UN’S ‘ROCK STAR’ FALLS
Tributes pour in for Kofi Annan
● Former UN secretary-general and Nobel peace prize laureate Kofi Annan died yesterday at the age of 80, his foundation said, after decades of championing efforts to try to end protracted conflicts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Annan, a Ghanaian, died in hospital in Bern, Switzerland, in the early hours. In Geneva, the Kofi Annan Foundation announced his peaceful death after a short, undisclosed illness with “immense sadness”, saying he was surrounded in his last days by his second wife Nane and children Ama, Kojo and Nina.
After rising through the ranks of the UN, Annan served two terms as secretary-general in New York from 1997-2006 and retired to a Swiss village in the Geneva countryside.
His 10-year-old foundation promotes good governance and the transformation of African agriculture.
“In many ways, Kofi Annan was the UN. He rose through the ranks to lead the organisation into the new millennium with matchless dignity and determination,” current secretary-general Antonio Guterres, whom Annan had chosen to head the UN refugee agency, said in a statement.
Annan and the UN shared the 2001 Nobel prize for efforts to reform the world body and give priority to human rights. As head of UN peacekeeping operations, Annan was criticised for the world body’s failure to halt the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s.
As UN boss he was linked to peace efforts to reunite the divided island of Cyprus, submitting a reunification blueprint which was rejected in a referendum by Greek Cypriots in 2004.
He staunchly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and later served as the first UN envoy at the start of Syria’s civil war, but quit after world powers failed to fulfil their commitments, saying: “I lost my troops on the way to Damascus.”
He admitted that the organisation was not perfect. “The UN can be improved. It is not perfect, but if it didn’t exist you would have to create it,” he told the BBC’s Hard Talk during an interview for his 80th birthday.
“I am a stubborn optimist, I was born an optimist and will remain an optimist,” said Annan.
President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday said Annan was “a great leader and diplomat extraordinaire” who had advanced the African agenda in the UN and had “flown the flag for peace” around the world.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu‚ a fellow Nobel peace laureate‚ described Annan’s death as “devastating”.
“We give great thanks to God for Kofi Annan‚ an outstanding human being who represented our continent and the world with enormous graciousness‚ integrity and distinction,” Tutu said.
“It was a tremendous honour and privilege to have Kofi serve as a member of The Elders during my period as chairperson‚ and to be succeeded by someone of his calibre.”
The Elders, a group of former leaders including three-time Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and former Irish president Mary Robinson, paid tribute to their inspiring chairman, noting his visits to SA and Zimbabwe in July.
The DA described Annan as one of the “great African diplomats of our time”.
Kenyan opposition leader and former prime minister Raila Odinga said Annan was “a man of integrity; a great African, a great leader of the world”.