United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Amsterdam late on Wednesday after wrapping up a four-nation African tour that he said opened his eyes to the immense challenges facing the world’s least developed continent.
Ban flew in from Nairobi where he held talks with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and huddled with UN staff.
The former South Korean foreign minister was on Thursday to head for The Hague for talks with Dutch leaders, including Queen Beatrix, and tour the world court and the UN-backed International Criminal Court.
On his first trip since taking office on January 1, he visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Ethiopia and Kenya to signal the high priority he attaches to Africa.
The highlight of his tour was his attendance on Monday at the African Union (AU) summit, where he delivered a keynote speech and met individually with more than 20 leaders, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Somalia’s interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.
He urged Bashir to cease hostilities and to respond promptly and positively to a letter he sent outlining details of the planned deployment of more than 2 300 UN peacekeepers in Darfur to pave the way for a robust joint AU-UN force.
”No more time can be lost,” Ban said in Addis Ababa. ”The people of Darfur have been suffering for too long. This is unacceptable.”
In the DRC, he called for ”good governance”, respect for the rule of law and national reconciliation and reassured President Joseph Kabila that the world body had no plan to withdraw its 17 600 troops — the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation — in the country.
The force known as Monuc helped the DRC hold successful presidential and legislative elections, the first democratic polls in 40 years, last year.
Ban told reporters traveling with him that his visit to a hospital treating HIV/Aids-stricken children in Kinshasa and his tour of Nairobi’s Kibera slum, one of sub-Sahara’s largest, opened his eyes to the enormous challenges facing mineral-rich but poverty-stricken Africa.
The UN chief sought to project himself as a friend of Africa and hailed the growing partnership between the AU and the UN to tackle conflicts such as those in Darfur and Somalia, promote democracy and reduce poverty.
He thanked the 53-member AU for its support for his election as UN chief last year and said the African continent could learn from the experience of his own country.
”I witnessed how, through unity of purpose, my country was able to transform itself from a traumatised nation with an non-existing economy, into a vibrant, productive society and a regional economic power,” Ban told AU leaders in Addis Ababa on Monday.
”Let us bring the same unity of purpose to bear on development in Africa,” he added.
Aboard the UN plane that flew him to the African destinations, a relaxed Ban frequently mingled and bantered with reporters. In Nairobi, he invited them to dinner and regaled them with jokes.
Before visiting Africa, Ban stopped in Brussels, then Paris where he attended an aid conference for Lebanon reconstruction. – Sapa-AFP