World leadership without a leader

Kofi Annan. Hands up who remember him. Of course you do. Just having watched TV for a while sometime in the past ten years you have known a thing or two related to him. He made of his time in the UN General Secretary office a valuable period. Maybe he wasn’t as successful as he should have been, but it was more because of having in front a super-villain like Bush Jr. rather than for lack of effort. Somewhat like why Larry Bird wasn’t as bright as he should have been: because he had in front of him two people like Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan.

But, anyone knows the current UN General Secretary?

Ban Ki-Moon -that’s his name- is a complete unknown person for most of the general public. In fact, in an occasion talking with Korean friends, they were surprised that I actually knew of the existence of him. Well, maybe that’s not so important. In the end, many of the common people like you or me never will give a shit of what is done in NY’s UN HQ. But what is more worrying is that not even in the diplomatic circle is he well known.

Just as a starter: his internal circle is really close to outsiders. The decision group surrounding him is made up of close collaborators of Ki-Moon. Like Kim Won-soo, an old friend from his time as Foreign Minister in South Korea and the visible head of the corps guards constantly around him. Going down the organization, it doesn’t get better. The General Secretary tries to manage the UN as if it was his old Korean portfolio (homogen and uniform) when it is something completely different (heterogen and complex).

From the old employees of the floor 38 of the UN building in NY (the floor of the General Secretary office), just a few survived after Annan left. As an African diplomat said to John Carlin in this article their substitutes lack, generally, of the experience and abilities of those under Annan management.

To make things worse, he has betted since the beginning for a discrete diplomacy. Indeed. Ban Ki-Moon’s inactivity has been a constant since his first day in office. He then started his first test by standing in a passive attitude against the sentence against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, just the opposite to the general attitude from the UN office against death penalty.

Then, the inactivity or late responses have been going on crisis after crisis. In Sudan (for now, his only victory, and it was just temporary and partial) he convinced al-Bashir to let international NGOs operate in Darfur. But a few months after, he didn’t have any problem to meet him FACE to FACE in the Arab summit in Doha, even Bashir was under an arrest warrant from the ICC

In the African Great Lakes, in Georgia and in Gaza, Ban Ki-Moon arrived late and show. Very late, in fact, In the case of Gaza, he only started to speak when the death toll was already on 600, even some UN offices had been already attacked before and will be again in the days after.

Now, we have to add to the list the Western Sahara. According to a report from his office, and against the opinion of the UN’s envoy to the area, Chris Ross, and some NGOs, Ban Ki-Moon considers that the MINURSO mission should finish. Well, in fact this shouldn’t be so shocking. He did the same in Somalia last December, leaving them alone.

But if DPRK launches a missile, then three days are enough to make a condemn resolution.

Of course, China, Russia and the USA are really happy with him, unlike they were with Kofi Annan. In the end, Ban Ki-Moon is a good boy and doesn’t give them too much trouble.



Photo: AP