Path to Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, perhaps more than anyone else, had the moral right to lead the UN and become, as written in the organization's founding documents, "the spokesperson for the interests of the world's peoples, the poor and vulnerable."
He was born in 1938 in the British colony of the Gold Coast, which after independence became the state of Ghana. Annan was certainly fortunate in some ways, as his father was appointed by the colonial government as governor of one of the provinces. Such people in Africa were called "black-white" because they received a European education and led a European lifestyle. Kofi Annan was sent to study economics in the USA, then to Geneva's Institute of International Relations, and later back to America to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Upon returning to his homeland, he could easily have found a place in the country's political system, which was entirely composed of the "black-white" elite actively recruited by the colonial authorities. However, Annan decided to take a small position at the World Health Organization (WHO).
In 1962, he began working as a staff member for administrative and budgetary matters at the WHO in Geneva. His work was mainly related to the African region, and everywhere, according to his colleagues, he proved to be an energetic organizer, earning him the nickname "the Marathoner."
After thirty years working in various UN structures, he first became Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, and then Under-Secretary-General. Annan's activities in these posts coincided with the mid-1990s, when the scale of UN peacekeeping operations significantly increased (17 campaigns were conducted, involving a total of 80,000 peacekeepers). During this period, such operations were entrusted to a regional organization—NATO (a cooperation scheme between the alliance and the UN that remains in effect to this day). The first use of NATO forces occurred after the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995, which ended the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time, Annan served as the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the former Yugoslavia, overseeing the transfer of peacekeeping functions from the UN contingent to the multinational NATO forces.
In 1996, the previous UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, fell out with the United States, after which Washington actively opposed his re-election for a second term. Interestingly, the reasons for this conflict are quite curious. In August 1995, Boutros-Ghali categorically opposed the American initiative to launch NATO airstrikes on targets in the territory of the Republika Srpska. Boutros-Ghali's deputy, Kofi Annan, in turn, agreed to the air raids (the bombings of Bosnian Serb positions then opened the way for the offensives of Croats and Muslims).
In response, the Americans vetoed Boutros-Ghali's candidacy. U.S. President Bill Clinton used a rather weighty argument that outweighed all further reasons in favor of the previous Secretary-General. Clinton stated that it would be difficult for him to persuade Congress, where Republicans held a majority, to pay $1.45 billion in contributions to the UN budget that the United States was supposed to transfer (note that even today, the US remains the organization's largest donor). After a week of debate, the Security Council decided to approve Kofi Annan.
It is worth noting that Annan at the time satisfied all members of the UN Security Council. They believed that the new Secretary-General would be able to reform the organization, whose role in international relations had changed significantly after the end of the Cold War (incidentally, one of Boutros-Ghali's shortcomings, according to the US, was precisely that he paid little attention to reforming the UN). The Americans actively supported his candidacy—US representative Madeleine Albright lobbied for Annan at the UN.
Thus, Annan became the first black Secretary-General of the organization and the first to rise to this post from the position of a low-level employee. He is also the first Secretary-General elected to a second term early, in 2001.
In Office
Immediately upon taking office, Kofi Annan set about fulfilling his main task as Secretary-General: UN reform. In July 1997, he presented to the member states a plan titled "Renewing the United Nations." Annan aimed to make the UN "a smaller and more effective organization." To this end, he proposed reducing the 6,000-strong staff of the New York headquarters by a thousand people, cutting paperwork, and downsizing the Secretariat—according to the plan, it was to be a small cabinet of UN representatives. But Annan's plan got stuck in the organization's bloated bureaucratic machine, which he had fought against and sought to make compact and efficient. Open protests and "behind-the-scenes" struggles among UN staff, who believed that the Secretary-General would carry out larger staff cuts, constantly delayed the implementation of the reform plan, and even ten years later it remains unfulfilled. Obviously, this task will be inherited by Ban Ki-moon, who has already stated that he will continue reforming the organization.
Annan began promoting women to top positions in the organization, which had previously been almost unrepresented in UN leadership. Thus, his deputy became Canada's Louise Fréchette, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights became Ireland's Mary Robinson, and the head of WHO became Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway.
An undoubted diplomatic victory for Kofi Annan came in 1998. Then the Secretary-General managed to persuade Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to allow UN inspectors to check a number of sites where weapons of mass destruction were suspected to be hidden. For seven years, inspectors had been denied access to these sites. Thanks to the inspections, experts believe, a military conflict was avoided (or, in fact, its start was delayed).
In the same year, Kofi Annan met with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, trying to persuade him to extradite two suspects in the preparation of the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, in which 270 people died. However, only in 1999, thanks to Annan's efforts, did Gaddafi agree to extradite the two suspects and pay $2.7 billion to the relatives of the deceased passengers of the airliner.
At that same time, the UN Secretary-General undertook "a series of diplomatic measures to end the violence" in East Timor. In this region, whose inhabitants had been fighting for independence from Indonesia since 1975, a referendum on recognition of sovereignty was held under UN control. Thus, the official authorities of Jakarta abandoned their claims to this territory, which came under the interim administration of the UN administration.
In September 2000, by a decision of the organization, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the territory of Southern Lebanon, which had been occupied in 1982 during a military operation, began. However, after this procedure was completed, militants of the radical movement "Hezbollah" established themselves there. UN observers were present in southern Lebanon, numbering up to several thousand people (mostly civilians), but they could not influence the situation. In July 2006, in response to an attack by Hezbollah militants, the IDF again invaded this region. Now the UN had to take more active measures and introduce a peacekeeping contingent of up to 15,000 people into southern Lebanon. The militants were pushed back from the Israeli border, but they were not disarmed.
In 2000, another significant event occurred in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. After the start of the Second Intifada, work began on a project for the separation of the sides. Three years later, the "road map" was approved, the development of which was undertaken by the UN, the US, Russia, and the European Union. The parties to the conflict were supposed to "end the violence" and build "normal relations" with each other. The plan, designed for the period up to 2005, was never implemented - as experts note, "due to the unpreparedness of the Palestinian and Israeli authorities."
Thus, the "Middle East problem," which has recently been aggravated by Iran's persistent desire to have nuclear weapons (it has not yet been possible to resolve this situation through negotiations), will also place a heavy burden on the shoulders of the future Korean UN Secretary-General.
According to a number of observers, during Kofi Annan's entire tenure as UN Secretary-General, the organization's most influential body—the Security Council—was virtually paralyzed due to contradictions in the positions of those countries that had veto power (the US, Russia, China, France, and the UK).
The result of these contradictions was the massive bombing by NATO aircraft of targets in Yugoslavia in 1999, which was carried out without coordination with the UN and without the approval of the Security Council. The US then stated that the airstrikes were carried out to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Only after the US bombings did the UN become "concerned" about this region; Kosovo came under the administration of the UN administration, and in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1244, peacekeepers—KFOR—were deployed there.
This fact became the basis for fierce attacks against Kofi Annan, who was accused of inaction and inability to influence the international situation. According to his opponents, he turned the UN into a formal instrument that could be freely manipulated by the US. Although, in fairness, it should be noted that the Americans were the first to disregard international law, while the Secretary-General as the "symbol of UN ideals" simply found himself out of place. Although this too may only testify to the weakness of the organization.
The next major military operation was already authorized by the Security Council. British and American military contingents, united in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), entered Afghanistan in 2001. Combat operations were launched against the Taliban movement, which managed to be pushed back into mountainous areas. By the end of 2006, control over Afghan territories was to be handed over to NATO peacekeepers, but periodic Taliban sorties do not allow even the Americans to speak of a stabilization of the situation. Eliminating or at least disorganizing the terrorist network Al-Qaeda, which, according to the US, was located on the territory of Afghanistan, also apparently failed. By the way, the strike against Taliban positions in Afghanistan can formally be considered the only effective step of Secretary-General Kofi Annan (not counting numerous documents) in addressing counter-terrorism issues.
However, as it turned out, the US and UK campaign in Afghanistan did not lead to the rehabilitation of the UN and did not restore the organization's former influence. In March 2003, the same countries invaded Iraq without the consent of the Security Council and overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime. After the start of military action, US and UK officials claimed that the Security Council had previously adopted a number of resolutions concerning Iraq, which in some cases allowed the war to begin without further coordination with the Security Council. The start of the war in Iraq became a new reason for sharp criticism of both the UN structure and the Secretary-General personally, who, it was believed, had lost all influence on decisions made by the US and UK.
In 2005, a new blow was struck at the Secretary-General's authority. He was accused of corruption in the upper echelons of the organization – Annan allegedly helped his son win a tender under the UN's "Oil-for-Food" program, which was valued at $10 million. However, no evidence of the Secretary-General's guilt was found.
Furthermore, as it turned out, the UN has become financially dependent on the United States. The Americans owe $1.6 billion to the organization's budget and are in no hurry to pay it. UN financiers complain that there is not enough money even for current operating expenses, let alone peacekeeping activities or humanitarian programs. Not only the United States but also many other countries do not pay their contributions to the UN budget, thereby making the organization dependent on the short-term interests of certain states rather than the need to address the pressing problems of the world community.
Preliminary Results
The ten-year period of Kofi Annan's leadership at the UN, with two months left until its end, was certainly controversial but not without bright sides. Of course, the organization has lost its former influence in resolving international issues. But it should not be forgotten that the UN's opinion was ignored by the leading countries that once created this legal structure and now shape its ideology.
Annan failed to fundamentally reform the UN, but perhaps he simply overestimated his strength in fighting bureaucracy. That is, he essentially failed to carry out a 'quiet revolution' at the UN, as he put it. Despite this, the organization remains influential and it is premature to write it off. At the very least, Annan managed to preserve the UN, although the question of its abolition as an organization unable to adapt to the post-Cold War world has been raised more than once. In any case, the UN is the only legitimate body for resolving international conflicts. Moreover, the organization was and remains the largest humanitarian and charitable institution of the world community.
Kofi Annan's merits were recognized in 2001 with the Nobel Peace Prize. When presenting the award to the UN Secretary-General, the Nobel Committee noted that Annan 'more than anyone else contributed to the renewal of the organization.' It was also noted that 'the only path to global peace and cooperation lies through the United Nations.'
Ruslan KADRMATOV.
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