Childhood and education
Ban was born in
Eumseong in a small farming village in
North Chungcheong, in 1944 at the end of the
Japanese rule of Korea. His family moved to the nearby town of
Chungju, where he was raised.
[4] During Ban's childhood, his father had a warehouse business, but the warehouse went bankrupt and the family lost its middle-class standard of living. When Ban was six, his family fled to a remote mountainside for the duration of the
Korean War.
[1] After the war ended, his family returned to Chungju. Ban has mentioned meeting
U.S. militarytroops at this time.
[5]In secondary school (
Chungju High School), Ban became a star pupil, particularly in his studies of
English. In 1952, he was selected by his class to address a message to then UN Secretary-General
Dag Hammarskjöld, but it is unknown if the message was ever sent. In 1962, Ban won an essay contest sponsored by the
Red Cross and earned a trip to the
United States where he lived in
San Francisco with a host family for several months.
[6] As part of the trip, Ban met U.S. President
John F. Kennedy.
[1] When a journalist at the meeting asked Ban what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, "I want to become a diplomat."
[5][edit]Families
Ban Ki-moon met Yoo Soon-taek in 1962 when they were both high school students. Ban was 18 years old, and Yoo Soon-taek was his secondary school's student council president. Ban Ki-moon married Yoo Soon-taek in 1971. They have three adult children: two daughters and a son. His eldest daughter, Seon-yong (born 1972), works for the
Korea Foundation in Seoul. His son, Woo-hyun (born 1974) received an MBA from
Anderson School of Management at
University of California, Los Angeles and works for an investment firm in New York.
[10] His youngest daughter, Hyun-hee (born 1976), is a field officer for
UNICEF in
Nairobi,
Kenya.
[1] After his election as Secretary-General, Ban became an icon in his hometown, where his extended family still resides. Over 50,000 gathered in a soccer stadium in Chungju for celebration of the result. In the months following his election, thousands of practitioners of
feng shui went to his village to determine how it produced such an important person.
[4] Ban himself is not a member of any church or religious group
[2] and has declined to expound his beliefs: "Now, as Secretary-General, it will not be appropriate at this time to talk about my own belief in any particular religion or God. So maybe we will have some other time to talk about personal matters."
[3] His mother is reportedly
Buddhist.
[4][edit]Personality
In the Korean Foreign Ministry his nickname was
Ban-jusa, meaning "the Bureaucrat" or "the administrative clerk." The name was used as both positive and negative: complimenting Ban's attention to detail and administrative skill while deriding what was seen as a lack of charisma and subservience to his superiors.
[11] The Korean press corps calls him "the slippery eel" for his ability to dodge questions.
[5] His demeanor has also been described as a "
Confucian approach."
[12][edit]Diplomatic career
His first overseas posting was to
New Delhi, India where he served as vice consul and impressed many of his superiors in the foreign ministry with his competence. Ban reportedly accepted a posting to India rather than the more prestigious United States, because in
India he would be able to save more money, and send more money home to his family.
[13][14] In 1974 he received his first posting to the United Nations, as First Secretary of the South Permanent Observer Mission (South Korea became a full UN member-state on 17 September 1991).
[15] After
Park Chung-hee's 1979 assassination, Ban assumed the post of Director of the United Nations Division.
In 1980 Ban became director of the United Nation's International Organizations and Treaties Bureau, headquartered in
Seoul.
[14] He has been posted twice to the Republic of Korea embassy in
Washington, D.C. Between these two assignments he served as Director-General for American Affairs in 1990–1992. In 1992, he became 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.
[13] From 1993–1994 Ban was Korea's deputy ambassador to the United States. He was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations in 1995 and then appointed National Security Advisor to the President in 1996.
[14]Ban's lengthy career overseas has been credited with helping him avoid South Korea's unforgiving political environment.
[12]Ban was unemployed for the only time in his career and was expecting to receive an assignment to work in a remote and unimportant embassy.
[1] In 2001, during the 56th Session of the
United Nations General Assembly, the Republic of Korea held the rotating presidency, and to Ban's surprise, he was selected to be the chief of staff to general assembly president
Han Seung-soo.
[16] In 2003, the new Korean President
Roh Moo-hyun selected Ban as one of his foreign policy advisors.
[14][edit]Foreign Minister of Korea
In 2004, Ban replaced
Yoon Young Kwan as foreign minister of Korea under president
Roh Moo-hyun.
[5] At the beginning of his term, Ban was faced with two major crises: in June 2004
Kim Sun-il, a Korean translator, was kidnapped and killed in Iraq by
Islamic extremists; and in December 2004 dozens of Koreans died in the
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Ban survived scrutiny from lawmakers and saw an upturn in his popularity when talks began with North Korea.
[14] Ban became actively involved in issues relating to inter-Korean relationships.
[13] 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.
[17][18]As foreign minister, Ban oversaw the trade and aid policies of South Korea. This work put Ban in the position of signing trade deals and delivering foreign assistance to diplomats who would later be influential in his candidacy for Secretary-General. For example, Ban became the first senior South Korean minister to travel to the
Congo since its independence in 1960.
[19][edit]Campaign for Secretary-General: 2007
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 the office.
[21] Though Ban was the first to announce a candidacy, he was not originally considered a serious contender.
[6]Over the next eight months, Ban made ministerial visits to each of the 15 countries with a seat on the Security Council.
[5] Of the seven candidates, he topped each of the four
straw polls conducted by the
United Nations Security Council: on 24 July,
[22] 14 September,
[23] 28 September,
[24] and 2 October.
[25]During the period in which these polls took place, Ban made major speeches to the
Asia Society and the
Council on Foreign Relationsin New York.
[26][27] To be confirmed, Ban needed not only to win the support of the diplomatic community, but also to be able to avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members of the council:
People's Republic of China,
France,
Russia, the
United Kingdom, and the
United States. Ban was popular in Washington for having pushed to send South Korean troops to Iraq. But Ban also opposed several U.S. positions: he expressed his support for the
International Criminal Court and favoured an entirely non-confrontational approach to dealing with North Korea.
[5] Ban said during his campaign that he would like to visit North Korea in person to meet with
Kim Jong-il directly.
[18] Ban was viewed as a stark contrast from Kofi Annan, who was considered charismatic, but perceived as a weak manager because of problems surrounding the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq.
[11]Ban also struggled to win the approval of France. His official biography states that he speaks both
English and
French, the two working languages of the UN Secretariat. He has repeatedly struggled to answer questions in French from journalists.
[9] Ban has repeatedly acknowledged his limitations at French, but assured French diplomats that he was devoted to continuing his study. At a press conference on 11 January 2007, Ban remarked, “My French perhaps could be improved, and I am continuing to work. I have taken French lessons over the last few months. I think that, even if my French isn't perfect, I will continue to study it.”
[28]As the Secretary-General election 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 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
aid to
developing countries were the focus of many news articles.
[29] 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 said that these insinuations were "groundless." In an interview on 17 September 2006 he stated: "As front-runner, I know that I can become a target of this very scrutinizing process," and "I am a man of integrity."
[30]In the final informal poll on 2 October, Ban received fourteen favorable votes and one abstention ("no opinion") from the fifteen members of the Security Council. The one abstention came from the Japanese delegation, who
vehemently opposed the idea of a Korean taking the role of Secretary-General. Due to the overwhelming support of Ban by the rest of the Security Council, Japan later voted in favor of Ban to avoid controversy. More importantly, Ban was the only one to escape a veto; each of the other candidates received at least one "no" vote from among the five permanent members.
[31] After the vote, Shashi Tharoor, who finished second, withdrew his candidacy
[32] 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."
[33]On 9 October, the Security Council formally chose Ban as its nominee. In the public vote, he was supported by all 15 members of the council.
[34] On 13 October, the 192-member
General Assembly acclaimed Ban as Secretary-General.
[16][edit]Term as Secretary-General
When Ban became Secretary-General,
The Economist listed the major challenges facing him in 2007: "rising nuclear demons in
Iran and North Korea, a haemorrhaging wound in
Darfur, unending violence in the Middle East, looming environmental disaster, escalating international terrorism, the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, the spread of HIV/AIDS. And then the more parochial concerns, such as the largely unfinished business of the most sweeping attempt at reform in the UN's history."
[35] Before starting, Kofi Annan shared the story that when the first Secretary-General
Trygve Lie left office, he told his successor,
Dag Hammarskjöld, "You are about to take over the most impossible job on earth."
[16]On 23 January 2007 Ban took office as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ban's term as Secretary-General opened with a flap. At his first encounter with the press as Secretary-General on 2 January 2007, he refused to condemn the
death penalty imposed on
Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi High Tribunal, remarking that “The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member State to decide.”
[36] Ban's statements contradicted long-standing United Nations opposition to the death penalty as a human-rights concern.
[37] He quickly clarified his stance in the case of
Barzan al-Tikriti and
Awad al-Bandar, two top officials who were convicted of the deaths of 148
Shia Muslims in the Iraqi village of
Dujail in the 1980s. In a statement through his spokesperson on 6 January, he “strongly urged the Government of Iraq to grant a stay of execution to those whose death sentences may be carried out in the near future.”
[38][39] On the broader issue, he told a Washington, D.C., audience on 16 January 2007 that he recognized and encouraged the “growing trend in international society, international law and domestic policies and practices to phase out eventually the death penalty.”
[40][edit]Cabinet
In early January, Ban appointed the key members of his cabinet. As his
Deputy Secretary-General, he selected
Tanzanian foreign minister and professor
Asha-Rose Migiro – a move that pleased African diplomats who had concerns of losing power without Annan in office.
[42]Ban initially said that he would delay making other appointments until his first round of reforms were approved, but he later abandoned this idea after receiving criticism.
[38][44] In February he continued with appointments, selecting
B. Lynn Pascoe, the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, to become Under-Secretary-General for political affairs.
Jean-Marie Guéhenno, a French diplomat, who had served as Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations under Annan, remained in office. Ban selected
Vijay K. Nambiar as his chief of staff.
[45]The appointment of many women to top jobs was seen as fulfilling a campaign promise Ban had made to increase the role of women in the United Nations. During Ban's first year as Secretary-General, more top jobs were being handled by women than ever before. Though not appointed by Ban, the president of the General Assembly,
Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, is only the third woman to hold this position in UN history.
[46][edit]Reform agenda
During his first month in office, Ban proposed two major restructurings: to split the UN peacekeeping operation into two departments and to combine the political affairs and disarmament department. His proposals were met with stiff resistance from members of the UN General Assembly who bristled under Ban's request for rapid approval. The proposed merger of the disarmament and political affairs offices was criticized by many in the developing world, partially because of rumours that Ban hoped to place American B. Lynn Pascoe in charge of the new office.
Alejandro D. Wolff, then acting American ambassador, said the United States backed his proposals.
[38][44]After the early bout of reproach, Ban began extensive consultation with UN ambassadors, agreeing to have his peacekeeping proposal extensively vetted. After the consultations, Ban dropped his proposal to combine political affairs and disarmament.
[47] Ban nevertheless pressed ahead with reforms on job requirements at the UN requiring that all positions be considered five-year appointments, all receive strict annual performance reviews, and all financial disclosures be made public. Though unpopular in the New York office, the move was popular in other UN offices around the world and lauded by UN observers.
[48] Ban's proposal to split the peacekeeping operation into one group handling operations and another handling arms was finally adopted in mid-March 2007.
[49]A new agenda for negotiations on UN reform was approved by the General Assembly in April 2007, covering a number of loosely related initiatives to improve the coherence of the UN system. Most proposals required the approval of member states; others provided further impetus to already initiated reform measures. Ban Ki-moon supported the ongoing negotiations on the consolidation of UN activities at the country level under the ‘Delivering as One’ initiative through the implementation of the ‘One UN’ pilot projects and the harmonization of business practices in the UN system. He also gave strong support to the proposal on establishing a unified gender organisation. Whereas little was achieved on most of the controversial issues, the General Assembly approved in September 2010 the establishment of ‘UN Women’ as the new UN organization for the empowerment of women and gender equality. UN Women was established by unifying the mandates and resources for greater impact of four small entities and its first head is Ms Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile.
[citation needed][edit]Key issues
The Secretary-General of the United Nations has the ability to influence debate on nearly any global issue. Although unsuccessful in some areas, Ban's predecessor Annan had been successful in increasing the UN peacekeeping presence and in popularizing the
Millennium Development Goals. UN observers were eager to see on which issues Ban intends to focus, in addition to reform of the United Nations bureaucracy.
[35][edit]Global warming
Ban early on identified
global warming as one of the key issues of his administration. In a
White House meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in January, Ban urged Bush to take steps to curb
greenhouse gas emissions. On 1 March 2007 in a speech before the UN General Assembly, Ban further emphasized his concerns about global warming. Ban stated, "For my generation, coming of age at the height of the Cold War, fear of
nuclear winter seemed the leading
existential threat on the horizon. But the danger posed by war to all humanity — and to our planet — is at least matched by
climate change"
[51] (referring to
Global Warming, see
P:GW portal).
[edit]Middle East
On Thursday, 22 March 2007, while Ban was taking part in the first stop of a tour of the Middle East, a mortar attack hit just 80 meters (260 ft) from where the Secretary-General was standing, interrupting a press conference in
Baghdad's
Green Zone, and visibly shaking Ban and others. No one was hurt in the incident.
[52] The United Nations had already limited its role in Iraq after its Baghdad headquarters was bombed in August 2003, killing 22 people. Ban said, however, that he still hoped to find a way for the United Nations to "do more for Iraqi social and political development."
[53]Ban Ki-moon criticized Israel on 10 March 2008 for planning to build housing units in a
West Bank settlement, saying the decision conflicts with "Israel's obligation under the road map" for Middle East peace.
[55]During a meeting of the
UN Security Council on Wednesday, 7 January 2009, Ban called for an immediate end to fighting in the
Gaza Strip. He criticized both sides, Israel for bombarding
Gaza and Hamas for firing rockets into Israel.
[56]Although the
2009 Iranian presidential election was widely disputed, Ban Ki-moon sent a traditional congratulation message
[57] to Iranian president upon his inauguration. He kept silent over the request of
Shirin Ebadi to visit
[58] Iran after the crackdown on peaceful post-election protests by the Iranian police – an event that was perceived by some as a
crime against humanity .
[59] More than 4000 people were arrested and nearly 70 were killed, some while being held in prison.
[60] In another incident, several prominent intellectuals including
Akbar Ganji, Hamid Dabashi,
Noam Chomsky went on a three-day hunger strike
[61] in front of the UN. The incident was followed by an official request
[62]by more that 200 intellectuals, human rights activists and reformist politicians in Iran for the
UN reaction. Ban Ki-moon however did not take any action to stop the violence in Iran.
Ban took the first foreign trip of his term to attend the
African Union summit in
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, in January 2007 as part of an effort to reach out to the
Group of 77.
[35] He repeatedly identified Darfur as the top humanitarian priority of his administration.
[49] Ban played a large role, with several face-to-face meetings with
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in convincing Sudan to allow UN peacekeepers to enter the Darfur region. On 31 July 2007 the United Nations Security Council approved sending 26,000 UN peacekeepers into the region to join 7,000 troops from the African Union. The resolution was heralded as a major breakthrough in confronting the
Darfur conflict (although the United States labeled the conflict a "
genocide," the United Nations has declined to do so). The first phase of the peacekeeping mission began in October 2007.
[63][edit]Myanmar
Ban Ki-moon flew to Myanmar on 25 May 2008 to guide a conference with international agencies aimed at boosting donations for the nation, which was struck by
Cyclone Nargis on 2 May 2008. The conference was initiated after Ban had met with
Than Shwe, the leading figure of Myanmar's government 23 May 2008. Ban toured the devastation—especially in the hard-hit
Irrawaddy Delta—23 May 2008 and 24 May 2008. Myanmar officials agreed to allow the
Yangon International Airport to be used as a logistical hub for aid distribution.
[64][edit]Sri Lanka visit
The Secretary-General inspected refugee camps in Sri Lanka on May 2009, to ensure the 300,000 refugees were being taken care of properly. The people were uprooted by the intense fighting that ended Sri Lanka’s 25-year civil war. The Secretary-General also met with the President of Sri Lanka, who declared victory a few days earlier against the Tamil Tigers.
[65] The war started in 1972 with the demands of Tamil Eelam coming from the LTTE or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. After an unsuccessful six-year truce, the fighting began again and later the government of Sri Lanka would win over the LTTE organization.
[66] Ki-moon, in a statement ahead of World Press Freedom Day called on the government of Sri Lanka to ensure that those responsible for
Lasantha Wickrematunge's murder are found and prosecuted.
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