OUR LEADER OF LEADERS
Ex-PM leads tributes to peace hero
Gordon Brown hailed Kofi Annan as “a leader of leaders” as he paid tribute to the former United Nations secretary-general, who has died at the age of 80.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner passed away peacefully yesterday morning after a short illness, his foundation said. Former prime minister Brown, who is the UN special envoy for global education, said it had been “a privilege” to work with Annan. He added: “Kofi Annan was a leader of leaders, a wonderful humanitarian and the most compassionate and caring of individuals. “Personally modest and always softly spoken, he was a titan amongst world statesmen who saw wrong and righted it and who witnessed evil and always fought it. “Even in his later years, he fought against pover ty, injustice and war with all the vigour of youth.” Annan was one of the world’s most celebrated diplomats and spent nearly his entire career at the UN. Born in Ghana in 1938, he joined the global body in 1962 when he became a budget officer at the World Health Organisation. He served as secretarygeneral from 1997 to 2006 and was awarded the Nobel Prize jointly with the UN in 2001. Annan spent much of his tenure struggling to restore the global body’s tarnished reputation. He attended the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005, which coincided with a campaign, backed by singers Bono and Bob Geldof, to offer debt relief and more aid to African countries. The G8 leaders agreed to double the aid package and Annan called it “the greatest summit for Africa ever”.
When he departed office, he left behind an organisation far more aggressively engaged in peacekeeping and fighting poverty.
He returned in special roles, including as the UN and Arab League’s special envoy to Syria in 2012, and remained a powerful advocate for global causes.
Current Secretary- General Antonio Guterres said: “In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations. He rose through the ranks to lead the organisation into the new millennium with matchless dignity and determination.”
Ghana’s president Nana Akufo- Addo sa id Annan wa s “one of our greatest compatriots” and cal led for f lags in the country to be flown at half-mast for a week.
Prime Minister Theresa May praised Annan for reforming the UN and said he made a “huge contribution to making the world he has left a better place than the one he was born into”.
Former PM Tony Blair, who clashed with Annan over the 2003 Iraq war, said he was “widely respected and will be greatly missed”.
Amnesty International said: “Kofi ’s dedication and drive for a more peaceful and just world, his lifelong championing of human rights, and the dignity and grace with which he led, will be sorely missed in a world which needs these characteristics more than ever.”
Annan, who had been living near Geneva in recent years, died in a Swiss hospital. He is survived by his wife Nane and three children.