UN Chief Says He's a Man of Results not Rhetoric

UNITED NATIONS — Midway through his five-year term, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he isn't concerned that he's not a household name.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon looks at a map with Bishow-Parajuli, resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, during his visit to the Irrawaddy delta in this undated picture released July 4, 2009. On the left of the Secretary-General is the Chair of the Tripartite Core Group, Kyaw Thu. (Photo: Reuters)

What matters, he says, is making the United Nations "a more trusted, efficient, and effective organization" that can help the world's needy, protect civilians trapped in conflict, and keep key issues like climate change in the global spotlight.

Critics say Ban has worked too much behind the scenes, not using the bully pulpit of the UN as his charismatic predecessor Kofi Annan did to publicly pressure wayward regimes. They criticize him as ineffectual and colorless, and say he's capitulated to the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council — the US, Russia, China, Britain and France — whose support is essential for him to get a second five-year term.

In a recent interview looking back on the first half of his term and ahead to the second half which started this month, Ban defended himself, arguing that he is battling against the ingrained culture of a massive bureaucracy. He said he's still working on his priority goals — mobilizing world leaders and people around the world to support a new treaty to tackle global warming, changing the working culture of the United Nations, and promoting peace in Darfur and other conflict areas, mainly in Africa.

"It's too early to claim any success," he said. "Likewise, it's too early to say what the most frustrating aspect in my job is."

The 65-year-old former South Korean foreign minister is widely viewed as the world's top diplomat, but he is also responsible for running a giant international bureaucracy where the UN's 192 member countries often have competing interests.

"You don't see any other nation or government or even private organizations where you have equally important 192 shareholders," Ban said. "How to balance all these different 192 countries, that is quite time consuming."

Annan, for his part, was hailed as the "secular pope" and a "rock star of diplomacy" before his tenure was tarnished by a scandal over mismanagement of the U.N. Oil-for-food program to help Iraqis cope with UN sanctions.

When Ban came to the United Nations in January 2007, he promised to be "a harmonizer and bridge-builder," to push for peace in Darfur and the Middle East and to restore the U.N.'s tarnished reputation, which was also battered by corruption in the UN's purchasing operations and sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers.

But after 2 1/2 years, criss-crossing the globe dozens of times, Ban complained that U.N. members aren't giving him enough support.

"I have very broad responsibilities as group leader, in the areas of peace and security, development, how to eradicate disease and abject poverty, and (in the) protection and promotion of human rights," the secretary-general told AP. "But these cannot be done alone."

The secretary-general is widely believed to want a second term. Key diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, don't rule out another term — but say it's too soon for a definitive answer.

Ban said it may take years to change the working culture of the UN Secretariat, to resolve all the confrontations in the world, and to effectively tackle global issues like climate change, food security and swine flu.

He is credited with putting climate change near the top of the global agenda — and he said getting global agreement on a new treaty to curb global warming in Copenhagen in December is crucial for the world, and for his success as secretary-general.

Chile's UN Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, who went to Antarctica with Ban to see the impact of global warming on the continent's melting glaciers, said it was too early to judge his tenure as secretary-general.

But he underlined "how active and successful he has been on climate change ...