Tribute to late Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General
This tribute to a world leader is a grateful acknowledgement of his service to the United Nations (UN), a contemplation of his commitment to international peace and security and the development of the international community.
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He laid aside his own interests and pursuits to serve mankind.
A man who enhanced the foundation laid to improve upon what his predecessors did in the management of the UN.
Most humanitarian action that produced relief for refugees, homeless children and the internally displaced came from the late Secretary General.
I pay tribute to a brother, an uncle, a former world’s first diplomat and a statesman from the Ghanaian perspective, July 18, 2023, five years after his departure.
Our philosophy today must rest upon your conviction of justice and benevolence.
With regard to matters relating to the UN, you saw the end from the beginning.
This is why you made preventive diplomacy your watchword.
Before you, the problems and successes of the UN, past and present, were outspread.
While people were plotting the ruin of the human race, your peace initiatives and mechanisms for conflict resolutions overthrew their schemes.
Your calm disposition is a revelation of your nature and your conduct, the transcript of your character, the expressions of prudence, tact, love and wisdom.
You never prevented humanity from reaching a nobler development, your will was that humanity finds greater happiness on this planet.
You represented an opinion that nobody would gain anything by disregarding humanitarian laws.
The adherence to the principles of human rights was one of your pillars in the maintenance of international peace and stability.
Today, we hear similar reasoning from many world leaders.
You served the UN with undivided attention and heart; you faced the problems and trials in the organisation with fortitude and performed every duty with fidelity.
You were thoughtful, courageous and self-possessed and this enabled you to make such a record of firmness of character, uprightness and wisdom.
You paid faithful attention to duty in every station you worked.
Progress
During your term of office, the UN achieved impressive progress in all its agencies.
This really spotlighted the genuine interest you had in the United Nations.
You helped in exploring other avenues in assisting refugees, the internally displaced and other victims of war.
You held frank discussions with hands that were ever ready to assist the needy, so this gave greater historical depth to the UN, infusing the UN with a sense of mankind’s shared destinies.
This has sounded loud and clear for the whole world to hear.
The late former General Secretary of the UN was a diplomat by birth, a man who never applied force, had it not been your preventive diplomacy, some part of our world would, perhaps, have been deluged into blood.
But what would have been the result?
Ruin and desolation both to body and soul.
Peacekeeping, building
Peacekeeping, peace building and tackling other humanitarian issues were perilous enterprises.
Enemies were at liberty to take your life.
There were areas where it was difficult to aid or shelter you.
While you lie in state, the living was ready to accompany their peace maker, the mourning crowd followed one another, eager and expectant.
They beheld the remains of a man who was pitying people, who stopped now and then to relieve some suffering or to comfort a troubled heart.
The troubled heart in war a torn–zone or a refugee camp.
Many troubled souls pressed through the crowd to pay their last respects to the world leader.
The service rendered to the UN in the sincerity of heart has great recompense and was God-purposed to make you a builder in the great foundation of peace.
You were dedicated, ardent and zealous, acknowledging no foundation for international development but hard work and consistency.
Consistency
Consistency to put the UN on the right rails.
You sprang from the ranks of the United Nations to become the Secretary-General.
Your early years were spent in the humble home of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Patience, fortitude and humility were the schools in which wisdom prepared you for the important mission of your life.
You did not put yourself deliberately in opposition to corruption and injustice, but devotion to truth could not but bring you into conflict with injustice and falsehood.
In every particular of your actions as the Secretary-General, you demonstrated authority over burning issues in the UN.
Your unbending courage and integrity in the determination of certain issues won you general esteem and confidence.
Your methodology in the resolution of conflicts exerted an influence on the leading minds of our international community and the factions in conflict.
Chancellor
As a former Chancellor of the University of Ghana, your words were an encouragement to the faculty and staff of the university.
You demonstrated equitable relations with universities all over the world.
Your words of encouragement kindled hope in the hearts of thousands of students, many students, and most especially graduating students.
Many of them were seeking the truth in post-student life and to many of them, your words were the spirit of inspiration.
Nothing could disguise the fact that most of the students were ignorant of life after school.
Most of the students were chaffing under the rule of uncertainty.
Many of the students looked at you as their deliverer when the darkness should be dispelled and the realities of the future should be made plain.
These students were thirsting for a piece of practical knowledge in life, for some assurance of a life beyond campus.
As most students had departed from true counsellors, their faith in a better future had gone down and hope had well-nigh ceased to illuminate the future.
The words of the late former Secretary General changed the uncertainty and gloom that the future presented to students.
On the fifth anniversary of your demise, may you continue to rest in the bosom of the earth in peace.
God bless you.
Long live the United Nations.
The writer is Initiator,
International Forum on the Status of Refugees in the World
Senior Lecturer, Russian Section.
University of Ghana.
E-mails: aabosiakoug.edu.gh/abosiako2yahoo.
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