UNITED NATIONS – Unanimously re-elected to a second term on Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pledged to redouble efforts to strengthen human rights and start carrying out a global plan to lift millions out of abject poverty.
With a resounding applause, the 189-member General Assembly approved by acclamation a second five-year term for the 63-year-old son of a Ghanaian tribal chief.
His election was a foregone conclusion after the 15-member Security Council formally nominated him Wednesday. But Friday’s official endorsement gave nations rich and poor, from every part of the world, a chance to reflect on his first term – and set out future wishes.
Speaking on behalf of Latin America, El Salvador Ambassador Jose Andino Salazar encouraged Mr. Annan to strengthen “the principles of impartiality and independence of his duties against the pretensions or influence that any particular state … may want to exercise.”
Almost every speaker pointed to the ambitious agenda that Mr. Annan had drafted to reduce poverty, give every child an education, halt the AIDS epidemic and improve human rights. The agenda was adopted at last September’s Millennium Summit by more than 150 world leaders.
Mr. Annan said he would present a report to member states in September “indicating where we are succeeding and where we are failing, and why – and where they need to do more.”
He pledged to continue U.N. reform in his second term and to build partnerships outside the United Nations.
Under Mr. Annan’s leadership, the United Nations is playing a major peacekeeping role on several continents and has launched an overhaul of peacekeeping operations. He has overseen the settlement of a long dispute with Washington about the payment of U.N. dues and initiated a process to overhaul the U.N. bureaucracy.
Nonetheless, he has faced criticism for trying to negotiate with Saddam Hussein, for standing by as U.N. peacekeepers were kidnapped in Sierra Leone, and for proposing a policy of “humanitarian intervention” to end human rights abuses. Many countries argue the policy infringes on sovereignty.
