New U.N. Secretary-General's First 100 Days Marked by Lots of Globetrotting

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's first 100 days as U.N. chief, by his own admission, have not been a honeymoon: He's done lots of globe-trotting, made some missteps, and had a few successes.

Ban mishandled U.N. reaction to Saddam Hussein's execution but has been successful in putting the international spotlight on the growing crisis in Darfur and keeping up the pressure for speedy action.

Just over three months after he took the reins of the United Nations from Kofi Annan, Ban is still trying to master the job of being a top world diplomat while running a giant international bureaucracy where 192 countries often have competing interests.

"As a grade for the first hundred days, I'd give him an A-plus for effort, and an incomplete for substance," former U.S. ambassador John Bolton said in an interview ahead of Ban's 100th day in the U.N. post on Tuesday.

Calling himself "a harmonizer and bridge-builder," the former South Korean foreign minister came to the United Nations promising to push for peace in Darfur and the Middle East.

He also promised to restore the U.N.'s tarnished reputation, which has been battered by the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, corruption in the U.N.'s purchasing operations, and sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers.

Edward Luck, director of Columbia University's Center on International Organization, said the best secretaries-general "combine advocacy for the U.N.'s core values with a very realistic and pragmatic sense of what can be accomplished at any point in time."

"He will have to define his tenure more boldly in the future, but personally, I don't think that's something for the first hundred days," Luck said in an interview.

He said Ban has been more outspoken on some issues than many people think.

The secretary-general told Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir that genocide was unacceptable and he had to live up to his promise to accept a hybrid African Union-U.N. force for Darfur, Luck said. He told President Bush that he wants to focus on climate change, and he told the Iranians that their rejection of the Holocaust is unacceptable.

But Ban ran into trouble on his first day of work Jan. 2 over Saddam's execution when he twice failed to state the U.N.'s opposition to the death penalty and stressed instead that capital punishment should be a decision of every country. The following day, his spokeswoman said he believes U.N. member states should move toward the abolition of capital punishment and the following week Ban said, "I encourage that trend."

In late January, he headed off on a four-nation African visit, including the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he tried unsuccessfully to get Sudan's al-Bashir to allow the deployment of an AU-U.N. force in Darfur.

In March, he made an unannounced visit to Iraq en route to the Arab League summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he again put the pressure on the Sudanese leader.

"He's certainly proven to be a very energetic secretary-general," Luck said. "Maybe his new label would be the ubiquitous Mr. Ban. He seems to be everywhere there needs to be a hole plugged in the dike.

"He's testing the waters in a lot of places, seeing what's possible, getting a feel for the current political dynamics and reminding people that in many cases there may be a U.N. option that they haven't considered," Luck said.

Ban hasn't been offering "any surefire solutions," he said, "but he … has been very eager to find out where the U.N. can make a difference, and to get a sense of where he should really focus his efforts in the coming months."

Lee Feinstein, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said Ban's second 50 days "are clearly better than the first, and he is making the right decision to put his energy behind getting results in Darfur."

"There's some question of whether patient diplomacy is still the right course, but he's clearly making a substantial effort and the style contrast with his predecessor is stark," Feinstein said in an interview. "Ban works behind the scene where Annan used the bully pulpit.

"He's having to overcome the perception that his lower-key style means he will be a less activist secretary-general, but it's too early to reach that conclusion, and Darfur will be a case in point," Feinstein said.

Bolton said Annan's supporters "used to put it out that he was the secular pope."

"I think the most important thing you can say about Ban Ki-moon is that he has not bought into this dangerous idea," Bolton said. "He is concentrating on doing the job of secretary-general. He's doing it in a circumspect way, kind of learning about it, but being very serious about it."

Bolton said many Americans would say he should go faster and push things through at the beginning, which he hasn't done.

"Even if you're not prepared to move in the first hundred days," he said, "the limit of the honeymoon period is the first six months. So I would say he's got another three months. But I would never underestimate the inertia in that (U.N.) building."


source -http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3025406