Page 2 of
2 SPEAKING
FREELY The UN's Ban:
The honeymoon is over By Sunny
Lee
have veto powers. Actually, Ban
was the only candidate who didn't receive any
negative vote from the Security Council members.
In other words, Ban got his current post because
he fit the profile of the delicate job description
that is supposed to offend none.
As a
career civil servant, Ban has also proved to be
very skillful in dodging controversial questions,
and he earned the title of a
"slippery eel" from an
American journalist who interviewed him recently
only to get frustrated by Ban for his deftly
sidestepping contentious questions.
On
another occasion, when Ban was asked by a Voice of
America reporter to explain why he had referred to
President Bush as a "great leader" during his
Washington visit on January 16, Ban said he
wondered why the question was being asked. "In
diplomacy, it is appropriate to address a head of
state with due respect ... I hope you understand
these diplomatic practices," Ban was quoted as
saying.
But it is obvious that Ban cannot
continue to use diplomatic evasion on key issues
forever. Eventually, as head of the world's
largest multilateral organization, he will have to
make his positions known on important global
issues, even though doing so may cost him some of
his supporters.
While there are certainly
calculations of national interest among countries
that endorsed Ban for the job, it should be
pointed out that they also selected him because
they trusted him to become a reliable leader on
global affairs.
Whether the new secretary
general will play the role of a "general" taking
charge of the world body or of a "secretary" to
certain established interests is something that
the rest of the world will be able to see as Ban
conducts his work.
Ban, who said he had
been inspired by the late US president John F
Kennedy to enter public service, is probably not
likely to turn out anti-American or lose US favor,
as his two predecessors did. But he should
demonstrate to the international community that he
can, if necessary, disagree with his primary
supporters even at the risk of being disfavored.
That's how a leader at the world's top body should
fulfill his mission.
Recently, the
seasoned Ban ran into trouble when he made a
comment that seemingly sided with the US in
implicitly agreeing on Saddam Hussein's hanging
and on the practice of the death penalty, which
went against the UN's official stance that opposes
the death penalty on human-rights grounds. Ban's
answer also sounded contradictory to a statement
by the United Nations special representative for
Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, who said on December 30, only
hours after Saddam was hanged, that the UN could
not support the execution.
Faced with
international criticism, Ban backed down and made
a compromising statement the very next day that he
would oppose the execution of Saddam's two top
aides.
That may have been a defining
moment for Ban, whose political survival instinct
is to want to please everyone and insult none. But
unfortunately, things don't always work that way.
Only a few days later, John Bolton "reprimanded"
Ban, saying he shouldn't have backed down from his
original stance on the death penalty.
The
world watched how the whole incident played out
and how Ban conducted himself in the process.
China saw it too. On Tuesday, China's state media
ran an analytic piece on Ban for the first time
departing from its usually congratulatory tone.
The World News Journal, a publication arm of the
state broadcaster, wrote on why Ban is viewed as a
"pro-American" figure.
Clearly, now the
honeymoon is over, except in South Korea, where
Ban is still hailed as a national hero, and books
on him have become best-sellers. Korean police
even said they would send a bodyguard for Ban if
requested.
But outside Korea, the former
Korean diplomat will be pressed harder to show a
more principled stance on some of the divisive
issues in which different countries have different
interests from the world's top diplomat.
It should be worthwhile for Ban to keep in
mind Kofi Annan's advice to him during his last
days as an outgoing chief: "My only advice to him
about this job is to do it his way."
Ban
should certainly guard his hard-won new career by
trying to work with the US and other major
stakeholders that can significantly influence or
even jeopardize it. But at the same time, he
should keep in mind that he is the secretary
general of all the United Nations member states,
and not a just the United States.
Sunny Lee is a journalist based
in Beijing, where he has lived for five years. A
native of South Korea and a former UN intern, Lee
is a graduate of Harvard University and Beijing
Foreign Studies University.
(Copyright
2007 Sunny Lee.)
Speaking Freely is
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