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The immediate past UN Secretary- General, Kofi Annan, brought to his position a wealth of experience in peacekeeping. From March 1993 until his appointment as Secretary- General on 17 December 1996, except for the period from 1 November 1995 to March 1996, when he served as special Representative of the Secretary- General to the former Yugoslavia- Mr Annan was Under- Secretary- General for Peacekeeping Operations, and for a year before that, Assistant Secretary- General for Peacekeeping Operations.
Prior to becoming Secretary- General, he had carried out a number of sensitive diplomatic assignments, including negotiating the repatriation of over 900 international staff and the release of Western hostages in Iraq following that country's invasion of Kuwait in 1990; initiating discussions on the oil-for-food formula to ease the humanitarian crisis in Iraq; and overseeing the transition from the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in the former Yugoslavia to the multinational Implementation Force (IFOR) led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization following the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. He also supervised the establishment of the three successor peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia.
In these positions he helped to formulate new approaches to the complex uncertainties of a post-cold-war world marked by unprecedented levels of civil strife fuelled by fierce assertions of national and ethnic identities.
Throughout this volatile period, Mr. Annan worked to strengthen the capacity of the Organization to undertake both traditional peacekeeping missions and multifunctional operations, and to shoulder new tasks in the area of international peace and security, such as preventive development.
To cope with the dramatic growth in the number of peacekeeping operations mounted since the late 1980s, Mr. Annan oversaw the creation of a situation centre that monitors United Nations peacekeeping operations around the clock. He also concentrated on enhancing the Organization's readiness for peacekeeping, canvassing Member States for commitments on stand-by arrangements for the provision of troops, equipment and other resources.
Mr. Annan also worked with Member States to improve response time by taking steps towards the development of a Rapidly Deployable Mission Headquarters, with earmarked Secretariat and other personnel, which became functional in 1997. And to ensure that the lessons of peacekeeping experiences, successful and otherwise, are assimilated and applied, Mr. Annan created a Lessons Learned unit within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
As Secretary- General, Mr. Annan has emphasized his commitment to engaging Member States in a dialogue about the possible use of the tools of peacekeeping, preventive diplomacy and post- conflict peace- building. He commissioned two landmark independent inquiries into the actions of the United Nations during the genocide in Rwanda and the fall of Srebernica.
Mr. Annan has stimulated much debate within the United Nations and externally by his forcefully articulated views about issues of human security and state and individual sovereignty. In May last year, in a commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University, the Secretary- General noted that a new understanding of the concept of security is evolving- one that places the security of the individual first and one that recognized that national sovereignty can never serve as a shield for gross and systematic violations of human rights.
Peacekeeping, he said, cannot be a substitute for the lack of political will on the part of the international community. And peacekeepers must not be used as fig leaves to conceal the lack of such will.
The Secretary- General said there is substitute for sufficient means, robust mandates and the willingness of member states capable of providing troops to do so and provide first- rate military/logistical support. The best peacekeeper is a well- trained and well equipped soldier.
Taking a hard look at how and under which circumstances we carry on our peace missions, Mr. Annan has established a panel of independent experts to present a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of peacekeeping and advise on how the UN should move forward in peace support operations in the future. The panel's report will be presented to world leaders at the Millennium General Assembly Summit in September.
Mr Annan has since retired from office after successfully completing two terms.
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