Next UN chief Ban pledges passion for Africa

SEOUL, Nov 7 (Reuters) The UN secretary-general elect, South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon, pledged today he would devote his full attention and passion to solving Africa's problems.

Ban, who takes office on January 1, sought to allay concerns that Africa would slide from the United Nations agenda after two secretary-generals from the continent, Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan, have run the world body since 1992.

''I feel strongly attached to the African continent,'' Bam told four African presidents at a dinner in Seoul to mark the first Korea-Africa Forum. ''I will literally pour down my attention and passion towards Africa to resolve the problems inherent in the continent.'' ''The African continent still faces a multitude of challenges in the 21st century,'' said Ban, citing ongoing ethnic violence in Sudan's western Darfur region and civil war in Somalia as two crises inflicting suffering on local populations.

Ban, currently South Korea's minister for foreign affairs and trade, acknowledged the United Nations had mishandled crises in Africa, such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which more than 800,000 people, mainly from the minority Tutsi ethnic group, were killed in just over three months.

The Korean diplomat, known for his soft-spoken approach, said he was shocked by a visit to the Rwanda Genocide Memorial in May, one of his eight visits to Africa this year.

''That experience will have a big implication on my future duties as the next secretary-general,'' Ban said.

''In hindsight, my humble thought was that had the UN intervened in the Rwandan genocide at an earlier stage, such an unfortunate disaster would have been prevented,'' he said.

THANKED AFRICA He did not comment on the current deadlock between the UN Security Council, which passed a resolution in August to send peacekeepers to Darfur, and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has resisted its implementation.

Bam, who has quietly resisted US pressure for the secretary-general to adopt a less political role, thanked African states for supporting his candidacy for the job.

''It was their full support, I believe, that served as a powerful engine for winning the backing of all UN member states.'' Presidents from Ghana, Congo Republic, Benin and Tanzania attended the dinner. Several more African countries were expected to attend the three-day Korea-Africa Forum at ministerial level, a Korean official said.

The forum is aimed at increasing trade between South Korea and Africa and comes on the heels of a similar but larger event in China last weekend.

''Africa has always been the land of opportunity for humanity, for which reason I believe the people of Africa deserve to be confident about a better future awaiting them,'' Ban said.

Reuters AKJ GC2110