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“Sometimes You Really Need to Speak Up”
Independent Online
October 7, 2007UN chief Ban Ki-moon, at times criticised for his apparent reluctance to take strong moral stances, is getting kudos for his leadership and "strong words" in the Myanmar crisis. Ban has been in the diplomatic limelight over the past two weeks as he hobnobbed with world leaders during the General Assembly summit which was preceded by a series of high-level meetings on Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and climate change.
"Everybody wanted to test him, see what the new secretary general is like," said a UN diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There had been criticism of the fact that he has often seemed to be less outspoken that we would have wished," Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, told AFP on Friday. "During the first part of this year, he seemed very reluctant to put himself on the line," he added. "He did not really take advantage of that very real moral authority that a (UN) secretary general has and which is there to be used."
But Crawshaw said that this may be changing, pointing to Ban's words during Friday's Security Council meeting on Myanmar in which he referred to the military crackdown there as "abhorrent and unacceptable." "The strong words we heard from Ban Ki-moon (Friday) are very welcome," Crawshaw said. "I really hope he will continue to do that."Several diplomats also praised Ban's leadership in the crisis. The secretary general quickly dispatched his emissary Ibrahim Gambari to deliver a strong message to the military junta over its bloody crackdown on anti-government protests. Ban feverishly worked the phone to enlist support from key players, notably the Security Council, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to make sure Gambari would not only be allowed into Myanmar but also be permitted to meet the ruling generals and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, they noted. "He has talked about the importance in abstract of human rights but I think he does need to show he really understands what that means. Sometimes you really need to speak up, speak very loudly and speak publicly," Crawshaw said.
Yvonne Terlingen, head of Amnesty International's UN office, had her own words of praise for Ban. "Today Ban Ki-moon's statement on Myanmar was very strong and we very much welcome that," she said. Terlingen also hailed a recent statement by Ban "that he now firmly supports a moratorium on executions worldwide." Last December, Ban touched off some unease in the human rights community when he refused to condemn Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein's hanging, a stand that seemed at variance with the United Nations's traditional opposition to capital punishment.
Terlingen faulted Ban for not doing enough to ensure that a long-awaited UN report on the human rights situation in Iraq is promptly published. The report by the UN mission in Iraq "is long overdue. It should have been published this summer." "Very few independent human rights observers have access to Iraq and therefore the report by UNAMI (the UN mission in Iraq) is of crucial importance to all those concerned about human rights in Iraq," she said.More generally on Iraq, Ban is being criticised by several third world diplomats for bowing to Washington's pressure for a greater UN role in Iraq, despite the continuing violence in the country. During a high-level meeting on Iraq reconstruction late last month, the UN chief did outline plans for a modest hike in the world body's presence there. But he cautioned that although security has been improving, "much more needs to be done" more than four years after the US-led invasion that ousted the regime of the late Saddam Hussein.
Assessing Ban's performance during the recent round of General Assembly diplomacy, a diplomat who asked not be named said the secretary general can be credited with some accomplishments. "He is very result-focused so instead of concentrating on the General Assembly speeches and the broad picture, he focused on the high-level meetings," the diplomat noted. "Each of them (meetings) was an effort to make sure that you have a unified stance for certain things, in favour of the hybrid (UN-African Union) peacekeeping operation in Darfur, an across the board commitment to an expanded UN role in Iraq and a greater commitment than before to an expanded UN role in Afghanistan," he added.
On climate change, the diplomat pointed to Ban's assertion during last month's summit that he had heard "a clear call from world leaders for a breakthrough" at an upcoming conference in Bali, Indonesia on December 3-14. This is "a model of how the secretary general hopes to continue working closely with member states and the General Assembly in the future," said his spokesperson Michele Montas.
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