Ban Ki-moon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ban Ki-moon
8th United Nations Secretary-General
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 1, 2007
Preceded by	Kofi Annan
Succeeded by	Incumbent
Born	June 13, 1944 (age 62) Eumseong, South Korea
Spouse	Yoo Soon-taek

Korean name
Hangul:	반기문
Hanja:	潘基文
Revised Romanization:	Ban Gimun
McCune-Reischauer:	Pan Kimun

This is a Korean name; the family name is Ban.

Ban Ki-moon (IPA pronunciation: [pan.gi.mun]) (born June 13, 1944 in Eumseong, North Chungcheong, Korea) is a former South Korean diplomat who succeeded Kofi Annan as the Secretary-General of the United Nations on January 1, 2007.^[1]

Ban was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea from January 2004 to November 1, 2006. On October 13, 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly and was sworn in on December 14, 2006. He had previously addressed the General Assembly in his capacity as foreign minister during its annual general debate each year since 2004.

Contents 1 Education 2 Personal 3 Career 4 Secretary-General of the United Nations 5 Awards 6 Criticism 7 Religious views 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Education

Ban received a bachelor's degree in International Relations from Seoul National University in 1970 and earned a Master in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1985.

[edit] Personal

Ban Ki-moon is married and has a son and two daughters.^[2] In addition to his native Korean, Ban speaks English, French, Japanese and German, according to his curriculum vitae. However, there have been questions on the extent of his knowledge of French, a language that veto-wielding Security Council member France insists any United Nations Secretary General must be able to speak. This has resulted in some controversy. (See Criticism)

An exchange student during the 60's at High School in Marin County, California, Ban met then U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Washington, D.C. after winning an English language competition organized by the American Red Cross. He has said that it was after this meeting that he resolved to become a diplomat.

[edit] Career

Ban joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1970, and worked his way up during the years of the Yusin Constitution.

His first overseas posting was to New Delhi, after which he worked in the United Nations Division at the foreign ministry's headquarters. At the time of Park Chung Hee's assassination, Ban had climbed to the position of First Secretary at South Korea's Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York City (South Korea only became a full UN member state on September 17, 1991). He subsequently assumed the post of Director of the United Nations Division. He has been posted twice to the Republic of Korea (ROK) embassy in Washington, D.C. Between these two assignments he served as Director-General for American Affairs in 1990–1992. He was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations in 1995. He was then appointed National Security Advisor to the President in 1996, and assumed the office of Vice Minister in 2000. His most recent post was as Foreign Policy Advisor to the President, Roh Moo-hyun.

While serving as Ambassador to Austria, Ban was elected as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom) in 1999. During the ROK's Presidency of the 56th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (GA) in 2001, he worked as Chef de Cabinet of the President of the GA.

Ban has been actively involved in issues relating to inter-Korean relationships. In 1992, he served as Vice Chairman of the South-North Joint Nuclear Control Commission, following the adoption by South and North Korea of the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In September 2005, as Foreign Minister, he played a leading role in the diplomatic efforts to adopt the Joint Statement on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue at the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks held in Beijing.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Secretary-General of the United Nations

In February 2006, Ban declared his candidacy to replace Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General at the end of 2006, becoming the first South Korean to run for Secretary-General.^[3] He topped each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council on July 24,^[4] 14 September,^[5] September 28^[6] and October 2.^[7]

On September 25, 2006, while these polls were being conducted, Ban addressed the Asia Society in New York on his candidacy and views on major issues confronting the UN.^[8] The next day he gave an interview to the Asia Society's AsiaSource, focusing again on the upcoming challenges to be faced by the UN. Earlier in the year he had addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.^[9]

Subsequently, in an October 2 informal poll, Ban received fourteen favorable votes and one "no opinion" from the fifteen members of the Security Council. More importantly, Ban was the only one to escape a veto, while each of the five other candidates received at least one "no" vote from the five permanent members of the council — People's Republic of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.^[10] After the vote, Shashi Tharoor, who finished second, withdrew his candidacy^[11] and China's Permanent Representative to the UN told reporters that "it is quite clear from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly."^[12]

On October 9, the Security Council formally chose Ban as its nominee. On October 13, the 192-member General Assembly adopted a resolution, by acclamation, appointing Ban as Secretary-General. On January 1, 2007 Ban took office as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations.

On Thursday, March 22, 2007, while taking part in a press conference in Baghdad's green zone, a mortar attack hit close to where the secretary general was standing, interrupting the conference and visibly shaking Ban and others. He was unharmed by the incident.

[edit] Awards

Ban has twice been awarded the Order of Service Merit in 1975 and 1986 by the Government of the Republic of Korea. For his accomplishments as an envoy, he received the Grand Decoration of Honour from the Republic of Austria in 2001. A year later, the government of Brazil bestowed the Grand Cross of Rio Branco upon him.

In September 2005, the Korea Society in New York honoured him with the James A. Van Fleet Award for his contributions to friendship between the United States and the Republic of Korea.^[13]

[edit] Criticism

Ban claims to be fluent in both English and French which have long been considered the de facto operating languages of the UN. However, he has struggled to answer questions in French from journalists since being sworn in as UN Secretary General.^[14]

As the election of the successor to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan drew closer there was rising criticism of the South Korean campaign on Ban's behalf. Specifically, his alleged practice of systematically visiting all member states of the UN Security Council in his role as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to secure votes in his support by signing trade deals with European countries and pledging foreign aid to developing countries were the focus of some news articles.^[15][16]

According to the Washington Post, "rivals have privately grumbled that Republic of Korea, which has the world's 11th-largest economy, has wielded its economic might to generate support for his candidacy". Ban reportedly has said that these insinuations are "groundless". In an interview on 17 September 2006 he reportedly stated: "As front-runner, I know that I can become a target of this very scrutinizing process" and "I am a man of integrity."^[17]

Although not directly a criticism of Ban Ki-moon, there has also been concern^{[citation needed]} over the appointment of Kang Kyung-wha, Ban's campaign manager, as Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, an assistant secretary-general-level position, with only weeks left in Kofi Annan's term.^[18]

Within Korea, Ban’s nickname is "Ban-jusa", which may be loosely translated as “Ban the administrative clerk." This appellation is used by Ban’s supporters and opponents alike, but the latter intend to hint at a “lack of charisma and a supposed willingness to bend to the will of his superiors,” as well as his personality, which they perceive to be uninspiring.^[19] Perhaps an attempt at a comeback to claims of a lack of charisma would explain his singing of a version of Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, where he replaced the words 'Santa Claus' with his own name at the 2006 UN Correspondents dinner early in December.^[20]

Ban has been criticized for not sufficiently condemning the death penalty, specifically in the case of Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar, two top officials who were convicted, along with Saddam Hussein, of the deaths of 148 Shia Muslims in the Iraqi village of Dujail in the 1980s. Though Ban did write a letter of appeal to Iraqi High Tribunal urging restraint in this case, he stated that capital punishment "was for each and every (United Nation) member state to decide." Ban has also been praised for respecting the UN's limited jurisdiction on the matter, as the UN Charter makes no mention of any position on the death penalty.

[edit] Religious views

Despite some initial rumors that he was a member of the Unification Church, and later reports that stated he is a member of a "group without Church",^[21] The Economist confirmed in January 2007 that he is not a member of any church or religious group.^[22]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Find more information on Ban Ki-moon by searching Wikipedia's sister projects
	Dictionary definitions from Wiktionary
	Textbooks from Wikibooks
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Images and media from Commons
	News stories from Wikinews
	Learning resources from Wikiversity

• Ban Ki-moon portrait by France 24 – Ban Ki-moon Interviewed by Ulysse Gosset on France 24
• Ban Ki-moon makes Darfur his priority – Special Report on France 24 International News Channel
• Secretary-General – Profile, statements, reports, press briefings
• news.bbc.co.uk – Profile: Ban Ki-moon
• Dennis Wholey interview with Ban Ki-moon
• Ban Ki-moon in the media
• New Era in the UN - A quick sketch of the pre-eminent diplomat - Ki-moon Omedia
• Profile of Ban Ki-moon, By Ioannis Michaletos
• South Korean Ban Ki-moon set to become UN Secretary-General Includes an interview conducted by the Asia Society's AsiaSource with the new UN Secretary-General, on September 26, 2006.
• H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea - Address to Asia Society in New York, September 25, 2006.
• Change at the Helm - Change for the Whole Ship? Reports by the news agency Inter Press Service about the United Nations and their new secretary-general Ban Ki-moon
• Ban Ki-moon interviewed by Charlie Rose 14-Feb-2007

Preceded by Kofi Annan

UN Secretary-General 2007 – present

Incumbent

United Nations Secretaries-General
Gladwyn Jebb (acting) | Trygve Lie | Dag Hammarskjöld | U Thant | Kurt Waldheim | Javier Pérez de Cuéllar | Boutros Boutros-Ghali | Kofi Annan | Ban Ki-moon

Persondata
NAME	Ban Ki-moon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	반기문 (Hangul); 潘基文 (Hanja)
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Republic of Korean diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH	June 13, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH	living
PLACE OF DEATH