During the Kofi Annan years, I wrote a Resolution to creat a new Undersecretary General for Nutrition and Consumer Protection, using UN Charter Articles 7, 26, 33, 57, 63 (Section 2) and 97.

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Farewell Speech at United Nations Audio Only

Full Video: https://www.c-span.org/video/?194353-10/united-nations-secretary-general-address

Being Sworn in as UN Secretary General: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSUwl6b6j4

[Introduction Stephen Fox: During Kofi Annan tenure, I wrote a Resolution to create a new Undersecretary General for Nutrition. United Nations Charter Articles 7, 26, 33, 57, 63 (Section 2) and 97, authorize the creation of a new United Nations Undersecretary General for Nutrition whose purpose is to protect the health of all nations. An oversight position is created in the Secretariat, with specific instructive, injunctive, protective, and interdictive powers, including the power to prosecute punitive and exemplary suits in international courts to recover damages for harm done to health in member states.

After several years of research on food additives and the harmful effects of Monosodium Glutamate and Aspartame, I developed the naive idea that the United States Congress would pass legislation to create a new Cabinet Secretary, The Secretary of Nutrition, whose entire job would be to improve America's wretched diet, which has suffered for decades as a result of the corporate stranglehold on the legitimate regulatory functions of the United States Food and Drug Administration as conceived in the original 1937 Law in the Roosevelt Era which created the US Food and Drug Administration.

The problem then advanced to other nations which would then rubber stamp whatever ghastly chemical FDA had been forced to approve. Aspartame, for example. Rushed through the FDA approval process the Chairman of the Board of G.D. Searle. The approval had been turned down by the FDA from 1966 when it was patented till 1981, when its approval was forced as one of the first acts by Ronald Reagan as a special favor to the Chairman of G.D. Searle, which was holding an 11 million gallon vat of aspartame.

One member of Congress agreed to sponsor that idea of a Cabinet Secretary for Nutrition and Consumer Protection as legislation, Patricia Mink, of Hawaii, in a letter on Congressional letterhead signed by her.

[In 1964, Mink ran for federal office and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was the first woman of color and the first Asian-American woman elected to Congress, and also the first woman elected to Congress from the state of Hawaii.]

That is as far as it went, the idea of a USA Cabinet Secretary for Nutrition.

Because it would mean more to remove junk food and chemical additives from Nations' diet, I shifted the effort to the United Nations and led a long and vigorous campaign to create a new Undersecretary General for Nutrition and Consumer Protection. This was during the Kofi Annan years.

The URL for that effort is still up, posted in Sweden: click here

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When Kofi left the UN, he gave this farewell statement to the General Assembly:

I remain convinced that the only answer to this divided world must be a truly United Nations.

Madam President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

When I first spoke to you from this podium, in 1997, it seemed to me that humanity faced three great challenges.

One was to ensure that globalization would benefit the human race as a whole, not only its more fortunate members.

Another was to heal the disorder of the post-cold-war world, replacing it with a genuinely new world order of peace and freedom, as envisaged in our Charter.

And the third was to protect the rights and dignity of individuals, particularly women, which were so widely trampled underfoot.

As the second African to serve as Secretary-General, I felt that all three of these challenges - the security challenge; the development challenge; the challenge of human rights and the rule of law - concerned me directly.

Africa was in great danger of being excluded from the benefits of globalization - indeed, of being left to rot on the margins of the world economy.

Africa was also the scene of some of the most protracted and brutal conflicts.

And many of Africa's people felt they were unjustly condemned to be exploited and oppressed, generation after generation, since colonial rule had been replaced by an inequitable economic order on the global level, and sometimes by corrupt rulers and warlords at the local level.

In the decade since then, many people have been struggling to confront these three global challenges. Much has been achieved, but events have also presented us with new challenges - or rather, have given the old ones new form, or a sharper bite.

In the economic arena, both globalization and growth have continued apace.

Some developing countries, notably in Asia, have played a major role in this growth. Many millions of their people have thereby been released from the prison of perpetual poverty.

Meanwhile, at the level of development policy, the debate has advanced, moving from rival models to agreed targets. And the world has now recognized HIV/AIDS as a major challenge to development, and begun to confront it. I am proud of the role the United Nations has played in this. Development, and the Millennium Development Goals, now take pride of place in all our work.

But let's not delude ourselves. The Asian miracle is yet to be replicated in other parts of the world. And even within the most dynamic Asian countries, its benefits are far from equally shared.

By the same token, the Millennium Goals are unlikely to be achieved everywhere by 2015.

True, in many developing countries there is now a much better understanding of what good governance is, and why it's important. But many still fall short of it in practice.

True, there is progress on debt relief, as well as encouraging promises on aid and investment. But the "global partnership for development" is still more phrase than fact - especially in the all-important area of trade.

My friends, globalization is not a tide that lifts all boats. Even among those who the statistics tell us are benefiting, many are deeply insecure, and strongly resent the apparent complacency of those more fortunate than themselves.

So globalization, which in theory brings us all closer together, in practice risks driving us further apart.

Are we any more secure against the second challenge - the ravages of war?

Again, some statistics would tell us so. There are fewer inter-state conflicts than there used to be; and many civil wars have ended.

Here too, I am proud of the United Nations' role in this. And I am proud of what my fellow Africans have achieved in ending many of the conflicts that disfigured our continent.

But here too, we should be under no illusion.

In far too many parts of the world - especially the developing world - people are still exposed to brutal conflicts, fought with small but deadly weapons.

And people in all parts of the world are threatened - though some are more aware of it than others - by the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It is shameful that last year's Summit Outcome does not contain even one word about non-proliferation and disarmament - basically because states could not agree which of the two should be given priority. It is high time to end this dispute, and tackle both tasks with the urgency they demand.

Moreover, just as some who benefit from globalization may feel threatened by it, so, many who are statistically safer from conflict do not feel safe.

For that, we have terrorism to thank. It kills and maims relatively few people, compared to other forms of violence and conflict. But it spreads fear and insecurity. And that in turn drives people to huddle together with those who share their beliefs or their way of life, while shunning those who appear "alien".

Thus, at the very time when international migration has brought millions of people of different creed or culture to live as fellow-citizens, the misconceptions and stereotypes underlying the idea of a "clash of civilizations" have come to be more and more widely shared; and insensitivity towards other people's beliefs or sacred symbols - intentional or otherwise - is seized upon by those who seem eager to foment a new war of religion, this time on a global scale.

Moreover, this climate of fear and suspicion is constantly refueled by the violence in the Middle East.

We might like to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many. But it is not. No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield.

As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation; and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dance-halls: so long will passions everywhere be inflamed.

On one side, supporters of Israel feel that it is harshly judged, by standards that are not applied to its enemies - and too often this is true, particularly in some UN bodies.

On the other side, people are outraged by the disproportionate use of force against the Palestinians, and by Israel's continued occupation and confiscation of Arab land.

As long as the Security Council is unable to end this conflict, and the now nearly 40-year-old occupation, by bringing both sides to accept and implement its resolutions, so long will respect for the United Nations continue to decline. So long, too, will our impartiality be questioned. So long will our best efforts to resolve other conflicts be resisted, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose peoples need our help just as badly, and are entitled to it. And so long will our devoted and courageous staff, instead of being protected by the blue flag, find themselves exposed to rage and violence, provoked by policies they neither control nor support.

But what about the third great challenge facing humanity - the challenge of the rule of law, and our rights and dignity as human beings? Here, too, there has been significant progress.

More rights have been enshrined in international treaties - and this Assembly is now about to codify the rights of a group who particularly need it: people who suffer from handicaps and disabilities.

More governments today are elected by, and are accountable to, those whom they govern.

Humanity has actually brought to justice some of those who committed the most heinous crimes against it.

And this Assembly, meeting last year at the highest level, has solemnly proclaimed the responsibility - of each individual State in the first instance, but ultimately of the whole international community, acting through the United Nations - to "protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity".

And yet. And yet.

Every day, reports reach us of new laws broken; of new bestial crimes to which individuals and minority groups are subjected.

Even the necessary and legitimate struggle around the world against terrorism is used as a pretext to abridge or abrogate fundamental human rights, thereby ceding moral ground to the terrorists and helping them find new recruits.

Sadly, once again the biggest challenge comes from Africa - from Darfur, where the continued spectacle of men, women and children driven from their homes by murder, rape and the burning of their villages makes a mockery of our claim, as an international community, to shield people from the worst abuses.

In short, Madam President, the events of the last ten years have not resolved, but sharpened, the three great challenges I spoke of - an unjust world economy, world disorder, and widespread contempt for human rights and the rule of law. As a result, we face a world whose divisions threaten the very notion of an international community, upon which this institution stands.

And this is happening at the very time when, more than ever before, human beings throughout the world form a single society. So many of the challenges we face are global. They demand a global response, in which all peoples must play their part.

I deliberately say "all peoples", echoing the preamble of our Charter, and not "all states". It was clear to me ten years ago, and is even clearer now, that international relations are not a matter of States alone. They are relations between peoples, in which so-called "non-state actors" play a vital role, and can make a vital contribution. All must play their part in a true multilateral world order, with a renewed, dynamic United Nations at its centre.

Yes, I remain convinced that the only answer to this divided world must be a truly United Nations. Climate change, HIV/AIDS, fair trade, migration, human rights - all these issues, and many more, bring us back to that point. Addressing each is indispensable for each of us in our village, in our neighbourhood, and in our country. Yet each has acquired a global dimension that can only be reached by global action, agreed and coordinated through this most universal of institutions.

What matters is that the strong, as well as the weak, agree to be bound by the same rules, to treat each other with the same respect.

What matters is that all peoples accept the need to listen; to compromise; to take each other's views into account.

What matters is that they come together, not at cross purposes but with a common purpose: a common purpose - to shape their common destiny.

And that can only happen if peoples are bound together by something more than just a global market, or even a set of global rules.

Each of us must share the pain of all who suffer, and the joy of all who hope, wherever in the world they may live.

Each of us must earn the trust of his fellow men and women, no matter what their race, colour or creed, and learn to trust them in turn.

That is what the founders of this Organization believed in. It is what I believe in. It is what the vast majority of people in this world want to believe in.

And that is what has spurred the reforms and new ideas of the United Nations over the last frenetic decade. From peacekeeping to peacebuilding, from human rights to development and humanitarian relief, I have been lucky enough to preside over the Secretariat - and its wonderful, devoted staff - at a time when your ambitions for the Organization have sometimes seemed limitless - although your pocket books less so.

These last few weeks, especially, as I travelled through the Middle East, I saw again the legitimacy and the reach of the United Nations. Its indispensable role in securing the peace in Lebanon has reminded us all how powerful this Organization can be, when everyone wants it to succeed.

Madam President, dear friends:

This is the last time I shall have the honour of presenting my annual report to this Assembly. Let me conclude by thanking you all for allowing me to serve as Secretary-General during this remarkable decade.

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.

It's been difficult and challenging, but at times thrillingly rewarding. And while I look forward to resting my shoulder from those stubborn rocks in the next phase of my life, I know I shall miss the mountain. Yes, I shall miss what is, when all is said and done, the world's most exalting job. I yield my place to others with an obstinate feeling, a real obstinate feeling of hope for our common future.

Thank you very much.

[When the first Secretary General resigned in frustration from the United Nations, because of Russian and Chinese Intransigence regarding China's Invasion of Korea, as he greeted the second Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, as he stepped off the plane with this statement:

This is the most impossible job in the world.

Note that Kofi Annan called it the world's most exalting job.

What does that tell you about the shift in power over the years in the interim?

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Kofi Annan's three key UN speeches

.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NI23KEGsE

Kofi Annan Farewell Speech

Kofi Annan: The World I'm Working To Create

.youtube.com/watch?v=n4ILV4IL-PA

Ten Questions TIME Magazine Interviews: Kofi Annan

.youtube.com/watch?v=ABdBcp14Y0Q

Kofi Annan's son Kojo also addressed the UN General Assembly:

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mnet-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mnet&p=kojo+annan+video+speech+to+the+United+Nations#id=3&vid=7ed77dbbe2f7f6dc5050cb6a4a0ee4a4&action=view

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What happened? 1 January 1997 - 31 December 2006

Louise Fre'chette Mark Malloch Brown

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Preceded by Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Succeeded by Ban Ki-moon

United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria 23 February 2012 - 31 August 2012

8 April 1938 Kumasi, Gold Coast (now Ghana)

Died 18 August 2018 (aged 80) Bern, Switzerland

Titi Alakija

(m. 1965; div. 1983) Nane Lagergren

(m. 1984, his death)

Children 3, including Kojo Annan

Education

Kumasi College of Science and Technology

Macalester College

Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Kofi Atta Annan 8 April 1938 - 18 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.

He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organization founded by Nelson Mandela.

Annan studied economics at Macalester College, international relations at the Graduate Institute Geneva, and management at MIT.

Annan joined the UN in 1962, working for the World Health Organization's Geneva office. He went on to work in several capacities at the UN

Headquarters including serving as the Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping between March 1992 and December 1996. He was appointed the Secretary-General on 13 December 1996 by the Security Council, and later confirmed by the General Assembly, making him the first office holder to be elected from the UN staff itself. He was re-elected for a second term in 2001, and was succeeded as Secretary-General by Ban Ki-moon on 1 January 2007.

As the Secretary-General, Annan reformed the UN bureaucracy; worked to combat HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa; and launched the UN Global Compact. He was criticized for not expanding the Security Council and faced calls for his resignation after an investigation into the Oil-for-Food Programme, but was largely exonerated of personal corruption.

After the end of his term as UN Secretary-General, he founded the Kofi Annan Foundation in 2007 to work on international development. In 2012, Annan was the UN-Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria, to help find a resolution to the ongoing conflict there.

Annan quit after becoming frustrated with the UN's lack of progress with regards to conflict resolution. In September 2016, Annan was appointed to lead a UN commission to investigate the Rohingya crisis.

Kofi Annan was born in the Kofandros section of Kumasi in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) on 8 April 1938. His twin sister Efua Atta, who died in 1991, shared the middle name Atta, which in the Akan language means 'twin'.[10]

Annan and his sister were born into one of the country's Ashanti and Fante aristocratic families; both of their grandfathers and their uncle were tribal chiefs.

In the Akan names tradition, some children are named according to the day of the week on which they were born, sometimes in relation to how many children precede them. Kofi in Akan is the name that corresponds with Friday.Annan said that his surname rhymes with "cannon" in English.

From 1954 to 1957, Annan attended the elite Mfantsipim school, a Methodist boarding school in Cape Coast founded in the 1870s.

Annan said that the school taught him that "suffering anywhere, concerns people everywhere".

In 1957, the year Annan graduated from Mfantsipim, the Gold Coast gained independence from the UK and began using the name "Ghana".

In 1958, Annan began studying economics at the Kumasi College of Science and Technology, now the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology of Ghana. He received a Ford Foundation grant, enabling him to complete his undergraduate studies in economics at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, in 1961.

Annan then completed a diplôme d'e'tudes approfondies DEA degree in International Relations at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1961-62. After some years of work experience, he studied at the MIT Sloan School of Management (1971-72) in the Sloan Fellows program and earned a master's degree in management.

Annan was fluent in English, French, Akan, and some Kru languages as well as other African languages.

In 1962, Kofi Annan started working as a budget officer for the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations (UN).

From 1974 to 1976, he worked as a manager of the state-owned Ghana Tourist Development Company in Accra.

In 1980 he became the head of personnel for the office of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva. In 1983 he became the director of administrative management services of the UN Secretariat in New York. In 1987, Annan was appointed as an Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management and Security Coordinator for the UN system. In 1990, he became Assistant Secretary-General for Program Planning, Budget and Finance, and Control.

When Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali established the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in 1992, Annan was appointed to the new department as Deputy to then Under-Secretary-General Marrack Goulding. Annan was subsequently appointed in March 1993 as Under-Secretary-General of that department. On 29 August 1995, while Boutros-Ghali was unreachable on an airplane, Annan instructed United Nations officials to "relinquish for a limited period of time their authority to veto air strikes in Bosnia."

This move allowed NATO forces to conduct Operation Deliberate Force and made him a favorite of the United States. According to Richard Holbrooke, Annan's "gutsy performance" convinced the United States that he would be a good replacement for Boutros-Ghali.

He was appointed a Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the former Yugoslavia, serving from November 1995 to March 1996.

Criticism

In 2003, retired Canadian General Rome'o Dallaire, who was force commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, claimed that Annan was overly passive in his response to the imminent genocide.

In his book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2003), Dallaire asserted that Annan held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict, and from providing more logistical and material support.

Dallaire claimed that Annan failed to provide responses to his repeated faxes asking for access to a weapons depository; such weapons could have helped Dallaire defend the endangered Tutsis. In 2004, ten years after the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed, Annan said, "I could and should have done more to sound the alarm and rally support."

External video After Words interview with Annan on Interventions

September 9, 2012, C-SPAN

In his book Interventions: A Life in War and Peace, Annan again argued that the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations could have made better use of the media to raise awareness of the violence in Rwanda and put pressure on governments to provide the troops necessary for an intervention.

Annan explained that the events in Somalia and the collapse of the UNOSOM II mission fostered a hesitation among UN Member states to approve robust peacekeeping operations. As a result, when the UNAMIR mission was approved just days after the battle, the resulting force lacked the troop levels, resources and mandate to operate effectively.

Kofi Annan > Quotes

"Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. ...

"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. ...

"To live is to choose. ...

"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope."

In their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda.

Kofi Annan

If one is going to err, one should err on the side of liberty and freedom.

Kofi Annan Freedom Liberty Side Going If information and knowledge are central to democracy, they are conditions for development.

Kofi Annan Knowledge Democracy Information In the rush for justice it is important not to lose sight of principles the country holds dear.

Kofi Annan Justice Lose Important Country We need to think of the future and the planet we are going to leave to our children and their children.

Kofi Annan Future Children Think Leave To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.

Read more at .brainyquote.com/authors/kofi-annan-quotes

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Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Education

True Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

Nelson Mandela Change Education You World Powerful

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. B. F. Skinner Education Forgotten Been Learned Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.

That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. Maya Angelou

Education Mother People Ignorance The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects. Will Rogers Education

Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master. Leonardo da Vinci

Read more at .brainyquote.com/quotes/kofi_annan_399822

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The US Ambassador to the United Nations was William Blaine Richardson III, appointed by William Jefferson Clinton to be the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Richardson has been accurately described as a "Force of Nature."

From his book, Between Worlds:

I wasn't only Ambassador to the UN. I was Ambassador for the UN, too.

I recommend this book. It has several quotes on his interactions with world leaders including Kofi Annan.

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Full text: Kofi Annan's final speech in the United States

at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Missouri. The following is the text of the speech; subheadings inserted by the BBC.

Thank you, Senator [Hagel] for that wonderful introduction. It is a great honour to be introduced by such a distinguished legislator.

And thanks to you, Mr Devine, and all your staff, and to the wonderful UNA chapter of Kansas City, for all you have done to make this occasion possible.

What a pleasure, and a privilege, to be here in Missouri. It is almost a homecoming for me. Nearly half a century ago I was a student about 400 miles north of here, in Minnesota.

I arrived there straight from Africa - and I can tell you, Minnesota soon taught me the value of a thick overcoat, a warm scarf and even ear-muffs!

When you leave one home for another, there are always lessons to be learnt. And I had more to learn when I moved on from Minnesota to the United Nations - the indispensable common house of the entire human family, which has been my main home for the last 44 years.

Today I want to talk particularly about five lessons I have learnt in the last 10 years, during which I have had the difficult but exhilarating role of Secretary General.

I think it is especially fitting that I do that here in the house that honours the legacy of Harry S Truman. If FDR [Franklin D Roosevelt] was the architect of the United Nations, President Truman was the master-builder, and the faithful champion of the Organisation in its first years, when it had to face quite different problems from the ones FDR had expected.

Truman's name will for ever be associated with the memory of far-sighted American leadership in a great global endeavour. And you will see that every one of my five lessons brings me to the conclusion that such leadership is no less sorely needed now than it was 60 years ago.

Collective responsibility

My first lesson is that, in today's world, the security of every one of us is linked to that of everyone else.

That was already true in Truman's time. The man who in 1945 gave the order for nuclear weapons to be used - for the first, and let us hope the only, time in history - understood that security for some could never again be achieved at the price of insecurity for others.

He was determined, as he had told the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, to "prevent, if human mind, heart, and hope can prevent it, the repetition of the disaster [meaning the world war] from which the entire world will suffer for years to come".

He believed strongly that henceforth security must be collective and indivisible.

That was why, for instance, he insisted, when faced with aggression by North Korea against the South in 1950, on bringing the issue to the United Nations and placing US troops under the UN flag, at the head of a multinational force.

But how much more true it is in our open world today: a world where deadly weapons can be obtained not only by rogue states but by extremist groups; a world where Sars or avian flu can be carried across oceans, let alone national borders, in a matter of hours; a world where failed states in the heart of Asia or Africa can become havens for terrorists; a world where even the climate is changing in ways that will affect the lives of everyone on the planet.

Against such threats as these, no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. We all share responsibility for each other's security, and only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves.

And I would add that this responsibility is not simply a matter of states being ready to come to each other's aid when attacked - important though that is.

It also includes our shared responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity - a responsibility solemnly accepted by all nations at last year's UN summit.

That means that respect for national sovereignty can no longer be used as a shield by governments intent on massacring their own people, or as an excuse for the rest of us to do nothing when such heinous crimes are committed.

But, as Truman said, "If we should pay merely lip service to inspiring ideals, and later do violence to simple justice, we would draw down upon us the bitter wrath of generations yet unborn."

And when I look at the murder, rape and starvation to which the people of Darfur are being subjected, I fear that we have not got far beyond "lip service".

The lesson here is that high-sounding doctrines like the "responsibility to protect" will remain pure rhetoric unless and until those with the power to intervene effectively - by exerting political, economic or, in the last resort, military muscle - are prepared to take the lead.

And I believe we have a responsibility not only to our contemporaries but also to future generations - a responsibility to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us can survive.

That means we must do much more, and urgently, to prevent or slow down climate change. Every day that we do nothing, or too little, imposes higher costs on our children and our children's children.

Global solidarity

My second lesson is that we are not only all responsible for each other's security. We are also, in some measure, responsible for each other's welfare.

Global solidarity is both necessary and possible. It is necessary because without a measure of solidarity no society can be truly stable, and no one's prosperity truly secure.

That applies to national societies - as all the great industrial democracies learned in the 20th century - but it also applies to the increasingly integrated global market economy we live in today.

It is not realistic to think that some people can go on deriving great benefits from globalization while billions of their fellow human beings are left in abject poverty, or even thrown into it.

We have to give our fellow citizens, not only within each nation but in the global community, at least a chance to share in our prosperity.

That is why, five years ago, the UN Millennium Summit adopted a set of goals - the "Millennium Development Goals" - to be reached by 2015: goals such as halving the proportion of people in the world who do not have clean water to drink; making sure all girls, as well as boys, receive at least primary education; slashing infant and maternal mortality; and stopping the spread of HIV/Aids.

Much of that can only be done by governments and people in the poor countries themselves. But richer countries, too, have a vital role.

Here too, Harry Truman proved himself a pioneer, proposing in his 1949 inaugural address a program of what came to be known as development assistance. And our success in mobilising donor countries to support the Millennium Development Goals, through debt relief and increased foreign aid, convinces me that global solidarity is not only necessary but possible.

Of course, foreign aid by itself is not enough. Today, we realise that market access, fair terms of trade and a non-discriminatory financial system are equally vital to the chances of poor countries.

Even in the next few weeks and months, you Americans can make a crucial difference to many millions of poor people, if you are prepared to save the Doha Round of trade negotiations.

You can do that by putting your broader national interest above that of some powerful sectional lobbies, while challenging Europe and the large developing countries to do the same.

The rule of law

My third lesson is that both security and development ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Although increasingly interdependent, our world continues to be divided - not only by economic differences, but also by religion and culture.

That is not in itself a problem. Throughout history human life has been enriched by diversity, and different communities have learnt from each other.

But if our different communities are to live together in peace we must stress also what unites us: our common humanity, and our shared belief that human dignity and rights should be protected by law.

That is vital for development, too. Both foreign investors and a country's own citizens are more likely to engage in productive activity when their basic rights are protected and they can be confident of fair treatment under the law.

And policies that genuinely favour economic development are much more likely to be adopted if the people most in need of development can make their voice heard.

In short, human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. As Truman said, "We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might."

That is why this country has historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle against terrorism.

When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused.

And states need to play by the rules towards each other, as well as towards their own citizens. That can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not convenience. It is doing the right thing.

No state can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others. When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose - for broadly shared aims - in accordance with broadly accepted norms.

No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little - and the international community is among them. This we must change.

The US has given the world an example of a democracy in which everyone, including the most powerful, is subject to legal restraint. Its current moment of world supremacy gives it a priceless opportunity to entrench the same principles at the global level.

As Harry Truman said, "We all have to recognise, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the licence to do always as we please."

Mutual accountability

My fourth lesson - closely related to the last one - is that governments must be accountable for their actions in the international arena, as well as in the domestic one.

Today the actions of one state can often have a decisive effect on the lives of people in other states.

So does it not owe some account to those other states and their citizens, as well as to its own? I believe it does.

As things stand, accountability between states is highly skewed. Poor and weak states are easily held to account, because they need foreign assistance. But large and powerful states, whose actions have the greatest impact on others, can be constrained only by their own people, working through their domestic institutions.

That gives the people and institutions of such powerful states a special responsibility to take account of global views and interests, as well as national ones.

And today they need to take into account also the views of what, in UN jargon, we call "non-state actors". I mean commercial corporations, charities and pressure groups, labour unions, philanthropic foundations, universities and think tanks - all the myriad forms in which people come together voluntarily to think about, or try to change, the world.

None of these should be allowed to substitute itself for the state, or for the democratic process by which citizens choose their governments and decide policy. But they all have the capacity to influence political processes, on the international as well as the national level.

States that try to ignore this are hiding their heads in the sand.

The fact is that states can no longer - if they ever could - confront global challenges alone. Increasingly, we need to enlist the help of these other actors, both in working out global strategies and in putting those strategies into action once agreed.

It has been one of my guiding principles as Secretary General to get them to help achieve UN aims - for instance through the Global Compact with international business, which I initiated in 1999, or in the worldwide fight against polio, which I hope is now in its final chapter, thanks to a wonderful partnership between the UN family, the US Centers for Disease Control and - crucially - Rotary International.

Multilateralism

So that is four lessons. Let me briefly remind you of them: First, we are all responsible for each other's security. Second, we can and must give everyone the chance to benefit from global prosperity. Third, both security and prosperity depend on human rights and the rule of law. Fourth, states must be accountable to each other, and to a broad range of non-state actors, in their international conduct.

My fifth and final lesson derives inescapably from those other four. We can only do all these things by working together through a multilateral system, and by making the best possible use of the unique instrument bequeathed to us by Harry Truman and his contemporaries, namely the United Nations.

In fact, it is only through multilateral institutions that states can hold each other to account. And that makes it very important to organize those institutions in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong.

That applies particularly to the international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Developing countries should have a stronger voice in these bodies, whose decisions can have almost a life-or-death impact on their fate.

And it also applies to the UN Security Council, whose membership still reflects the reality of 1945, not of today's world.

That is why I have continued to press for Security Council reform. But reform involves two separate issues.

One is that new members should be added, on a permanent or long-term basis, to give greater representation to parts of the world which have limited voice today.

The other, perhaps even more important, is that all Council members, and especially the major powers who are permanent members, must accept the special responsibility that comes with their privilege.

The Security Council is not just another stage on which to act out national interests. It is the management committee, if you will, of our fledgling collective security system.

As President Truman said, "The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world."

He showed what can be achieved when the US assumes that responsibility. And still today, none of our global institutions can accomplish much when the US remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky is the limit.

These five lessons can be summed up as five principles, which I believe are essential for the future conduct of international relations: collective responsibility, global solidarity, the rule of law, mutual accountability, and multilateralism.

Let me leave them with you, in solemn trust, as I hand over to a new Secretary General in three weeks' time.

My friends, we have achieved much since 1945, when the United Nations was established.

But much remains to be done to put those five principles into practice.

Standing here, I am reminded of Winston Churchill's last visit to the White House, just before Truman left office in 1953. Churchill recalled their only previous meeting, at the Potsdam conference in 1945.

"I must confess, sir," he said boldly, "I held you in very low regard then. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt." Then he paused for a moment, and continued: "I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man, have saved Western civilisation."

My friends, our challenge today is not to save Western civilisation - or Eastern, for that matter. All civilisation is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task.

You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart.

Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago? Surely not.

More than ever today Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system through which the world's peoples can face global challenges together.

And in order to function, the system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition.

I hope and pray that the American leaders of today, and tomorrow, will provide it. Thank you very much.

Kofi Annan Farewell Speech to the United Nations
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(Article changed on May 17, 2020 at 15:56)

Authors Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/592985284186083/

Authors Bio:

Early in the 2016 Primary campaign, I started a Facebook group: Bernie Sanders: Advice and Strategies to Help Him Win! As the primary season advanced, we shifted the focus to advancing Bernie's legislation in the Senate, particularly the most critical one, to protect Oak Flat, sacred to the San Carlos Apaches, in the Tonto National Forest, from John McCain's efforts to privatize this national forest and turn it over to Rio Tinto Mining, an Australian mining company whose record by comparison makes Monsanto look like altar boys, to be developed as North America's largest copper mine. This is monstrous and despicable, and yet only Bernie's Save Oak Flat Act (S2242) stands in the way of this diabolical plan.

We added "2020" to the title.


I am an art gallery owner in Santa Fe since 1980 selling Native American painting and NM landscapes, specializing in modern Native Ledger Art.


I have always been intensely involved in politics, going back to the mid's 1970's, being a volunteer lobbyist in the US Senate for the Secretary General of the United Nations, then a "snowball-in-hell" campaign for US Senate in NM in the late 70's, and for the past 20 years have worked extensively to pressure the FDA to rescind its approval for aspartame, the neurotoxic artificial sweetener metabolized as formaldehyde. This may be becoming a reality to an extent in California, which, under Proposition 65, is considering requiring a mandatory Carcinogen label on all aspartame products, although all bureaucracies seem to stall under any kind of corporate pressure.


Bills to ban aspartame were in the State Senates of New Mexico and Hawaii, but were shut down by corporate lobbyists (particularly Monsanto lobbyists in Hawaii and Coca Cola lobbyists in New Mexico).


For several years, I was the editor of New Mexico Sun News, and my letters to the editor and op/eds in 2016 have appeared in NM, California, Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, and many international papers, on the subject of consumer protection. Our best issue was 10 days before Obama won in 2008, when we published a special early edition of the paper declaring that Obama Wins! This was the top story on CNN for many hours, way back then....


My highest accomplishments thus far are

1. a plan to create a UN Secretary General's Pandemic Board of Inquiry, a plan that is in the works and might be achieved even before the 75th UN General Assembly in September 2020.


2. Now history until the needs becomes clear to the powers who run the United Nations: a UN Resolution to create a new Undersecretary General for Nutrition and Consumer Protection, strongly supported ten years ago by India and 53 cosponsoring nations, but shut down by the US Mission to the UN in 2008. To read it, google UNITED NATIONS UNDERSECRETARY GENERAL FOR NUTRITION, please.


These are not easy battles, any of them, and they require a great deal of political and journalistic focus. OpEdNews is the perfect place for those who have a lot to say, so much that they exceed the limiting capacities of their local and regional newspapers. Trying to go beyond the regional papers seems to require some kind of "inside" credentials, as if you had to be in a club of corporate-accepted writers, and if not, you are "from somewhere else," a sad state of corporate induced xenophobia that should have no place in America in 2020!

This should be a goal for every author with something current to say: breaking through yet another glass ceiling, and get your say said in editorial pages all over America. Certainly, this was a tool that was essentially ignored in 2016, and cannot be ignored in the big elections of 2020.


In my capacity as Editor of the Santa Fe Sun News, Fox interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev: http://www.prlog.org/10064349-mikhail-gorbachev