for UN managers in this, one of which is that more rigorous administration of programs is required.    The invasion of Iraq by the US with the support of the Blair and Howard Governments but without the agreement of the Security Council involved rejection of multilateral norms. Do other countries now have the right to attack another when they believe that it might become a threat? Have international relations reverted to pre-UN disorder? Or was the invasion of Iraq an aberration from which lessons can be learnt and changes made which can maintain and enhance the principles of collective security?    Kofi Annan tried to address these difficult questions by commissioning a report from high level experts. He adopted many of their recommendations, added others and proposed them to the global Summit held in New York in September 2005. While some were agreed, the continuing hostility of the US and a few close allies prevented any progress on means of containing what the UN Charter calls “the scourge of war”.    The election of Ban Ki-Moon as Secretary-General will offer an opportunity for all participants to leave at least some of the conflicts and resentments behind. Mr Ban’s experience as South Korea’s foreign minister and life as a professional diplomat will be invaluable in “the most difficult job in the world”.    * From an article published in The Sunday Age.    03 January 2007    Kofi Annan"s Legacy, by Ian Williams. (The Nation)    Kofi Annan has been one of the most effective secretary generals in UN history.    Successes in Sierra Leone, Liberia, East Timor, Lebanon and Congo"s first free elections in four decades are no mean vindication of Annan"s principled pragmatism.    Annan is not a great orator. Audiences have to strain to hear his softly spoken phrases, whose content has usually been carefully polished to remove any language that would be too confrontational.    Yet the big ideas kept coming. As a cog in the UN juggernaut hijacked by the great powers, Annan was implicated in the bloody failures in Bosnia and Rwanda, and on taking office he tried to make "Never Again" more than an empty slogan, beginning with an unprecedentedly open report on the UN"s role in those events.    Human rights, development and global responsibility were his constant refrain over the years, and he reclaimed a role for the UN as a standard setter, making development a global issue.    Annan"s quiet authority and palpable decency made him a perfect standard-bearer both for the organization and for these values.    It was precisely those strengths that the xenophobic wing of the US media tried to undermine in his second term, when he stated the obvious truths about Washington"s disregard for international law and human rights, most notably in Iraq.    However, there is a built-in contradiction in combining the roles of peacemaker and tribune of the world"s peoples.    The secretary general cannot bad-mouth perpetrators too strongly, since he may have to negotiate with them.    Annan admits that sometimes he may have been too low-key, but he argues that "particularly when it comes to human dignity and individual rights, some of the positions I have taken...are also intended to empower others, particularly the civil society. In some countries people can quote the secretary general...and not go to jail. If they say it themselves they will be in trouble."    Annan admits, "There have been times when it has been tough, particularly when some people on the Hill or the right wing begin attacking the UN and the Secretary General, and no one pulls them back.... If you undermine the organization to that extent, your own population may ask you, Why are you going to this organization that you"ve discredited so much?"    Annan is deeply conscious of the collateral damage of the Iraq War on the global community: "It led to a major division in this organization and in the world. And it has not healed yet.... At the early stages the leaders themselves were quite divided, and they were very vocal about it.... They are trying to mend fences and work together, but we are not there yet."    In his typically oblique way, Annan lodges a criticism of the invasion: "The member states debated it fully here, and you noticed that the majority of the members in the Council could not bring themselves to vote for the military action. The US and others decided to go outside the Council to take action, and of course individual governments are free to take decisions that they wish to. But I think it was appropriate that the Council took the decision it did.."    Those who do not read or watch the Murdoch media will probably note that Annan"s biggest historical legacy will be the "Responsibility to Protect."    Rather than try to amend the UN Charter, in 2005 he maneuvered the heads of state at the UN"s sixtieth-anniversary World Summit to reinterpret it.    From now on, the threats to "peace and security" that the Security Council is chartered to fight include governments" failures to protect their own people, thus overturning the centuries-old principle of absolute national sovereignty accepted by the Charter.    Annan reminisces about the initial reaction to his raising the subject: "When I said, back in 1999, "We cannot accept that governments can hide behind the shield of sovereignty and brutalize their people or allow these violations to go on," quite a lot of ambassadors were very upset that I was encouraging interference in their internal affairs. And yet five, six years on, we have the "Responsibility to Protect" as a principle accepted by all heads of state."    It has taken several millennia for an accepted principle like "Thou shalt not kill" to be implemented, so we should not be too disappointed if the continuing carnage in Darfur casts doubt upon the sincerity of many of those heads.    At least the concept strips the defenders of mass murder of any spurious legal or ethical defense based on national sovereignty.    Even if it is unfinished business, Darfur is certainly not Annan"s failure; he has been remarkably outspoken about the culpability of Khartoum.    "When I hear heads of state get up and say, "The UN must act in, say, Darfur," who is the UN here?" he asks.    "We need to hold governments to the solemn pledge they made in the General Assembly. Most people believe that Darfur is a sort of test, so we need to remind them that they made this solemn pledge and we want them to redeem it. What"s even more important is that peoples around the world can use this to push member states to action."    He adds, "Without pressure from the population and civil society, I don"t think they would do it."    Annan has done more than any predecessor to insure that those invoked in the opening words of the UN Charter, "We the peoples of the world," have a serious place on the UN agenda.    Under very difficult circumstances, he has done remarkably well.    14 December 2006    Kofi"s Legacy, by Stephen Schlesinger. (MaximsNews)    Kofi Annan went to the Truman Presidential Library earlier this week and, in his final address to the United States, reminded Americans that, at the San Francisco Conference of 1945, they gave the world one of our nation"s greatest gifts - namely the United Nations. Now, he said, the UN "system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition." Calling for the best in the human character is the enduring legacy of Kofi Annan.    Quiet by nature, modest in personality, and dignified in bearing, Kofi Annan took the helm of the UN in 1997 and became a world star. From the beginning, he willingly thrust the United Nations into the life of the planet in an unprecedented fashion.    Beset by the reluctance of the United States to pay its annual dues, Annan met with the "Dr. No" of the American Congress, Senator Jesse Helms, and worked out a solution to the UN"s funding crisis.    He settled disputes in East Timor and Sierra Leone. He brought the world"s business community into joint partnerships with the UN to finance its goals after making it meet strict guidelines on corporate behavior.    More momentously, he challenged the member-states to do better in the field of human rights.    Though knowing he would upset many of his friends in the Third World, he nonetheless advocated, given the failures of Rwanda and Sebrinica, humanitarian intervention by the international body when a state was attacking its own people - even in the face of the UN Charter"s prohibition against interfering in the affairs of a sovereign nation.    He also pushed for the Millennium Development declaration which, among other things, asks countries to help reduce global poverty by fifty percent by the year 2015.    He overcame the reluctance of the Western community that did not wish to send more of its wealth to the underdeveloped world.    By the end of his first term, Annan won the Nobel Peace Prize.    Annan"s second term was stormier. First, the government in Washington changed from one of multilateralism (Clinton) to one of start-and-stop unilateralism (Bush).    President Bush disdained most global pacts including the UN treaty; however, he soon sought the UN"s backing for his invasion of Afghanistan; but he circumvented the body to attack Iraq.    Kofi Annan proffered across-the-board changes on matters ranging from Security Council expansion to stricter human rights enforcement to management fixes. If these renovations had passed, they likely would have led to a hugely improved, vastly more adept and far more open body.    But the Bush Administration"s ambassador, Mr. Bolton, and a few Third World allies, undermined many of them. Still enough survived to somewhat redeem the organization.    For example, there is a now a broader definition of terrorism in which, for the first time, all governments clearly and unqualifiedly condemn terrorism "in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes."    There is a Peacebuilding Commission and a Democracy Fund to help failed states rebuild and quash fanaticism.    There is a new Human Rights Council which replaces the worn-out Human Rights Commission.    There are new ethic rules requiring UN staffers to sign financial disclosure forms and a new whistleblower protection program.    Meantime, Kofi Annan in his final years, saw an expansion of the UN"s peacekeeping missions involving over 80,000 troops - representing an extraordinary $7 billion commitment by the world community, signaling a robust vote of confidence in the UN"s security role.    In his two terms, Annan undoubtedly restored the moral authority to the earth"s preeminent international institution.    In his words and in his acts, he became something akin to the planet"s secular pope.    "Together we have pushed some big rocks to the top of the mountain", he told the General Assembly in his valedictory address, even if some have rolled back.    Annan leaves office on December 31st . We will soon realize what we no longer have. Visit the related web page
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