New UN chief pledges attention to Darfur, N. Korea

UNITED NATIONS -- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon started his first day on the job yesterday by promising immediate attention to the crisis in Darfur while backing off traditional UN opposition to capital punishment.

Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister succeeding Kofi Annan of Ghana, was greeted by a UN honor guard and then went to a UN meditation chapel to honor fallen peacekeepers.

Asked about the execution of Saddam Hussein, Ban, 62, told reporters the former Iraqi leader was responsible "for committing heinous crimes and unspeakable atrocities against the Iraqi people, and we should never forget the victims of these crimes."

But he said, "The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member state to decide" in conformity with international law. South Korea has the death penalty, although it is considering whether to abolish it.

However, his special representative in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, released a statement saying that the world body "remains opposed to capital punishment, even in the case of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide."

Ban said the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region was "very high on my agenda" and he would meet with his special envoy, Jan Eliasson of Sweden, tomorrow morning and had already spoken by telephone with him.

He also announced he would attend an African Union summit at the end of January in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and talk to Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, there.

"By engaging myself in the diplomatic process I hope that we will be able to resolve peacefully as soon as possible on these serious issues," Ban said.

The United Nations is seeking to get a peacekeeping force in Sudan's western arid Darfur region, where violence has escalated, rapes have multiplied, and more than 2.5 million people have lost their homes. Bashir has put conditions on a UN peacekeeping force to bolster the underfinanced 7,000 African Union troops, now in Darfur.

On North Korea, Ban said it was a priority on his agenda, especially since he had been deeply involved in diplomacy on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions as South Korea's foreign minister.

But Ban was mindful of the daunting challenges and the limitations of the United Nations as well as his job.

"Not a single person, including the secretary general of the United Nations, not a single country, however strong, powerful, resourceful, cannot address [these issues]," he said. " We need to have some common effort."

Ban also pledged to encourage senior staff members to talk to the media as well as member states.

In a closed meeting with UN staff members, he said the bureaucracy had come under harsh and sometimes unfair criticism, according to his speaking notes.

"Not all the criticisms are justified but some of them warrant our urgent attention, and we must take bold steps to dispel them," he said, referring to Annan's unsuccessful effort to get UN General Assembly approval for management reforms.