Boutros-Ghali Bids Farewell to United Nations
UNITED NATIONS — As several hundred staff members clapped, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 74, left the United Nations complex Tuesday, ending a turbulent five years as the world’s top diplomat.
“Thank you for everything you have done. I wish you a happy New Year. I wish success for the United Nations. I wish success for my successor, Kofi Annan,” he said.
Annan, 58, of Ghana, a longtime U.N. bureaucrat, takes over today as secretary-general.
Boutros-Ghali expressed regret over the U.N.’s budget woes but insisted that he feels no bitterness over his U.S.-orchestrated ouster.
The United States blocked his bid for a second term, insisting that he had to go because he had not done enough to reform the U.N. bureaucracy and because a tightfisted Republican Congress would not pay the $1.4-billion U.S. debt to the United Nations while he remained at the helm.
Boutros-Ghali, who plans to return to his native Egypt, said he felt his biggest success was in trying “to maintain minimum independence for the United Nations,” a veiled reference to his disputes with Washington.
The outgoing U.N. chief, who was Egypt’s former deputy foreign minister, said he would offer his “modest” services to work for peace in the Middle East, but he did not specify how.
He intends to complete work on a book he wrote over the summer, “Cairo’s Road to Jerusalem,” expected to be published by Random House this year.
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