OxBlog

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

# Posted 6:59 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

BYE-BYE ANNAN, HELLO BAN-BAN: It turns out that John Bolton is a big fan of Ban Ki-Moon, the new UN Secretary General. The first thing Bolton praises Ban for is defending (or at least refusing to condemn) the Iraqi decision to put Saddam to death. In addition, as part of a commitment to greater transparency, Ban made his personal finances public (something Annan would never do). Finally, Ban asked for the resignations of all of the UN's top executives so he could put his own team in place instead of preserving bureaucratic privilege.

All of which leads me to ask the obvious question: How did Ban ever get appointed as Secretary General? On a related note, are his moves toward transparency and accountability a reflection of the fact that he made his career in the truly democratic republic of South Korea?
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Comments:
Ban largely made his career before South Korea's democratic transition. Also I would not rank either transparency or accountability particularly high as values in the South Korean political system.
 
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