Ban Ki-moon
2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People
- This is a Korean name; the family name is Ban.
| Ban Ki-moon | |
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8th Secretary-General of the United Nations
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 1, 2007 |
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| Preceded by | Kofi Annan |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent (December 31, 2011) |
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| Born | June 13, 1944 Eumseong, North Chungcheong, South Korea |
| Nationality | South Korean |
| Spouse | Yoo Soon-taek |
| Religion | Secular |
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| pronounced [panɡimun] |
Ban Ki-moon (born June 13, 1944) is a South Korean diplomat and the current Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Before becoming Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he graduated college, accepting his first post in New Delhi. In the foreign ministry he established a reputation for modesty and competence.
Ban was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea from January 2004 to November 2006. In February 2006 he began to campaign for the office of Secretary-General. Ban was initially considered to be a long shot for the office. As foreign minister of Korea, however, he was able to travel to all of the countries that were members of the United Nations Security Council, a manoeuvre that turned him into the campaign's front runner.
On October 13, 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly. On January 1, 2007, he succeeded Kofi Annan, and passed several major reforms regarding peacekeeping and UN employment practices. Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with U.S. President George W. Bush, and Darfur, where he helped persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.
Early life
Childhood
Ban, the oldest of six children, was born in Eumseong in a small farming village in North Chungcheong, in 1944, while Korea was controlled by Japan. When he was three, his family moved to the nearby town of Chungju, where he was raised. During Ban's childhood, his father had a warehouse business, but the warehouse went bankrupt and the family lost its middle-class standard of living. When Ban was 6, his family fled to a remote mountainside for the duration of the Korean War. After the war, his family returned to Chungju. The U.S. military troops in Korea were the first Americans Ban ever met.
Education
In secondary school Ban became a star pupil, particularly in his studies of English. According to local stories, Ban would regularly walk 6 miles to a fertilizer factory to practise English with the factory's American advisors. In 1956, he was selected by his class to address a message to then UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, but it is unknown if the message was ever sent. In 1962, Ban won an essay contest sponsored by the Red Cross and earned a trip to the United States where he lived in San Francisco with a host family for several months. As part of the trip, Ban met U.S. President John F. Kennedy. When asked by a journalist at the meeting what Ban wanted to be when he grew up, he said "I want to become a diplomat."
Ban received a bachelor's degree in International Relations from Seoul National University in 1970, and earned a Master of Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1985. At Harvard, he studied under Joseph Nye who remarked that Ban had "a rare combination of analytic clarity, humility and perseverance."
According to his curriculum vitae, in addition to his native Korean, Ban speaks English and French. There have been questions, however, regarding the extent of his knowledge of French, one of the two working languages of the United Nations.
Family
Ban Ki-moon met Yoo Soon-taek in 1962 when they were both high school students. Ban was 18 years old, Yoo Soon-taek was his secondary school's student council president, Ban Ki-moon married Yoo Soon-taek, in 1971. They are still married and have three adult children: two daughters and a son. His eldest daughter, Seon-yong (1972-Present), works for the Korea Foundation in Seoul. His son, Woo-hyun (1974-Present), is a student at the University of California at Los Angeles studying for a master's degree in business administration. His youngest daughter, Hyun-hee: (1976-Present), Is a field officer for UNICEF in Nairobi, Kenya. After his election as Secretary-General, Ban became an icon in his home town, where his extended family still resides. Over 50,000 gathered in a soccer stadium in Chungju for celebration of the result. In the months after his appointment, thousands of practitioners of feng shui went to his village to determine how it produced such an important person. Ban himself is not a member of any church or religious group and has declined to expound upon his beliefs, telling the press "Now, as Secretary-General, it will not be appropriate at this time to talk about my own belief in any particular religion or God. So maybe we will have some other time to talk about personal matters." His mother is reportedly Buddhist.
Personality
Ban's personality has been described by many as bland. In the Korean Foreign Ministry his nickname was Ban-chusa, meaning "the Bureaucrat" or "the administrative clerk". The name was used as both positive and negative: complimenting Ban's attention to detail and administrative skill while deriding what was seen as a lack of charisma and subservience to his superiors. The Korean press corps calls him "the slippery eel" for his ability to dodge questions. His demeanor has also been described as a "Confucian approach".
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. Ban has said that his only hobby is golf, and he plays only a couple of games a year.
At the 2006 UN Correspondents' dinner in early December, after being elected Secretary-General, Ban surprised the audience by singing a version of " Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", with the lyrics "Ban Ki-moon is coming to town" instead. 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.
Diplomatic career
After graduation from university, Ban received the top score on Korea's foreign service exam. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1970, and worked his way up the career ladder during the years of the Yusin Constitution.
His first overseas posting was to New Delhi where he served as vice consul and impressed many of his superiors in the foreign ministry with his competence. Ban reportedly accepted a posting to India rather than the more prestigious United States, because in India he would be able to save more money, and send more home to his family. In 1974 he received his first posting to the United Nations, as First Secretary of the South Permanent Observer Mission (South Korea only became a full UN member state on September 17, 1991). 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. He has been posted twice to the Republic of Korea embassy in Washington, D.C. Between these two assignments he served as Director-General for American Affairs in 1990–92. In 1992, he became Vice Chairman of the South-North Joint Nuclear Control Commission, following the adoption by South and North Korea of the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. From 1993–94 Ban was Korea's deputy ambassador to the United States. He was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations in 1995 and then appointed National Security Advisor to the President in 1996. Ban's lengthy career overseas has been credited with helping him avoid South Korea's unforgiving political environment.
Ban was appointed Ambassador to Austria in 1998, and a year later he was also elected as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization ( CTBTO PrepCom). During the negotiations, in what Ban considers the biggest blunder of his career, he included a positive statement about the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in a public letter with Russia in 2001, shortly after the United States had decided to abandon the treaty. To avoid anger from the United States, Ban was fired by President Kim Dae-jung, who also issued a public apology for Ban's statement.
Ban was unemployed for the first and only time in his career and was expecting to receive an assignment to work in a remote and unimportant embassy. In 2001, during the 56th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Republic of Korea held the rotating presidency, and to Ban's surprise, he was selected to be the chief of staff to general assembly president Han Seung-soo. In 2003, the new Korean President Roh Moo-hyun selected Ban as one of his foreign policy advisors.
Foreign Minister of Korea
In 2004, Ban replaced Yoon Young-kwan as foreign minister of Korea under president Roh Moo Hyun. At the beginning of his term, Ban was faced with two major crises: in June 2004 Kim Sun-il, a Korean translator, was kidnapped and killed by Islamic extremists and in December 2004 dozens of Koreans died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Ban survived scrutiny from lawmakers and saw an upturn in his popularity when talks began with North Korea. 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, 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 has 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
| 2007 Secretary-General candidates | ||
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| Name | Position | |
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Ban Ki-moon | South Korean foreign minister |
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Shashi Tharoor | UN Under-Secretary-General for public information; from India |
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Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga | President of Latvia |
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Ashraf Ghani | Chancellor of Kabul University, Afghanistan |
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Surakiart Sathirathai | Deputy prime minister of Thailand |
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Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein | Jordan's ambassador to the United Nations |
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Jayantha Dhanapala | Former Under-Secretary-General for disarmament; from Sri Lanka |
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 was not 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. Of the seven candidates, he topped each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council: on July 24, September 14, September 28, and October 2.
During the period in which these polls took place, 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 said during his campaign that he would like to visit North Korea in person to meet with Kim Jong Il directly. Ban was viewed as a stark contrast from Kofi Annan, who was considered charismatic, but perceived as a weak manager because of problems surrounding the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq.
Ban also struggled to win the approval of France. His official biography states that he speaks both English and French, the two working languages of the UN Secretariat. He has repeatedly struggled to answer questions in French from journalists. 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 am continuing to work. I have taken French lessons over the last few months. I think that, even if my French isn't perfect, I will 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, but the US Representative to the UN John R. Bolton later remarked that it was Japan who 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.
Term as Secretary-General
When Ban became Secretary-General, The Economist listed the major challenges facing him in 2007: "rising nuclear demons in Iran and North Korea, a haemorrhaging wound in Darfur, unending violence in the Middle East, looming environmental disaster, escalating international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the spread of HIV/AIDS. And then the more parochial concerns, such as the largely unfinished business of the most sweeping attempt at reform in the UN's history." Before starting, Kofi Annan shared the story that when the first Secretary-General Trygve Lie left office he told his successor, Dag Hammarskjöld, "You are about to take over the most impossible job on earth."
On January 1, 2007 Ban took office as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ban's term as Secretary-General opened with a flap. At his first encounter with the press as Secretary-General on 2 January 2007, he refused to condemn the death penalty imposed on Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi High Tribunal, remarking that “The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member State to decide.” Ban's statements contradicted long-standing United Nations opposition to the death penalty as a human rights concern. He quickly clarified his stance 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.” On the broader issue, he told a Washington, D.C., audience on January 16, 2007 that he recognized and encouraged the “growing trend in international society, international law and domestic policies and practices to phase out eventually the death penalty.”
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 would not 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.
Ban initially said that he would delay making other appointments until his first round of reforms were approved, but he later abandoned this idea after receiving criticism. In February he continued with appointments, selecting B. Lynn Pascoe, the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, to become Under-Secretary-General for political affairs. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, a French diplomat, who had served as Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations under Annan remained in office. Ban selected Vijay K. Nambiar as his chief of staff.
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
During 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 were met with stiff resistance from members of the UN General Assembly, who bristled under Ban's request for rapid approval. The proposed merger 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 2007.
Ban has used his position to push South Korea to pay its bills on time and to lend attack helicopters for a peacekeeping mission in Darfur.
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.
On several prominent issues, such as proliferation in Iran and North Korea, Ban has deferred to the Security Council. Ban has also declined to become involved on the issue of Taiwan's status. In 2007, the Republic of Nauru raised the issue of allowing the Republic of China (Taiwan) to sign the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Ban incorrectly referenced the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, and refused the motion. On July 19, 2007, the President of the Republic of China wrote to request admission into the UN by the name Taiwan. Ban immediately rejected the request.
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 (260 ft) 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. While Ban met with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, he declined to meet with Ismail Haniya of Hamas.
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. Ban played a large role, with several face-to-face meetings with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in convincing Sudan to allow UN peacekeepers to enter the Darfur region. On July 31, 2007 the United Nations Security Council approved sending 26,000 UN peacekeepers into the region to join 7,000 troops from the African Union. The resolution was heralded as a major breakthrough in confronting the Darfur conflict (although many countries have labeled the conflict a " genocide," the United Nations has declined to do so). The first phase of the peacekeeping mission is expected to begin in October 2007.
Criticism
According to an article in the Washington Post, "some U.N. employees and delegates" are expressing their resentment at Ban's favoritism in the appointment of his fellow South Korean nationals in key posts. Previous U.N. chiefs such as Kurt Waldheim (Austria), Javier Perez de Cuellar (Peru) and Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt) brought small teams of trusted aides or clerical workers from their country's Foreign Ministry. But according to "some officials," Ban has gone further, boosting South Korea's presence in U.N. ranks by more than 20 percent in the past year. In response, Ban and his aides have claimed that allegations of favoritism are wrong, and that some of the harshest criticisms against him have undercurrents of racism. He said that the South Korean nationals he had appointed — including Choi Young-jin, who has served as a high-ranking official in the United Nation's peacekeeping department — are highly qualified for their positions.
According to Columnist Al Kamen, the appointment of India's Siddarth Chatterjee, son-in-law of Ban Ki-Moon, to a key United Nations post in Iraq "has greatly upset the UN rank and file, who are fretting that maybe Chatterjee is trying to leapfrog other qualified staff to get the assignment." A news report published by Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press, a UN watchdog, suggests that there is an undercurrent of resentment inside the United Nations staff about this appointment and some staffers call it as a possible case of nepotism.