Kofi Annan. Photo-un.org
Kofi Annan, possibly the most beloved UN secretary-general, died on Aug. 18, 2018, at age 80, in Bern, Switzerland. After he left the UN in 2006, he joined The Elders, a group that uses diplomacy to resolve intractable problems. THE ELDERS
Kofi Annan, the seventh and probably the most popular and widely respected secretary-general the United Nations has ever known, died unexpectedly in Bern, Switzerland, early on Saturday morning, Aug. 18. His death followed what initial reports described only as a short illness. He led the UN for two terms, from 1997 through 2006, winning the Nobel Peace Prize for himself and the organization in 2001.
“Kofi Annan was a guiding force for good,” Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement after hearing the news. “It is with profound sadness that I learned of his passing. In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations. He rose through the ranks to lead the organization into the new millennium with matchless dignity and determination. . . . His legacy will remain a true inspiration for all us.” (The UN has compiled tributes to Annan.)
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, who is leaving the job on Aug. 31, expressed the feelings of many in the UN and others around the world when he said that he was “grief-stricken” by the news. He called Annan “a friend to thousands and a leader of millions,” and added, “In a world now filled with leaders who are anything but that, our loss, the world’s loss, becomes even more painful.”
Annan, a Ghanaian and the first secretary-general from sub-Saharan Africa, was the American choice for the job under President Bill Clinton in 1996, whose administration had abruptly denied Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt a second term. But within a few years, Annan was almost intolerably pressured by the US under President George E. Bush and his foremost official on UN policy and one-time envoy to the organization, John Bolton.
Republicans on the ever-more powerful right wing in the US Congress were livid when Annan acknowledged that he believed that the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US was “illegal” because it did not have Security Council authorization.
Earlier, several members of Congress, with some media support in the US, also began an unrelenting, though misguided, campaign against Annan when a corruption scandal erupted over a program that allowed Iraq to sell oil, despite Security Council sanctions. The goal of the program was to raise money for food and other necessities that Iraqi citizens were unable to obtain under the sanctions.
A thorough investigation by Paul Volcker, a former US Federal Reserve chairman, cleared the UN but said that Annan could have managed the affair better.
Nikki Haley, the current US ambassador to the UN and a persistent critic of the organization, was gracious in her praise of Annan, reflecting the general respect for him around the organization and diplomatic world.
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