UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: Biography, Diplomatic Activity

Ban Ki-moon - who is this? His name often sounds from TV screens in news releases. He was a South Korean diplomat and politician, led the Foreign Ministry of this country in 2004-2006. Well, today Ban Ki-moon - who is this? Since the beginning of 2007, he has become the eighth UN Secretary General and continues to hold this post to the present.

Ban Ki-moon: biography

His nationality is Korean. As you know, now it is a divided people living in two states - North and South Korea. In which of the Koreas was Ban Ki-moon born? His biography began in 1944 in the central part of South Korea, near the city of Chungju, when all this then a single country was under the rule of the Japanese empire. Father Pan was a merchant, he had his own warehouse. As a child, he had to experience the horrors of the Korean War, when the family of Pan was forced to flee, fleeing from the North Korean army.

How did Ban Ki-moon live? His biography turned out to be closely related to the United States. In high school, he was the best student in the study of English. To practice in conversational practice, the boy often walked a distance of 10 km to a local factory where American specialists worked. His success was confirmed when, in 1962, he won a language contest and traveled for several months to the US, where he also met with President John F. Kennedy. It was then that Pan decided to become a diplomat.

What did Ban Ki-moon do to realize his dream? His biography continued at the University of Seoul, which he graduated in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in international relations. Later, already a diplomat, he studied at the school. Kennedy, located at Harvard University, which he graduated in 1985 with a master's degree in public administration.

How did Ban Ki-moon begin his diplomatic career? His biography began in the diplomatic field under the military dictatorship of Park Jeong-Hee (until 1979) and continued during the reign of President Chung Du Hwan (1980-1988), who seized power after a military coup. Almost all of his long diplomatic career, Pan spent abroad, which allowed him to stay out of the turmoil of intra-Korean politics.

Steps of the career ladder

In which countries did Ban Ki-moon work? His biography as a diplomat dates back to 1972, when he became vice-consul in New Delhi. Two years later, he was appointed first secretary in the Permanent Observer Mission from his country to the UN (South Korea was not a member of the UN until 1991, but had the status of permanent observer). In November 1980, he received the post of the head of the UN department in the South Korean Foreign Ministry. In 1987 and again in 1992 he was appointed to the embassy in Washington, and between these appointments served as the general manager of the Foreign Ministry on American issues.

From 1993 to 1994, Pan was deputy to the Ambassador of South Korea to the United States.

In 1995, he was appointed deputy minister for policy planning and international relations, and the following year he became the chief adviser to the South Korean president on national security issues.

Conflict with the US and dismissal from service

He became ambassador to Austria and Slovenia in 1998, and a year later was also elected chairman of the commission working on the preparation of a treaty providing for a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. In the course of this work, Pan, as he believes, made the biggest mistake in his career, namely, he signed an open letter from an international group of diplomats calling for the preservation of the ABM treaty shortly after the United States withdrew from the treaty. To avoid anger from the US, Ban Ki-moon was dismissed by President Kim Dae-jung, who also issued a public statement apologizing for the actions of the South Korean diplomat.

Renewal in the diplomatic service

Thus, at the beginning of the new millennium, Pan turned out to be an unemployed diplomat and was waiting for appointment to a remote and unimportant embassy. But in 2001, during the 56th session of the UN General Assembly, at which South Korea presided over, to Pan's surprise, he was elected Chief of Staff of the Chairman of the Assembly Han Seung-soo. In 2003, the newly elected president, No Mu Hyun, removed Pan from the profession and appointed him as one of its foreign policy advisers.

A new rise and a career peak

In January 2004, Pan became Minister of Foreign Affairs under President No Mu-hyen. In September 2005, he played an important role in the so-called Six-Party Talks in Beijing on the North Korean nuclear issue. After that, his government in January 2006 nominated Pan as a candidate for the election of the new UN Secretary General. He was elected to this post on October 13, 2006 by the UN General Assembly. On November 1, 2006, he resigned as the head of the South Korean Foreign Ministry, and on December 14, 2006, the new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took the oath.

Activities at the most important international diplomatic post

How has the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon manifested himself after his election to the post? At his first press conference on January 2, 2007, he did not condemn (contrary to the expectations of many) the execution of Saddam Hussein three days earlier and stated that the issue of the use of the death penalty as punishment for criminal offenses was a matter for each specific country. Pan was criticized for this position. With this in mind, he stated in two weeks' time in Washington that a growing trend in international law and domestic politics and practice was the phasing out of the use of the death penalty.

On March 22, 2007, he barely escaped the deaths from the terrorist attack in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Only 50 meters from the building in which the UN Secretary General spoke, the rocket exploded, leaving a funnel 1 meter in diameter. His arrival was strictly secret, so it is assumed that the terrorists had an informant. To date, no terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for this attack.

In an interview with the German media in July 2007 on the issue of the split in the UN over the legitimacy of the US military operation in Iraq, Ban Ki-moon said: "We must appreciate this contribution of the United States to the solution of the Iraq problem." This was interpreted as a step away from the harsh criticism of US actions by its predecessor, Kofi Annan.

Pan visited in 2007, during the Sudanese crisis, the Darfur region. After a visit to the refugee camp, he was shocked by what he saw.

Ban Ki-moon became the first Secretary General of the United Nations, who took part in the funeral ceremony on August 6, 2010 on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. For the first time there was also the US ambassador. The day before the ceremony, Ban Ki-moon met with the survivors of the nuclear explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and called for this meeting to abandon all nuclear weapons so that their use became impossible in principle.

In June 2011, his candidature was approved by the UN General Assembly for the post of General Secretary for a second term, and on January 1, 2012, Ban Ki-moon officially took over this post again. His photo, referring to this period, is presented below.

His second term was marked by large-scale crises in the Arab world. Unfortunately, the efforts made by the UN special envoys appointed by the UN Secretary-General for Syria have not been crowned with success. On the issue of the crisis in Ukraine, the UN has not taken an active position, at least until now, no notable initiative has been heard of it.

Ban Ki-moon: personal life

He is married for 40 years to his former classmate Yu Sung Tak, who met at school in 1962, and has one son and two daughters. He speaks English, French, Italian, German and Japanese.