KOFI ANNAN OBITUARY
Toyin Falola
Begin forwarded message:
Farewell to An African Peacemaker
Adekeye Adebajo
Ghana’s Kofi Annan, whose death at the age of 80 was announced on Saturday, was the first black African to serve as Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), between 1997 and 2006. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the UN in 2001, though his most noteworthy mediation was in brokering a settlement in violence-stricken Kenya in 2008.
During his ten-year tenure as Secretary-General, Annan courageously, but perhaps naïvely, championed the cause of “humanitarian intervention.” After a steep decline in the mid-1990s, peacekeeping increased again by 2005 to around 80,000 troops, with Africa the main beneficiary. Annan also moved the UN bureaucracy from its creative inertia to embrace views and actors from outside the system.
At the time of his appointment, the Ghanaian diplomat was widely regarded as a competent administrator who had climbed up the UN system after a 30-year career. He was soft-spoken and unflappably calm. He seemed, at first, to be painfully shy and somewhat uncomfortable in the glare of the media cameras. Annan appeared to be better suited to the discreet role of a faceless bureaucrat than the high-profile role of a prophetic statesman. But his mild-mannered side masked a tough interior and a quiet determination.
In the Byzantine world of UN politics, various informal interest groups battle each other for plum posts. Annan appeared to have little patience for this kind of intrigue, believing instead in a charmingly antiquated version of meritocracy. He also seemed impressively to have made few enemies during his ascent to the top in this ruthless political environment of jostling Lords of the Manor jealously guarding bureaucratic fiefdoms.
Annan’s predecessor as UN Secretary-General was Egyptian scholar-diplomat, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who held the post between 1992 and 1996, and died in 2016. While Annan was naturally calm and conciliatory, Boutros-Ghali was stubborn and studious; where Annan was a bureaucratic creature of the UN system, and lived mostly in Western capitals, Boutros-Ghali was the most intellectually accomplished Secretary-General in the history of the office, and steeped in African politics. Where Boutros-Ghali was arrogant and cerebral, Annan was affable and charming. Where Boutros-Ghali was seen by his staff as an aloof, pompous Pharaoh, Annan was regarded as an accessible, personable Prophet. He and his Swedish wife Nane soon became regular New York socialites in contrast to the reclusive Boutros-Ghali.
Annan had studied at American institutions – Macalaster College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – and was effectively propelled into the UN top job by Washington. Astonishingly, he worked with the Americans to remove the first African Secretary-General: Boutros-Ghali. The Ghanaian thus never shook off the image among many Southern diplomats of being an American poodle. Before becoming Secretary-General, Annan had served as UN Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping under Boutros-Ghali, in a period that saw monumental blunders in Bosnia and Rwanda which did great damage to the UN’s and his own personal reputation. Independent reports in 1999 criticised Annan and his officials for a lack of courage in both failures.
The genocide in Rwanda particularly appeared to have personally scarred Annan, and dogged his historical legacy. Perhaps as a result of a sense of guilt from both debacles, as UN Secretary-General, he consistently championed “humanitarian intervention.” Many leaders in the global South, however, criticised Annan’s promotion of an idea that they saw as potentially allowing powerful states to launch self-interested interventions. These concerns appeared to have been confirmed by the widely condemned American invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Annan’s 2005 reform efforts established an ineffectual Peacebuilding Commission, a still contentious Human Rights Council, and the concept of the “responsibility to protect” which was widely seen to have been manipulated by Paris, London, and Washington to launch a “regime change” intervention in Libya in 2011. Annan’s reforms of the UN bureaucracy were methodical rather than revolutionary, continuing the reduction of staff began under his predecessor and initiating efforts at better coordination among UN departments. The Ghanaian was, however, accused of serious management failures in the “Oil-for Food” programme in Iraq.
Annan’s troubled final years in office saw him rendered a lame duck by the US, the country that had done the most to anoint him Secretary-General. He finally and painfully discovered the ancient wisdom: that one needs a long spoon to sup with the devil.
Professor Adekeye Adebajo is Director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg.
Business Day (South Africa); 20 August 2018.
Professor Adekeye Adebajo
Director, Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation
University of Johannesburg
5 Molesey Avenue Auckland Park 2092
Johannesburg, South Africa
Tel: 011 559 7232
Fax: 086 527 6448
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Kwabena Akurang-Parry
Sent: August 20, 2018 11:12 AM
To: dialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - KOFI ANNAN OBITUARY
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Harrow, Kenneth
this is a good obit. kofi annan brought a good deal of prestige to african political representation, for which we should be grateful. he did oppose expanding the un peacekeeping force in rwanda, as dallaire had requested,
and gave in to u.s. and belgian requests to bring down the size. the genocide was directly tied to that mistake. 800,000 rwandans died. if i fault annan, even more do i fault the person whose voice in financing peacekeepers, bill clinton, was determinate.
the french and americans supported belgian requests to bring down the small peacekeeping forces, for evil political reasons (in the case of the u.s. it was due to somalia, blackhawk down etc; the french were allies of the habyarimana govt following the belgian
retreat). they didn't know what would happen, at first. after a month, they knew and tergiversated for a month while hundred of thousands died. can you imagine clinton's secretary of state albright saying we were not bound by the un convention on genocide
since there were only "acts of genocide" and not genocide known to be occurring.
oh well, i could go on. kofi annan did not help things, but supported withdrawing peacekeepers. later he and clinton expressed remorse. too late for the dead.
so these great leaders, who also did much good in their lives, must bear the weight of this decision. we have to judge it, as best we can. and then, hard as it is, move on.
ken
To: dialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - KOFI ANNAN OBITUARY
Kwabena Akurang-Parry
To: dialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - KOFI ANNAN OBITUARY
Malami buba
Michael Afolayan
"Annan’s troubled final years in office saw him rendered a lame duck by the US, the country that had done the most to anoint him Secretary-General. He finally and painfully discovered the ancient wisdom: that one needs a long spoon to sup with the devil." (Adekeye Adebajo)So beautifully written! Thanks, Prof. Adebajo. Annan's experience in the final years in office with a deep fallout with his "kingmakers," the US, falls snuggly within the paradigm of the well-known conventional wisdom that there are only permanent interests in politics, no permanent friendship. It's even more so in global diplomacies. Regardless, Annan was a good representative - presented the image of Africa and of the Black race fairly well. He will be missed.Michael
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - KOFI ANNAN OBITUARY
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Cornelius Hamelberg
The world mourns Kofi Annan , perhaps Africa both black and white in particular, perhaps Ghana, more than others, since Mr. Annan held the highest diplomatic post in the world and as Africa's nicest face and nicest persona on the world stage, whether looking sad and sombre or smiling like Satchmo, always under the intense glare of the stage lights and headlines, on the whole discharged his duties creditably, failing which he would have been viciously criticized and “under attack – for just being black”
Even as I write this there is a discussion flaring in Facebook ; it begins
“ The British reportage on the death of Kofi Annan must be roundly condemned.”
Of course, I strongly disagree. You may read on and even join in on the discussion.
True: He did many good things in this world , not least of all, for Africa.
As the saying goes, “behind every successful man is a great woman” - in Mr. Annan's case her name is Nane Maria Annan – a half sister of Raoul Wallenberg . That connection itself conjures the working spirit of both Raoul Wallenberg and Dag Hammarskjöld
As eulogies usually go (in my experience, Prof Falola's being consistently the most outstandingly true to form in content and in spirit, giving praise where praise is due - as appreciation of lives well spent, usually of persons that he knew personally) these words penned by Professor Adekeye Adebajo are more of a critical assessment than the usual eulogy, critical, defined by someone as a “state of intellectual awareness”
Many thanks to Professor Harrow - for years now connected with Amnesty International endeavours in that area - for his clarifications on the Rwanda genocide debacle when our Kofi was somewhere near the helm of affairs at a time when old Bill was potus of America. Without Professor Harrow's clarification of what actually transpired, the ire and the onus of responsibility - the blame - has usually been laid squarely at the feet of President Clinton - and to some extent his aspiring wife “lyin' Hillary”- as Trump reminded us repeatedly, during the US Presidential campaign that got him elected, “Hillary Clinton is the worst State Secretary in the history of America. Thousands of people died because of her stupidity !” - at least according to Ishmael Reed's take which still rings like funeral bells in our ears: “He (Bill Clinton) refused to intervene to rescue thousands of Rwandans from genocide. (Did Mrs. Clinton tearfully beseech her husband to intervene on behalf of her African sisters;” Ma and Pa Clinton flog uppity Black Man
As the eulogies continue to pour in, our ears are cocked to hear what kind words Mr. Annan's godmother ( metaphorically speaking ) Madeleine Albright has to say about him, today. Then , she was visibly his chief sponsor for the job , when there were other under-secretaries and other candidates such as Dr. James Jonah ( sometime special envoy to Jerusalem) and when Mr. Annan's only setback was insufficient competence in the French language, a hurdle that was , within a few months, easily surmounted. Perhaps it's that symbiotic relationship with Mrs Albright that played out during the Rwanda debacle - in his case he did no evil and there is no evil that he should be remembered for.
Kofi Anann and the invasion of Iraq – a critical turning point in world history and that's all that I wish to take up here.
Some people, such as the Palestinians who supported Saddam's invasion of Kuwait said that Baby Bush should give the the twelve tribes of Israel half of Texas and leave Saddam & the Pals at peace in the Middle East. They are still angry about Baby Bush's invasion of Iraq without clearance from the United Nations; but after Colin Powell, using his walking stick to point at the map - at that special UN session, showing Saddam's launching pads evenly distributed throughout Iraq, had convinced most people that Saddam was the most dangerous terrorist dude on the planet , even if Mr. Annan was showing some reluctance in giving the go-ahead . Sitting as just another ignoramus in Stockholm subject to persuasion with what was later on described as a sexed-up report by British Intelligence about Saddam's weapons of mass Destruction, conviction about the threat came watching the UK parliamentary session live and direct on SKY TV, when Tony Blair breezed in and asked the assembled Parliamentarians on both sides of the house, ye sitting here on your asses, do you know that Saddam can deploy within 45 minutes ? And thus the fear of death by nuclear annihilation got the better of everybody in the House of Commons , so , within minutes Lord Goldsmith signed the War Act and Britain was officially at war again, this time in collusion with the US, against Saddam.
The Mullahs in Iran were overjoyed and said, “alhamdulillahi rabbil alamin ! “
This being neither critical assessment or eulogy, I still have my doubts about the inevitability of that invasion of Iraq. If someone like Olof Palme ( whose name was at some time in the offing) had been the Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time – and had been as vehemently opposed to that invasion as we believe Mr. Annan was, he would have put up more of a fight. It could have come to the boiling point of threatening to resign -etc. etc. etc. Some say, “fat lot of good that would have done!” Sad to say that what happened back then was that Kofi Annan was more or less treated like Manuel - in Fawlty Towers.
But that was at the beginning of his stint as Secretary General. '