The WaPo reports that under skipper Ban Ki-moon, Koreans have dramatically raised their profile at the UN, apparently much to the chagrin of some UN staff and delegates:
South Korea’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Choi Young-jin, will travel to Ivory Coast in the coming weeks to run the world body’s peacekeeping efforts, making him the first South Korean diplomat to lead a major U.N. mission in Africa, and the latest compatriot tapped for a significant position by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The appointments have signaled South Korea’s emergence as a rising power on the international diplomatic stage. But they have also fueled resentment among some U.N. employees and delegates who feel that Ban — who became secretary general in January after serving as South Korea’s minister of foreign affairs and trade — is advancing the interests of his home government, which invested financially and politically in Ban’s rise to the top.
“There is talk about Korean omnipresence in the [U.N.] secretariat,” said Samir Sanbar, a retired Lebanese national who served as a high-ranking U.N. official for decades. “The impression is that Koreans are taking the decisions.”
Read the rest on your own. Anyway, yeah, it’s probably not nice that Koreans are taking over the UN, if that’s what’s actually occurring. But then again, a) anything that annoys the UN bureaucracy is probably a good thing, and b) frankly, I’d rather see Koreans making the decisions over there than, say, the vice foreign minister of Togo or the former Bhutanese ambassador to Ecuador — for all their faults, at least Korean bureaucrats perform their jobs at a level that approximates competency.
(HT to reader)
21 Comments
Koreans and Americans together should rule.
Let’s kick some Commie asses.
There are Middle Eastern Commies, European(especially French) Commies and Asian Commies..
Even old Russian Commies are coming back.
Kick their ass.
Unfortunately, Koreans are by nature communistic and socialistic. I think we’d need to completely eradicate those tendencies first.
Just imagine if he had been Chinese or American.
BAN: “This is just unfair, just unfair, just unfair,” Ban said in an interview last month, noting that South Korean nationals have been historically underrepresented at the United Nations. “I have intentionally, deliberately tried to distance myself from Korea. You may agree or not agree, but I have been troubled by the perception . . . that I have been relying too much on Koreans.”
I doubt this has much to do with Korea, per se. I think it is simply the culture of the UN leadership to take offense when someone DARES to question them. Note the emotional reply, rather than rational explanation, similar to what you’d get if you told your girlfriend her ass looks fat in those jeans. Someone doth protest too much, methinks.
54 to 759… Why do I get the feeling this is inclusive of UN Peace Keepers?
I hate monkey statistics like this… And by monkey stats I mean ones that try to make a point using unequivalent/unrelated factors like “South Korea.. the eleventh-largest…contributor” contrasted with “the Philippines, a much poorer country…”
This is probably just the reporter being lazy and thinking we are stupid, but it lends one to suspect that they are hiding something… like maybe the philipines has higher contributions, or its contribution over a longer period of time might reflect this etc…
This reminds me of a conversation I had with an aging German kriegsbechadigt in Munich in 1974. We were talking about the war and, when I told him that my uncle was with Patton’s Third, he shook his head and said it was such a shame that when we got to Germany we didn’t join forces with the Wehrmacht to exterminate the Commies.
Ran Baduk’s up the flagpole and no one saluted either.
In 1991 the Koreas joined the UN. Within a few months Korea was whingeing about its contribution vis-à-vis the value of contracts its companies were awarded.
Such is the way of things.
Everyone wants their fair share of the loot and the sinecures. What else is new at the world’s most corrupt institution?
8. exactly. who didn’t see this coming, anyway?
First the UN.
Then feminist comic book lines (see review for “Good as Lily”).
Then the world?
@6:
1974 ?
That was exactly the year when I left Germany as a 9-year-old, to move to HK.
And ba that time such people were still around ? I sure didn’t notice but then, I was just a kid…
Should have read:
And by that time…
Fantasy:
Such people?
meaning the war wounded? - yeah, lots; they even had special recreation areas for them, so regular folks wouldn’t be grossed out seeing the wear and tear of battle on the human body. I saw such a beach resort near Radolfzell-am-Bodensee.
meaning people who didn’t get it? - yeah, a lot of them too
I rather thought of the latter than the former…
The rap at the 2007 UNGA has some overlap with the WAPO article, but boils down to complaints not so much about Ban, but about the #2 Mr Kim mentioned in the report. They include:
–Having sacked a lot of the people from the Kofi Annan era who had necessary expertise in key conflict areas and peacekeeping in general.
–”Koreans only” secrecy at some key junctures.
–Ban’s Korean team lacks broad international experience and vision.
I don’t find these surprising, but I second the Marmot’s view of UN bureaucrats and take the self-interested complaints some make with a grain of salt.
On Ban, the consistent complaint is hard-to-understand English and non-existent French. Some accuse him of being too close to and too solicitous of the Americans.
Why are my comments moderated and others not? I eliminated the obscenities… a comment length issue? maybe too many linked sources are causing them to be automatically blocked?
(note: I had five links to sources in my post, so evidently this triggered a spam block, moderator: please delete this post, my number 14 and my number 18, and if its OK, approve 17 please. sorry I’ll know next time)
What do you know, as of June 2007 the Philippines had 600 soldiers deployed in UN peacekeeping missions
While “6 months before Ban Ki Moon” took office” (how much more cherry picked can you get?) Korea had relatively few from between 9-34. I can’t find exact figures, but it works out something like this:
- 393 deployed in total right now…
- 350 of those are in Lebanon which started in July 2007 and an unspecified number were deploy to East Timor in August 2006 after the time frame mentioned by the article
- 2 in Liberia, 7 in Georgia (both from 2003) and ? in Northern Sudan(from 2005; not Dafur) at the time mentioned by the article
That means there were somewhere between 10-34 ROK peacekeppers deployed and ~600 Filipinos at the time in question. based on that, I find it highly likely that whoever made this argument is including peacekeepers in its 54-759 figure… so in other words if Ban Ki Moon or the Washington post is using this disparity in July of 2006 to justify how Korea is under represented in the UN they are smoking the wrong stuff, because its the Korean Government is responsible for sending peacekeepers…
“Everyone wants their fair share of the loot and the sinecures. What else is new at the world’s most corrupt institution?”
Yes, and it’s those ’selfish’ Americans (who only look after their own interests) who are paying a huge chunk of the bills. C’mon UN, put more hacks on the payroll, the Yankees and a few other rich suckers will eventually foot the bill.
Kofi’s kronies had “expertise?”
well, I guess if you count expertise in graft, obfuscation, and appeasement then yes, kofi had the all stars.
The people I spoke to were referring not so much to Annan cronies, but to seconded diplomats and others who ran peacekeeping and other emergency operations. Again, it is still the UN, so the “grain of salt” advice applies.
It really is a delight to see Ban rather than the kleptocrat Kofi in that position - I still maintain his being there now is a portent suggesting something big in the wind vis-a-vis NK.