Global News Journal

UN sends mixed signals on civilian deaths in Libya

The United Nations has been sending mixed signals lately about NATO’s record with civilian casualties in the alliance’s sixth month of air strikes against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s troops and military sites. U.N. officials and diplomats said it was hardly surprising that different senior officials at the world body are finding it hard to keep a consistent line on the conflict, which, back in March, most of them had hoped would be over in a few weeks. 

But it has dragged on. Now Gaddafi’s government is complaining about what it says are mounting civilian casualties caused by NATO bombs, many of them children. Diplomats from alliance members acknowledge that there have been some civilian casualties, which they regret. But they question some of the figures that have been coming out of Tripoli. Libya’s state television, which was targeted by NATO late last month, regularly broadcasts gory images of blood-soaked bodies it says are civilians being pulled from rubble after NATO bomb attacks.

Last week the head of the U.N. cultural and scientific agency UNESCO, Irina Bokova, issued an unusually sharp rebuke of the alliance for its July 30 air strikes against Libyan state television, which she said killed several “media workers.”

“I deplore the NATO strike on Al-Jamahiriya and its installations,” Bokova said in a statement. “Media outlets should not be targeted in military actions.”

Several U.N. diplomats from NATO member states privately expressed surprise at the statement from Bokova, herself a citizen of NATO member Bulgaria. Asked about her criticism, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s deputy spokesman Farhan Haq suggested that Ban was not overly concerned with the performance of NATO in Libya.

“In terms of that, we would need further details about what the operations were that were conducted. But certainly, the Secretary-General believes that resolution 1973 has been used properly in order to protect civilians in Libya and he has continually emphasized the need, as this proceeds, to make sure that civilians in Libya will be protected.”

NATO defended the attack on Libyan television and said it had no evidence that anyone was killed during the strikes.

UNsensational? Five more years of Ban Ki-moon

It’s hard to find a delegate to the United Nations who despises U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. But it’s even harder to find someone who thinks he has the gravitas and charisma of his Nobel Peace Prize-winning predecessor Kofi Annan, who invoked the wrath of the previous U.S. administration when he called the 2003 invasion of Iraq “illegal.” As one senior Western official, who declined to be identified, said about Ban: “It’s not as if he’s lightning in a bottle, but we can live with him.”

The former South Korean foreign minister is in the final year of his first five-year term and is widely expected to run for another stint as the supreme U.N. official. The formal re-election process is likely to commence in the coming months. In the meantime, Ban is visiting the capitals of key U.N. member states to gauge his chances of keeping his job. Those chances, U.N. diplomats say, are excellent. So far, no country has nominated any candidate to oppose him. “I’d put my money on Ban Ki-moon getting a second term,” said a Security Council diplomat.

The 15-nation Security Council nominates the secretary-general, though the choice has to be confirmed by the 192-nation General Assembly. Despite the veneer of democracy, it is the five veto-wielding permanent council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — who choose the top U.N. bureaucrat in New York. And none of the five has any serious objections to a second and final term for Ban, diplomats say.

Some people say that running the United Nations is the toughest job on earth. With little real power, he spends his time mediating and negotiating behind closed doors, getting blamed for member states’ failures and receiving no credit for his off-camera successes. National lobbyists push and pull him in all directions. The five permanent Security Council members, known as the “P5″, regularly insist that he acquiesce to their demands, often pressuring him to reserve a healthy portion of top U.N. jobs for their nationals or preferential treatment for themselves or their allies. Journalists harangue the secretary-general to disclose the details of sensitive negotiations, which he usually tries to keep secret under the label of “quiet diplomacy.” Human rights groups routinely skewer him for not being tough enough on the rulers of despotic countries, which are, after all, member states like all the others and don’t take kindly to criticism.

Ban has been no exception. He has been publicly clobbered for not congratulating jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo for winning the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize or raising his detention with President Hu Jintao during a recent visit to China. He was hung out to dry for not being tough enough on Sri Lanka’s government and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide in Sudan’s western Darfur region. Arab and other delegations from the developing world accuse Ban of being a U.S. lackey, noting how often his statements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other issues echo those of the U.S. State Department or White House.

As much as Ban has sought to please his P5 kingmakers, he has managed to run afoul of each of them in the past. In 2008 Russia accused him of siding with the United States, France and Britain in supporting the secession of Kosovo from Serbia, which Moscow fiercely opposed. U.N. officials said at the time that Russia even threatened to block his second term over Kosovo (Ban made it up to them later). Both China and Russia complained that Ban had voiced public support for Egyptian demonstrators calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, who resigned last week. The United States, Britain and France were annoyed with Ban in 2009 for departing from past practice and not referring to the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia as part of Georgia. The Georgian ambassador accused Ban of succumbing to pressure from Russia, which fought a brief war against the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008. Ban denied the charge.

Ban’s unwavering stance against Ivory Coast’s incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to recognize U.N. certified election results from November 2010 that say he lost to rival Alassane Ouattara, surprised many U.N. watchers who are more accustomed to seeing him sitting on the fence on tough issues. Philippe Bolopion of Human Rights Watch, who has been one of the secretary-general’s toughest critics, welcomed Ban’s “swift and unequivocal reaction” to Gbagbo, who ordered U.N. peacekeepers out of the world’s top cocoa producer. So far the secretary-general has refused to withdraw his blue helmets and the deadlock continues.

WikiLeaks Scandal: Is the United Nations a Den of Spies?

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has dismissed suggestions that her diplomats are part-time spies, as suggested by the latest batch of documents released by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.   “Let me be very clear — our diplomats are just that, they’re diplomats,” Rice told reporters at the United Nations where she was peppered with questions about the latest chapter in the WikiLeaks scandal. “Our diplomats are doing what diplomats do around the world every day, which is build relationships, negotiate, advance our interests and work to find common solutions to complex problems.”   She didn’t exactly deny the charges of espionage. But the top U.S. diplomat in New York did reject the idea that there would be any diplomatic fallout from the release of thousands of documents obtained by WikiLeaks, some of which have been published by The Guardian and other newspapers.   One U.S. diplomatic cable published by The Guardian shows how the State Department instructed diplomats at the United Nations and elsewhere around the world to collect credit card and frequent flyer numbers, work schedules and biometric data for U.N. officials and diplomats. Among the personalities of interest was U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as were the ambassadors of the other 14 Security Council member states.    There is nothing new about espionage at the United Nations, but it’s always embarrassing when classified documents proving it happens surface in the media.   Most Security Council envoys declined to comment on the WikiLeaks documents as they headed into the council chambers on Monday for a meeting on North Korea. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, however, told reporters, “Surprise, surprise.”   Churkin should know. One of the diplomats in his charge was implicated earlier this year in a high-profile Russian espionage case in the United States in which nearly a dozen people were accused of being part of a Russian spy ring that carried out deep-cover work in the United States to recruit political sources and gather information for Moscow. The U.S. Justice Department said that an unnamed diplomat at the Russian mission to the United Nations had delivered payments to the spy ring.      And then there was the man known as “Comrade J”, a Russian spy based in New York from 1995 to 2000. Working out of Russia’s U.N. mission, Comrade J directed Russian espionage activity in New York City and personally oversaw all covert operations against the United States and its allies in the United Nations. According to a book about his exploits, Comrade J eventually became a double agent for the FBI.   Nor does the history of U.N. espionage end there. In 2004, a former British cabinet minister revealed that British intelligence agents had spied on Ban Ki-moon’s predecessor Kofi Annan, who fell afoul of Washington and London by opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq.       Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the Vienna-based U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was also the victim of a phone-bugging operation, according to media reports from 2004. He had also opposed the invasion of Iraq and angered the United States by saying that their intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s alleged revival of his nuclear arms program was not only incorrect but partly based on falsified evidence. U.S. officials pored over transcripts of ElBaradei’s telephone intercepts in an attempt to secure evidence of mistakes that could be used to oust him from his post, the reports said. Not only did they fail to unseat him, he went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Liu who? UN’s Ban silent on rights in talks with China’s Hu

(Updates to include U.N. statement on Ban in China)

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is gearing up for a campaign to retain his seat as the United Nations’ top official for another five years, U.N. diplomats say. This, rights advocates suggest, may be the reason he sidestepped the issue of human rights during his latest visit to China, his fourth in as many years. Ban did not raise the issue of Beijing’s alleged rights abuses during a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday. Nor did he call on the Chinese government to release jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner.

“It is correct he did not discuss human rights (in China),” Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York, adding that he also did not raise the issue of Liu’s detention. He noted that the secretary-general’s Oct. 8 statement on the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize “still stands.”

Ban’s carefully worded statement on the award, which was criticized as “mealy-mouthed” by Foreign Policy magazine’s Turtle Bay blog, did not call for Liu’s release and offered only indirect praise of his work as a dissident. (In contrast to Ban, the Nobel Committee praised Liu for his “long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights” and reiterated its belief in a “close connection between human rights and peace.”) In the same statement the U.N. chief was full of praise for Beijing: “Over the past years, China has achieved remarkable economic advances, lifted millions out of poverty, broadened political participation and steadily joined the international mainstream in its adherence to recognized human rights instruments and practices,” he said.  Beijing was infuriated by the decision to give Liu the award, describing it as ”an obscenity.”

It’s not as if human rights are off-limits for the secretary-general. Hardly a week goes by in which Ban doesn’t publicly call on the military junta of Myanmar to release Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. His latest appeal to the leaders of the former Burma was issued on Friday, when he urged the government to release all political prisoners ahead of the country’s first election in 20 years, scheduled for Nov. 7.

(After news reports quoting Nesirky’s remarks appeared, the U.N. press office issued a statement saying that while Ban did not discuss human rights with Hu, the issue was raised in meetings with “other Chinese leaders.” The statement did not identify those other leaders.)

UN General Assembly: NYC’s annual headache

For world leaders, foreign ministers and diplomats from the 192 members of the United Nations, the annual gathering of the U.N. General Assembly is a chance to stand at the iconic dark green marble podium and trumpet their countries’ successes, voice their concerns — or occasionally to attack their enemies. (Such as when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called former U.S. President George W. Bush “the devil” during his address to the assembly.)

But for people who live or work in, or travel through, the east side of midtown Manhattan, the General Assembly is a headache that runs for three or four days every September. It causes regular traffic jams as official motorcades speed through the city. It’s difficult to book a hotel as prices soar and availability plummets. Scores of heavily armed NYPD officers line the streets. The city’s trademark incessant honking of car horns is punctuated with the roar of helicopters overhead scanning for suspicious activity on the streets below. NYPD checkpoints are set up to screen everyone trying to get within a few hundred yards of U.N. headquarters and those without proof that they live or work in the area are told to get lost.

This year’s General Assembly is an extended headache for the neighborhood. In addition to the assembly’s annual General Debate, world leaders agreed to spend an extra three days discussing the need to redouble efforts to meet a set of U.N. targets aimed at drastically reducing poverty and improving the quality of life for the world’s poor by 2015.

During their speeches, leaders pledged to step up efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — agreed 10 years ago — but offered little in the way of new resources. Among those addressing the summit later in the week are U.S. President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose annual attacks on Israel and the United States inevitably prompt a mass walkout by U.S. and European delegations.

Ban has described the MDG summit, and the draft declaration leaders are expected to approve before the week is over, as evidence of an “unprecedented level of support” for the world body’s crusade to improve quality of life for the poor.

Another unprecedented aspect of this year’s General Assembly is the difficulties journalists face covering the world’s top newsmakers, who the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (DSS) are taking extra precautions to keep away from journalists.

With much of the building closed due to a $1.9 billion renovation, the traditional areas where delegates and journalists could quietly mingle are gone. It was only after reporters complained that a media stakeout area was set up in the so-called North Lawn Building, a temporary structure where many of this week’s most important meetings — on Sudan, the Middle East peace process and other issues — are taking place. (The chalk-white container-like North Lawn Building has acquired a number of nicknames, including Bantanamo and Walmart.)

U.N. plays down “guidance” on Kashmir

(Updated August 6, 2010 at 5:05 p.m. EDT with new remarks from U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky.)

The United Nations is playing down a statement on Kashmir a U.N. spokesman sent to a small group of reporters last week. After India made clear that it was very unhappy with the language on Kashmir issued by the U.N. press office, the world body explained that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had  never uttered the offending words — at least not in an official statement.

This is the full text of what U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky has described as “media guidance” on Kashmir, as provided to Reuters by one of the reporters who received it by email on July 28:

“In relation to recent developments in Indian-administered Kashmir, the Secretary-General is concerned over the prevailing security situation there over the past month. He calls on all concerned to exercise utmost restraint and address problems peacefully.

“The Secretary-General welcomes the recent resumption of Foreign Minister-level talks between India and Pakistan. He encourages both sides to rekindle the spirit of the composite dialogue, which was initiated in 2004 and had made encouraging progress on some important confidence building measures, and to make renewed efforts to address outstanding issues, including on Jammu and Kashmir. He underlines the need for patience, perseverance and compromise on all sides.”

On Aug. 3 Nesirky played down that email during the daily U.N. briefing:  “The Spokesperson’s Office released to the media guidance which was prepared by the U.N. Secretariat, and that seems to have been taken out of context. This was not a statement of the Secretary-General.”

Nesirky was asked a number of other questions about the “guidance” — was it genuine; what was taken out of context; was it authorized by Ban’s office; what is Ban’s view now; etc. His response was: “I don’t have anything to add.”

United Nations confronts life and death in Haiti

Everybody who knew French Canadian U.N. staffer Alexandra Duguay loved her. She was attractive, energetic and extremely intelligent. I got to know her well when she worked behind the media counter at U.N. headquarters. She was always eager to make sure we reporters had the latest resolutions, U.N. reports and speeches. And in the evening she enjoyed a glass of wine or beer at the Delegates Lounge. But she was bored with her job and wanted more adventure. One morning last spring she had an unusual twinkle in her eye. I asked her if something was up and she said yes. “I’m going to Haiti.” A few months later she had her going-away party at the U.N. Correspondents Association room. She and her boyfriend prepared for their imminent deployment to Haiti, where Alex was to be a spokeswoman and media coordinator for U.N. operations in the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation.

Alex quickly settled into her exciting new job. Late last year she emailed me an update of life in Port-au-Prince: “Even though it’s a bit of a s****y place, I can’t complain. I just spend too much time between my house and my hotel room, a.k.a. office. Yeah, we have peacocks as pets … Haitians are nuts. Lovely but nuts.”

Alex, 31, was one of dozens of U.N. workers who died after the peacekeeping mission’s headquarters in Haiti and other buildings collapsed during an earthquake on January 12. It was the biggest loss of life during a single event in the world body’s 65-year history.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid tribute to the dead U.N. staffers a few days later when he visited the ruins of the 5-story Christopher Hotel, where the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) had its offices, saying that he lacked the words to express his sorrow. Shortly after he left the site, where the stench of death hung thick in the air, a U.S. search-and-rescue team pulled a Danish man out of the rubble, dehydrated after five days without water or food, but alive and conscious.

“I am very glad that it was a great sign of hope,” Ban told reporters later. “Saving lives is our first priority and I hope that we see more such miracles.”

There were a few other stories of miraculous survival. Imran Gardner, the 5-month-old son of U.N staffers in Haiti, Esra and William Gardner, was rescued from under the rubble of their home by unidentified Haitians.

Sadly, such survival stories were the exception. As many as 200,000 people are believed to have died in the earthquake and some of their bodies may never be recovered. A group of containers at the U.N. logistics base at the Port-au-Prince airport, which several U.N. officials insisted was not refrigerated, has become an unofficial U.N. morgue.

“Earth to Ban Ki-moon” or how a deal was sealed in Copenhagen

Sweden complained that the recent Copenhagen climate change summit was a “disaster.” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown described it as “at best flawed and at worst chaotic.” Sudan’s U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, dubbed the outcome confirmation of a “climate apartheid.” For South Africa it was simply “not acceptable.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who for over a year had been urging the 192 members of the United Nations to “seal the deal” in Copenhagen, saw things differently. In a statement issued by his press office, Ban said the two-week meeting had a “successful conclusion with substantive outcomes.” Speaking to reporters, the secretary-general expanded on that: “Finally we sealed the deal. And it is a real deal. Bringing world leaders to the table paid off.” However, he tempered his praise for the participating delegations by noting that the outcome “may not be everything that everyone hoped for.”

In fact, the outcome fell far short of what Ban had been calling for over the last year. He had originally hoped the meeting would produce a legally binding agreement with ambitious targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and funding to help developing nations cope with global warming. Instead it “noted” an accord struck by the United States, China and other emerging powers that was widely criticized as unambitious and unspecific.

That accord set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times — seen as a threshold for dangerous changes such as more floods, droughts and rising seas. But it did not say how this would be achieved. It also held out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for developing nations, but did not say where the money would come from. Decisions on fundamental issues such as emissions cuts were pushed into the future.

The South Korean U.N. chief was not the only person to praise the summit. U.S. President Barack Obama said the outcome was an “important breakthrough”, but noted that it was only one step on the road towards the emissions cuts needed. The head of China’s delegation, Xie Zhenhua, said the meeting “had a positive result, everyone should be happy.” (Gordon Brown was clearly placing the blame for the underwhelming outcome in Copenhagen on China and a few other states when he said: “Never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries.”)

Back in New York, some delegations were shaking their heads over Ban’s bullish remarks about Copenhagen. “He is talking from Mars,” said the Sudanese envoy, who currently chairs the Group of 77 club of developing nations at the U.N. But Ban is not in outer space, several U.N. officials insisted on condition of anonymity. Ban did not see the summit as a failure, but he, too, felt disappointed and would keep on working to “seal the deal” in 2010.

In fact, the U.N. officials said, Ban’s personal intervention had helped prevent the summit from falling apart. “He’s acutely aware of how much worse it could have been,” one official said. He was making phone calls, organizing bilateral meetings and persuading reluctant delegates to join the consensus. “His final intervention at the 11th hour” helped secure that consensus, the official said.

Dream job or snake pit? UN appoints new spokesman

By Patrick Worsnip

It’s not uncommon for journalists at some point in their careers to cross the barricades and become the people who dish out the news as spokespersons for an organization or firm, rather than being on the receiving end. It requires a different set of skills that can make the transition tough, and a stern test confronts former Reuters correspondent Martin Nesirky, who has just been appointed spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. After a high-flying career at Reuters that saw him fill senior editorial positions in London, Berlin, Moscow and Seoul, Nesirky has had some time to acclimatize to his new role by working for more than three years as spokesman for the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), based in Vienna. But the move to New York brings much more formidable challenges.

Like any U.N. spokesperson, Nesirky, a Briton, will have to take into account the concerns of the 192 nations that belong to the world body. That’s 192 different governments that can get upset by something he might say. But his chief problem may be his boss Ban, whose public image, to put it mildly, could take a little burnishing. Aside from his awkward use of English, which has television producers tearing their hair, Ban has had a rough ride from hostile media that have accused him of failing to use his position to end the world’s conflicts and right its wrongs. (Defenders say he is more effective than he appears, works tirelessly behind closed doors, and has made at least some progress on such intractable issues as climate change, global poverty and the crisis in Darfur.) Then there is the sprawling and ill-defined nature of the U.N. press and public relations operation, with different officials and factions competing for the secretary-general’s attention and waiting to pounce on any mis-step by one of the others. The outgoing spokeswoman, Michele Montas of Haiti, stuck to the job for less than three years. In trying to stay close to the South Korean secretary-general, Nesirky could benefit from his knowledge of the Korean language from his time in Seoul. He is also married to a South Korean. But these advantages too could be a double-edged sword. U.N. diplomats have long complained that Ban is happiest in a Korean comfort zone and relies too much on a compatriot who serves as his deputy chief-of-staff, Kim Won-soo.

As a white male from a Western permanent member of the Security Council, Nesirky could also face suspicion from diversity lobbies and from the developing world, which already sees Ban as too much in thrall to the United States. (Ban’s U.S. critics make the opposite accusation.)

In the world of spokespeople, the U.N. post may look from the outside like a dream job. But insiders were not so envious. Nesirky joins the world body as Ban is getting ready to try to persuade the great powers who decide these things that he has done well enough in his first five-year term of office, which ends in December 2011, that he deserves a second one. Most analysts give him a good chance, saying he has done nothing to offend key players in Washington and Beijing. But if they are wrong, Nesirky’s job could turn out to be one of his shorter assignments.

Norwegian memo sparks PR crisis for UN’s Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon isn’t having a good year for public relations. Halfway through a five-year term as U.N. secretary-general, he’s been hit with a wave of negative assessments by the Financial Times, The Economist, London Times, Foreign Policy and other media organizations. In a March 2009 editorial entitled “Whereabouts Unknown,” the Times said Ban was “virtually inaudible” on pressing issues of international security and “ineffectual” on climate change, the one issue that Ban claims he has made the biggest difference on. The Economist gave him a mixed report card, assigning him two out of 10 points for his management skills while praising him on climate change (eight out of 10 points).      This week, Norway’s Aftenposten newspaper made an unpleasant situation much worse. It published a confidential memo assessing Ban’s 2-1/2 years in office from Oslo’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Mona Juul, to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Juul’s report is scathing — and it comes from a representative of one of the world’s body’s top financial contributors. She says the former South Korean foreign minister suffers from a “lack of charisma” and has “constant temper tantrums” in his offices on the 38th floor of the United Nations building in midtown Manhattan.      She describes Ban as a “powerless observer” during the fighting in Sri Lanka earlier this year when thousands of civilians were killed as government forces ended a 25-year civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels, trapping them on a narrow strip of coast in the country’s northeast. In Darfur, Somalia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Congo, she wrote, Ban’s “passive and not very committed appeals seem to fall on deaf ears.” She says that his recent trip to Myanmar was a failure and that some people in Washington refer to Ban as a “one-term” secretary-general.      Juul’s letter could hardly have come at a more inopportune time. Ban is planning to visit Norway in the coming weeks, where he intends to meet with government officials and visit the Arctic circle to see for himself the effects of global warming and the melting polar ice. Now U.N. officials fear reporters will be more interested in what he says about Juul’s memo than climate change.

So far Ban has not reacted to the letter. However, a Norwegian diplomat told Reuters that Ban’s press office had been instructed to hold off on confirming his visit to Norway shortly after the news of Juul’s memo began to spread.      Ban’s PR difficulties didn’t start this year. In March 2008, his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar sent a memo to U.N. employees explaining how to say his boss’s name. “Many world leaders, some of whom are well acquainted with the Secretary-General, still use his first name mistakenly as his surname and address him wrongly as Mr. Ki-moon or Mr. Moon,” Nambiar complained.   Then came Ban’s own speech to senior U.N. officials in Turin, Italy last year, in which he described how difficult it was to improve the working culture inside the United Nations. The secretary-general seemed to acknowledge that his internal management style had failed. “I tried to lead by example,” Ban said. “Nobody followed.”      Ban’s aides vehemently defend him, saying he’s being treated unfairly by the press. One senior U.N. official suggested privately that Ban could very well turn out to be “the greatest secretary-general ever.” They complain that people continue to compare him to his predecessor Kofi Annan, who was a very different U.N. chief and relied less on “quiet diplomacy” than Ban. Annan became a hero to many people around the world for standing up to the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Annan called the March 2003 invasion illegal. U.N. officials also complain bitterly about the indefatigable blogger Matthew Lee, whose website Inner City Press regularly accuses Ban and other U.N. officials of hypocrisy and failing to keep their promises to reform the United Nations and root out corruption. (Some U.N. officials accuse Lee of not always getting his facts right, but his blog has become unofficial required reading for U.N. staffers around the world.)      Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, diplomats in New York say, is among those supporting a campaign against a second term for Ban. Juul’s memo said Helen Clark, New Zealand’s former prime minister and current head of the U.N. Development Program, “could quickly become a competitor for Ban’s second term.” But diplomats say they expect the United States, Britain and other major powers to reluctantly back a second term for Ban, if only because there appears to be no viable alternative whom Russia and China would support.      A recent article in the Times of London said the best U.N. chief in the organization’s 64-year history was not Swedish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dag Hammarskjold but the Peruvian diplomat Javier Perez de Cuellar, who held the top U.N. post for 10 years until 1992. Nicknamed “mumbles” because he was so difficult to understand, Perez de Cuellar kept a low profile and, like Ban, preferred backroom diplomacy, not Annan’s bully pulpit. Among the Peruvian diplomat’s successes were managing the end of the Cold War, leading a long-delayed revival of U.N. peacekeeping and encouraging member states to back a U.S.-led military operation to drive Iraq’s invading forces out of Kuwait in 1991.      Will Ban’s preference for quiet diplomacy make him as good or better than Perez de Cuellar? That remains to be seen.