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| Top diplomat: He was South Korea's foreign minister. David Karp/AP |
U.N.'s Ban Ki Moon emerges as dogged reformer
In his 15 months as UN secretary-general, he has insisted that the UN come to embody two qualities not always associated with it: efficiency and responsiveness.
from the March 12, 2008 edition
Page 3 of 3
This year, Ban has added water to his list of priority issues – an addition that aides say he made largely as a result of his immersion in the climate-change issue. He has talked, for example, of the role water – or rather the lack of it – has played in the Darfur conflict.
But as Mr. Orr says, the deeper explanation for Ban's emphasis on water is a broad interest in preventive action – the conviction that acting on issues like water distribution before they become open conflicts or calamities is much less costly to the world.
Still, some conflicts have already advanced beyond the preventive stage – such as Darfur, which has reached a level of violence that President Bush has termed "genocide."
Ban is "frustrated" and "impatient" with the slow political progress, aides say, but they add that he prefers to call on his trademark persistence rather than throw in the towel. He worked doggedly on agreements between the government of Sudan and the African Union that led to a UN Security Council resolution last summer authorizing a hybrid UN force made up largely of African Union soldiers.
He's now pressing other countries to provide necessary equipment and logistical support for the force, and he's pushing Sudan to accept soldiers on its territory from countries like Thailand and Nepal, which have offered to take part.
Last week he met with Bush's special envoy to Sudan, Richard Williamson, to discuss Ambassador Williamson's recent trip to Sudan. And on Tuesday, Ban was to brief the Security Council on advancing the deployment of the hybrid force to Darfur.
Progress is neither fast nor easy on any of this, but Ban persists – as those who know him say they'd expect.
"There are people who, when they are trying to do something and they run into a block or a brick wall, they try to divert attention to another subject, but that's not Ban Ki Moon," says Undersecretary Pascoe. "He just keeps going back and pushing it."
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