North Korea labels UN chief Ban Ki-moon's presidential ambitions a 'hollow dream'

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North Korea has mocked outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over his apparent ambitions to run for South Korean president, calling him an opportunistic "chameleon in a human mask" who's dreaming a "hollow dream".

The North's state-run Uriminzokkiri website said Mr Ban's alleged presidential ambitions were absurd because the way he handled his job as UN chief for the past 10 years has left him living in "criticism and shame".

The article said Mr Ban, 72, had a bad reputation in South Korea's domestic politics because he was an opportunist who "sets sail wherever winds blow and changes colours by the circumstance".

"There is an old saying that you stretch your feet no longer than your blanket will reach," Uriminzokkiri said.

"His harbouring presidential ambitions despite living in all sorts of criticism and shame could only described as an incomparably hollow, silly dream."

Mr Ban, who steps down as UN secretary-general at the end of the year after two five-year terms, has not officially declared an ambition to run for South Korean president, but he has not denied his interest either.

In a meeting with South Korean reporters in New York earlier this week, Mr Ban said he was ready to "burn" his body in devotion for South Korea, his strongest hint yet of a presidential bid.

The spotlight is on Mr Ban because there was a possibility South Korea could hold a presidential election in the coming months.

The country's opposition-controlled parliament earlier this month voted to impeach President Park Geun-hye over a corruption scandal.

If Ms Park is formally removed from office, a presidential election must be held within 60 days.

If he does make a run for the presidential Blue House, Mr Ban is likely to represent a new conservative party created by defectors from Ms Park's Saenuri Party.

AP

Topics: world-politics, korea-democratic-peoples-republic-of, korea-republic-of, asia</s>SEOUL (Reuters) - As hundreds of thousands of South Koreans poured into the streets every weekend for two months to call for President Park Geun-hye to resign, the opposition’s leading contender to replace her appeared reluctant to seize the moment.

Moon Jae-in (C), former human rights lawyer and presidential candidate of the main opposition Democratic United Party, attends a campaign encouraging people to vote, in Seoul, South Korea December 19, 2012. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo

That is changing as Moon Jae-in, a 63-year-old human rights lawyer who lost the 2012 election to Park by more than a million votes, has in recent days taken a higher public profile as he seeks to lead the liberal Democratic Party into the next election and end eight years of conservative rule.

Like many on the left, he calls for sweeping reform of the chaebol - the big conglomerates that dominate the economy and have been at the heart of the current political crisis - calling them a “source of unfairness” in South Korea.

He promises to move the presidential office into a multi-purpose government building and turn the palace-like Blue House, where Park remains while a court decides her fate after she was impeached by parliament, into a public museum.

He has also said that, if elected, he would visit rival North Korea before making a trip to South Korea’s main ally, the United States. Just two North-South summits have been held since the 1950-53 Korean war that divided the peninsula.

“The people who are angry in Korea want regime change, and the most realistic option and most probable person to do that is Moon Jae-in,” Yang Jung-chul, a close aide to Moon, told Reuters.

Moon had led opinion polls in recent weeks, although a survey released on Thursday by Realmeter showed he had fallen just behind United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, by 23.1 percent to 22.2 percent.

Ban has yet to declare his candidacy or party affiliation, but has been expected to join a conservative grouping.

Moon’s popularity among liberals stems from his time as chief of staff to South Korea’s last liberal president, Roh Moo-hyun, a figure revered by the left for his experimental and anti-establishment politics that sought chaebol reform.

“Moon is a symbol of that experiment,” said Yang.

But Roh, derided by conservatives for his pursuit of engagement with North Korea that they say failed to change Pyongyang’s behavior, could also be Moon’s undoing, especially among South Korea’s elderly.

The majority of people aged over 60, most of whom are conservative, have turned out to vote in the last three presidential elections, according to National Election Commission data. In 2012, 85.9 percent of over-60s voted.

By contrast, the least-avid voting group is people in their 20s or 30s, many of whom took to the streets for the first time during recent candle-lit protests in Seoul. At the last election their turnout levels were below 65 percent.

That was high, by recent standards, for the demographic, but Moon will need to convince an even bigger share of them to turn out and vote for him in the upcoming election, which is no sure thing.

“He has a tendency to make ambiguous comments and be overly-cautious of crossing lines,” said Moon Ji-hyun, a student activist at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. “He wasn’t in the frontlines at the early stages of the protests.”

The Constitutional Court must decide whether to uphold parliament’s Dec. 9 motion to impeach Park, which could take up to 180 days and, if successful, trigger an election two months later.

SWEET POTATO

Moon’s parents fled North Korea during the Korean War and resettled in Busan, at the south of the peninsula, where Moon grew up in a shanty town.

He was jailed in 1975 for protesting against the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee, President Park’s father, whose rule lasted 18 years. After leaving mandatory military service, where he served in the special forces, Moon became a lawyer.

As leader of the opposition last year, Moon adopted a more centrist stance to win over skeptics. But just 8 percent of those polled at the time said they thought Moon’s party was best on economic issues, compared with 44 percent for the ruling Saenuri Party.

“To win undecided voters, Moon needs to address security, diplomacy and unification, where many are distrustful of him,” said Lee Chung-hee, a politics professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

Moon came under fire earlier this year for revelations in a former foreign minister’s memoir that he had backed a motion to abstain from a United Nations vote against North Korea’s human rights record.

While Moon leads the race to represent his party in the election, new stars have risen.

One is Lee Jae-myung, the mayor of Seongnam, just south of Seoul, who has gone from rank outsider to third place in polls, riding the crisis with populist speeches.

By contrast, Moon’s caution and deliberate speaking style has earned him the nickname “sweet potato” - slow to cook, slow to eat, and a little difficult to swallow.

Lee, meanwhile, has been dubbed “soda” for his refreshing new take on politics.

In a recent radio interview, Moon said the Seongnam mayor was indeed like soda - refreshing but, unlike his own nickname, lacking substance.</s>One of the highest ranking diplomats in the world will speak at SIU on Wednesday morning to discuss his tenure.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is set to deliver a public lecture at 11:15 a.m. Wednesday at the Student Center. The event is free and open to the public.

His address at SIU will be his last public lecture before he finishes his second term as secretary-general at the end of the month.

“We are honored that the secretary-general accepted our invitation,” interim Chancellor Brad Colwell said in a news release. “I believe he did so because of our strong reputation as a national research university, our rich history of embracing international education, and the important work of the [Paul Simon Public Policy Institute] and the United Nations Association-USA Southern Illinois Chapter.”

Ban, a native of the Republic of Korea, is the eighth secretary-general of the U.N. He was elected to the position in 2007 and was unanimously re-elected to a second term in 2011.

In his two terms as secretary-general, Ban addressed many issues such as global warming, peace in the Middle East and LGBT rights.

Ban also served in South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1970 until he became the country’s foreign minister in 2004 — a position he held until elected secretary-general.

The Simon Institute and the local chapter United Nations Association has long had a vested interest in bringing a secretary-general to campus for the last 15 years, said Matt Baughman, assistant to the chancellor and former associate director of the Simon Institute.

Baughman said the university extended an invitation in 2013 and 2015 for Ban to come speak, citing the university’s persistence and association with the late Sen. Paul Simon as driving factors to Ban’s recent decision to visit the university.

SIU previously welcomed to campus former Presidents Harry Truman in 1948 and Bill Clinton in 1995. Baughman said the secretary-general’s visit is on par with such presidential visits.

But, he said the difference in Ban’s visit is that his address will likely gain more international media exposure seeing as his native country impeached its first female president, Park Geun-hye, on Friday.

Ban isn’t the first U.N. official hosted by SIU. Others include former Undersecretary-General of the U.N. Brian Urquhart; U.S. ambassadors to the U.N. Don McHenry — an SIU alumnus — and southern Illinois native Jeanne Kirkpatrick; and Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, who led the U.N.’s peacekeeping effort in Rwanda in the 1990’s.

“It’s such a significant honor to have the secretary-general coming to Illinois,” Baughman said.

A reception will follow Ban’s lecture in the International Lounge. The topic of his speech is “What I Have Learned and Would Like to Pass On.”

Staff writer Sean Carley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @SeanMCarley.

To stay up to date with all your SIU news, follow the Daily Egyptian on Facebook and Twitter.</s>United Nations: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has addressed mounting speculation that he will run for president of South Korea, saying he will decide how to best help his country when he returns home in early January after 10 years as UN chief.

Ban told his final UN press conference that after taking some rest he plans to meet "as many people as possible," including political leaders, members of civil society and his friends. "I will really consider seriously how best and what I should and I could do for my country," he said on Friday.

Ban said South Korea is "in turmoil" following the explosive corruption scandal involving President Park Geun-hye, whose powers were suspended last week after lawmakers voted to impeach her.</s>SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of - North Korea on Friday mocked outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over his apparent ambitions to run for South Korean president, calling him an opportunistic "chameleon in a human mask" who's dreaming a "hollow dream."

The North's state-run Uriminzokkiri website said Ban's alleged presidential ambitions were absurd because the way he handled his job as UN chief for the past 10 years has left him living in "criticism and shame."

The article said Ban had a bad reputation in South Korea's domestic politics because he's an opportunist who "sets sail wherever winds blow and changes colours by the circumstance."

"There is an old saying that you stretch your feet no longer than your blanket will reach, and his harbouring presidential ambitions despite living in all sorts of criticism and shame could only described as an incomparably hollow, silly dream," Uriminzokkiri said.

Ban, who steps down as UN secretary general at the end of the year after two five-year terms, has not officially declared an ambition to run for South Korean president, but he has not denied his interest either.

In a meeting with South Korean reporters in New York earlier this week, Ban said he was ready to "burn" his body in devotion for South Korea, his strongest hint yet of a presidential bid.

The spotlight is on Ban because there's a possibility South Korea could hold a presidential election in the coming months.

The country's opposition-controlled parliament on Dec. 9 voted to impeach President Park Geun-hye over a corruption scandal. South Korea's constitutional Court has up to six months to decide whether Park should permanently step down or be reinstated. Her presidential powers are suspended until then, with the prime minister assuming the role of government caretaker. If Park is formally removed from office, a presidential election must be held within 60 days.

If he does make a run for the presidential Blue House, Ban is likely to represent a new conservative party created by defectors from Park's Saenuri Party. More than 30 anti-Park members of Saenuri have announced plans to leave the party next week and create a new party.</s>Cheonggye Plaza protest via Teddy Cross on Flickr

 

 Since news first broke about Park Geun-Hye's influence peddling scandal in October, overwhelming popular opposition meant that her impeachment was inevitable. It is a delicate time for South Korea to throw a presidential election into the mix, but that's exactly what Park's impeachment has achieved. President-elect Donald Trump has injected ambivalence into America's continued military support for regional allies, Pyongyang is getting increasingly bellicose as it barrels ahead with its efforts to develop nuclear missiles, and the historic "comfort women" agreement clinched last year between Tokyo and Seoul is now teetering on the brink. Worse, the impeachment opens the door for opposition figure Moon Jae-in to become South Korea's next president - a prospect that will see him overturn key aspects of Park's foreign policy commitments and throw the region into disarray.

While most South Koreans continue to celebrate the December 10 impeachment vote in parliament, the country's political leaders are sharpening their knives in anticipation of an early election, probably in the first quarter of 2017. Recent polls show that the two most likely contenders to win that election are the former Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon, and Moon Jae-in, who until January 2016 was the chairman of the opposition Minjoo Party. While Ban Ki-moon has yet to officially throw his hat into the ring, Moon Jae-in will certainly be out to seek his revenge on Park and her conservative Saenuri party for the close defeat he suffered in 2012, which saw Park take the presidency.

With the Saenuri Party in disarray in the wake of Park's impeachment and the strong showing for Moon's Minjoo Party in parliamentary elections in April, there is a strong possibility that Moon could be the next president. Seeing how Moon harbors highly revisionist attitudes that pose dangers for the current trilateral alliance between the U.S., Japan and South Korea, tensions in the already volatile region can only rise.

Of particular concern is Moon's record of appeasing North Korea. According to the biography of Song Min-soon, who served as foreign minister under former president Roh Moo-hyun (to whom Moon was Chief of Staff), Roh's administration sought North Korea's opinion before abstaining from a UN vote in 2007 condemning Pyongyang's human rights abuses. Song alleges that Moon supported the idea - although when confronted, the latter has been evasive and has claimed that he does not remember how the decision was made. That Roh's Chief of Staff would not have been instrumental in this decision - which amounted to nothing short of a peace offering to Kim Jong-il's regime - stretches credulity.

While the Minjoo Party was founded some two and half years ago, most of its leaders are the same leaders that for 11 years opposed passing the North Korean Human Rights Act, choosing instead to direct their criticism at the opposition for "inciting" the North. This is especially worrisome given that during this time the North had shown nothing but bad faith in the six-party talks, continuing to stage nuclear tests and openly working towards developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. Taken in conjunction with the fact that Moon called for sanctions imposed on the North after the 2010 sinking of a South Korean warship to be dropped, at a time when the Kim Jong-un regime has been extraordinarily unruly, it is legitimate to wonder where Moon's loyalties reside.

Moon also seems to favor better relations with China. While Trump has softened his inflammatory stance towards South Korea and Japan over their perceived unwillingness to foot the bill for American troops stationed in the region, Moon has displayed a worrying disregard for it. The Minjoo Party is known for its criticism of the American security umbrella, but a recent delegation of Minjoo lawmakers who met in Beijing with their Chinese counterparts was particularly enraging. The topic discussed? Finding out "Chinese sentiments regarding THAAD", according to one of the lawmakers. The move attests that Minjoo is still susceptible to consult with foreign powers on matters of South Korean policy, thereby making South Korea susceptible to foreign pressure. To say the least, it is disconcerting to see Moon putting Beijing's concerns about the defense system threatening China's security above the security of South Koreans themselves.

When it comes to regional allies, on the other hand, Moon takes a hawkish stance. He has declared the 2015 "comfort women" agreement struck between South Korea and Japan after lengthy negotiations to be "null and void". Incidentally, Minjoo is in agreement with Pyongyang, which has called the deal "humiliating". By rejecting Tokyo's offer of one billion yen (US$8.3 million) in compensation for the remaining victims of Japan's wartime behavior during its colonial rule of Korea, Moon is rebuffing Japan's bid to present a united front against the shared enemy beyond the 38th parallel and driving a worrisome wedge between two strategic American allies.

If Moon comes to power, North Korea will have little incentive to halt its rapidly advancing nuclear program, and China may be in a stronger position to pressure Seoul into getting its way. Moon may prove himself incapable or unwilling to stand up to the North and defend his own people, undermining the stability and security of the region. As Park's impeachment has plunged Seoul into chaos, South Koreans may be in for a truly humiliating government indeed.</s>Two major presidential hopefuls in South Korea’s biggest opposition party beat outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a simulated presidential election, a local survey showed on Thursday. Moon Jae-in, former head of the main opposition Minjoo Party, is elected as president in a simulated showdown with Ban, who has been seen as the best hope…

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Also, Like us on facebook</s>Seoul, Dec 23: North Korea has mocked outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over his apparent ambitions to run for South Korean president, calling him an opportunistic "chameleon in a human mask" who's dreaming a "hollow dream."

The North's state-run Uriminzokkiri website said on Friday that Ban's alleged presidential ambitions were absurd because the way he handled his job as UN chief for the past 10 years has left him living in "criticism and shame."

Ban has not officially declared an ambition to run for South Korean president, but he has not denied his interest either. In a meeting with South Korean reporters earlier this week, Ban said he was ready to "burn" his body in devotion for South Korea, his strongest hint yet of a presidential bid.

"If what I have learned, seen and felt during my 10-year service as UN secretary-general could help advance Korea, I am more than willing to sacrifice myself for this cause," the Jakarta Post quoted Ban as saying.

His term as United Nations Secretary-General ends on December 31.</s>Russia has prevented the United Nations security council from thanking outgoing secretary general Ban Ki-moon specifically for promoting gay rights during his decade in office, diplomats said.

The 15-member council met to pay tribute to Ban, who will step down later this month. Being gay is a crime in at least 73 countries, the UN has said, and the issue of gay rights consistently sparks heated debate at the United Nations.

The United States and other members had wanted a council statement to read: “It is thanks to you, Mr Secretary-General, that women, young people, and the LGBT community have been heard and assisted, and today their voices sound louder and stronger in this headquarters and around the world.”

However, Russia objected, diplomats said. The 15-member council instead agreed to a statement that said because of Ban’s human rights promotion “the most vulnerable or marginalised have been increasingly heard and assisted by the United Nations”.

Ban has long advocated for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality but faced opposition from African, Arab and Muslim states as well as Russia and China.

In 2014, Ban said the UN would recognize all same-sex marriages of its staff, allowing them to receive its benefits. Russia, with the support of 43 states including Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, India, Egypt, Pakistan, and Syria, unsuccessfully tried to overturn the move last year.

In February, the 54-member African Group, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the 25-member Group of Friends of the Family led by Belarus, Egypt and Qatar protested six new UN stamps promoting LGBT equality.</s>North Korea has ridiculed Ban Ki-moon's apparent political ambition as a "silly dream" after the UN chief hinted at running for the South Korean presidency following Seoul's decision to impeach President Park Geun-hye over a corruption scandal.

Although Ban did not officially declare his ambition to run for the South's top job, he hinted during his final press conference as UN secretary-general on 16 December that he might seriously consider his chances. His second five year-term will expire at the end of this month.

Pyongyang's state-run Uriminzokkiri website on Friday (23 December) accused Ban of being an opportunistic "chameleon in a human mask" who it said was fantasising about a "hollow dream".

Ban's presidential goal was absurd due to the way he handled his job as the global body's chief for the past 10 years, it said.

The article went on to say Ban had a bad reputation in domestic politics because he is an opportunist who "sets sail wherever winds blow and changes colours by the circumstance".

"There is an old saying that you stretch your feet no longer than your blanket will reach, and his harbouring presidential ambitions despite living in all sorts of criticism and shame could only be described as an incomparably hollow, silly dream," Uriminzokkiri said.

The spotlight is on Ban after he hinted at returning to South Korea in 2017 at a time when the country is hit by a political scandal. The country could hold a presidential election in the coming months if the Constitutional Court in Seoul decides to strip Park of her presidential powers permanently. She was suspended following an overwhelming impeachment vote and the prime minister took over her duties.

If Park is removed from office formally, an election to find her successor must be held within 60 days.

If Ban decides to run for the Blue House's top job, he is likely to represent a new conservative party that is created by defectors from Park's Saenuri Party. Speculation is rife that more than 30 members from the party, who have taken an anti-Park stance, could leave and create a new movement.
United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and liberal candidate Moon Jae-in plan to contest the position vacated by Park Geun-hye.