President Thabo Mbeki bid farewell on Friday to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and thanked him for his contributions to the organisation.
Annan will end his 10-year tenure as UN Secretary General on December 31.
The Havana XIV Summit Meeting of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries (NAM), and the 61st Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), had given all participants an opportunity to convey warm thanks and a fond farewell to Annan, an outstanding global leader who had done Africa proud, Mbeki said in his weekly newsletter, ANC Today.
”We thank him for never losing sight of the fact that poverty and underdevelopment remain the biggest threat to the progress that has been achieved, and that equality among the nations, big and small, is central to the survival, relevance and credibility of this global organisation.”
Annan thanked delegates at the UNGA for allowing him to serve the UN for the past ten years.
”Together, we have pushed some big rocks to the top of the mountain, even if others have slipped from our grasp and rolled back. But this mountain, with its bracing winds and global views, is the best place on earth to be,” Annan said.
Mbeki said that within the context of Annan’s call for ”a global response, in which all peoples must play their part”, the African National Congress must act in a manner that reaffirmed its tradition of internationalism and human solidarity.
”What we do at home, in Africa and the rest of the world must continue to contribute to the birth of a just international order,” Mbeki said.
There are now six candidates in the race, in which South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon has emerged as favourite after Sri Lankan diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala withdrew from the race to succeed Annan. — Sapa