Talk:U Thant

Title

Isn't "U" a Burmese equivalent of "Mr."? In that case, since we don't usually use personal titles in article titles, should it be just "Thant"? -Montréalais 18:34, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

• Except everyone in the world (at least outside of Burma) called him U Thant; this is by far the most common name, and so most appropriate under Wikipedia: Naming conventions.--Pharos 08:06, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Awe

I am writing this in gesture of my appreciation for the turmoil Thant went through to be just for those treated unjustly and for those who justify. Thanks for everything, and i am sorry that i never came to visit you when i was there. eric —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.198.12.162 (talk • contribs) 05:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC) This is not a fan page.Radioactiveplayful (talk) 12:29, 24 April 2013 (UTC)Radioactivplayful

Lung cancer

Was he a smoker? The article says he died of lung cancer. Badagnani 03:21, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Radiation, pollution, and genetics account for 10% of lung cancer cases...so maybe not. 71.76.205.168 06:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

He smoke Burmese cigar. No doubt, he needed stimulus from nicotine since his office was a heavy burden and his wife always wanted to go back to Myanmar. He had to work ten hours per day for six days a week. Often, many UN delegates would call him in the middle of the night in case of "emergency". For example, US delegate called him at 3:00 AM during the Cuban crisis. But few thanked him for his job. He was often under heavy criticisms. US Secretary of State accused him of "wanting Nobel Prize" for his criticisms against Vietnam War. All these contributed to his health decline.That was the reason why he left office despite unanimous appeal from the Security Council to serve a third term. SWH^{® talk} 11:33, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Thant"

Is "Thant" pronounced "Tant" or "Thant"? This should be explained in the article. Badagnani 03:21, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

His name is pronounced [ú θã̰], or "U" (roughly like the 'o' in "lose") and "Thant" (roughly like the 'unt' in "runt", except the final 't' is not pronounced fully, and with the initial 'th' pronounced as in "the").--Hintha 19:54, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The theta sound for Th here is as in "thousand". Wagaung 15:27, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Only politician to try to prevent 6-day war

there were other politicians who tried to resolve the tension preceding the 6-day war through peaceful means. User:Iosef Aetos

according to Michael Oren's Six Days of War (Ballantine Books, 2002, ISBN0345461924), U Thant is blamed for acting with "regrettable speed" in releiving the UNEF from the Egyptian border. I would like to see a more detailed section on U Thant's decision-making process concerning the UNEF issue...Zadooplum 18:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Removing statement about india and yugolslavia "alread having agreed to remove troops" 1. there is no source 2. that doesn't matter, because they only do so under recommendation of the secretary general anyway.

(1)It's a well known fact, and (2) is wrong, they did it completely independently of the Secretary General, prior to his orders. Contra Oren, the almost universal scholarly opinion is that the criticism was unjust; he had no choice at all, and delayed as long as he could. I'll satisfy Zadooplum's request someday.4.234.12.180 (talk) 10:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Israel and United Nations as a result of May 1967

Whichever is the truth, the outcome of May 1967 played a large role in determining Israel's lasting suspicion and distrust (not to mention sometimes cynical contempt) for the United Nations -- which is why Israel has ever since insisted on U.S. truce monitors (not U.N. or multinational) wherever it could (as in the Sinai). A significant proportion of Israelis consider that in May 1967 Israel learned the lesson the hard way that U.N. and multinational forces will never defend Israel against Israel's enemies, but will often hinder Israel's abilities to defend itself -- and fairly or unfairly, the name firmly associated with one of Israel's first big disappointments with the U.N. is U Thant... AnonMoos (talk) 17:15, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Added quote from Abba Eban's autobiography which comes to much the same thing, but says it more diplomatically. -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:56, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Mandarin?

Why is the section about his time working for the Burmese government entitled "Mandarin"? Is the term just used as a synonym for civil servant, or am I missing something? Unless I am mistaken, the word is only used that way ironically, unless actually referring to imperial China. How about "Burmese government service" instead? --mglg_(talk) 02:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Depends how you view civil servants but happy to oblige. Wagaung 17:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleted trivia

I deleted the following sentence from the introduction.

U Thant is also mentioned in a line from the movie "That Thing You Do" when the drummer, Guy Patterson (played by Tom Everett Scott) says "If Jimmy's a genius... I'm U Thant."

It certainly doesn't belong in the introduction and, short of creating a (deprecated) trivia section, I couldn't see anywhere else for it in the article. Dricherby (talk) 00:40, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The Security Council Resolution

In the article is said that the Security Council suggested U Thant as Secretary General in the Resolution 167. But actually, as reported in the site of the Secruity Councils Resolutions (http://www.un.org/documents/sc/res/1961/scres61.htm) it is the 168. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.60.159.150 (talk) 17:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The evil & corrruption of U Thant

Without doubt U Thant was one of the most evil & corrupt people of the twentieth century, yet he seems to have been an incredibly honest and decent person in his other work. And he does not seem to have personally profitted from his scheme to enslave and murder a million people in the Pacific. Can anyone suggest or shine a light on this apparant contradiction? He put $200b into the hands of Robert Lovett and the Rockefeller family, and he helped Indonesia expand its reign of terror into the Pacific, but why did he do it?

First he went to the New York Times pleading for the General Assembly to make resolution 1752, then he violated his moral & legal obligations under UN Charter article 85 part 2 to tell the Trusteeship Council about the General Assembly resolution, having prevented the Trusteeship Council from being able to do its article 87 & 88 work for five years U Thant then remained silent when the Indonesian military / General Suharto sells ('67) the first illegal 30 yearing mining license to the Rockefellers and their Freeport mining company fcx.com , the next year ('68) when Indonesia is using weapons the US gave it to bomb & kill people in the Papuan highlands for the Freeport mine U Thant again remains silent. And in 1969 when his Ambassador Fernando Ortiz-Sanz is begging Indonesia to stop punishing the Papuans for pro-independence activities, and when the Ambassador begs Indonesia to allow at least some of the people to vote; again U Thant is silent.

And finally to cover-up the whole illegal mining & abuse of the territory U Thant asks the General Assembly to make a resolution 2504 to absolve him of responsibility for what he has been doing for the pass seven years. Daeron (talk) 14:04, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:U Thant/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

concerning the 1967 Arab-Israeli war crisis, Michael Oren's "Six Days of War" seems to contradict U Thrant's 'contributions', and indeed reveals very questionable decisions made by secretary-general during this situation. Oren's book documents many conversations between leaders of the region which left to the withdrawal of the UNEF and ultimately lead to the war. I recommend looking into this book as Oren seems to heavily criticize the role of the UN secretary general...

Last edited at 05:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC). Substituted at 09:26, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Criticism of U Thant from an Arab point of view

The 2004 book "Nasser: The Last Arab" by Saïd K. Aburish contains very severe criticisms of U Thant's May 1967 actions from an Arab point of view. I don't feel like copying them down, or trying to add them to the article right now, but Aburish strongly implies that Thant's procedure of waiting for just one day (without discussing anything with international or Egyptian diplomats, or with Nasser himself, during that day), and then abruptly withdrawing all of UNEF from both the Egyptian-Israeli border and also Sharm-el-Sheikh, had the effect of greatly increasing the probability of war. Thant's way of doing things left the Israelis feeling alone and isolated -- and with a newly-strengthened belief that United Nations assurances and guarantees were absolutely useless and worthless (see Abba Eban above) -- and it contributed to Nasser painting himself into a corner and feeling that he had to cross the Israeli "red line" of blockading the Straits of Tiran in order to keep up his respect among the Arabs, even though he may not have originally intended to do it before U Thant acted. If part of the United Nations Secretary-General's job is to prevent wars, then U Thant sure didn't seem to be doing his job very well in May 1967... AnonMoos (talk) 18:01, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Nasser asked to withdraw the UNEF. Meanwhile, Israelis didn't accept them on their border. Yet when the war broke out, BOTH SIDES blamed U Thant. Too much logic out there buddies. 98.19.45.87 (talk) 23:16, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

If U Thant had withdrawn those along the Egypt-Israel border, but had left those at Sharm-el-Sheikh in place "temporarily" subject to further multilateral diplomatic discussion and negotiation, then his actions might have been less "logical", but a whole lot more effective in preventing war. The Israeli government would not have felt that the United Nations had violated its assurances of 1957, leaving Israel isolated and vulnerable, to the same degree, while Nasser would have been less tempted to violate Israel's casus belli red line of reblockading the Straits of Tiran... AnonMoos (talk) 09:30, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Duration in office

The article says he served a record term of 10 years and 1 month, but that doesn't seem to be right. It goes on to say that his term ended on 3 November 1966, and he was re-elected on 2 December. So he was out of office for at least one month (or two months if his next term started on 1 January 1967). Richard75 (talk) 14:24, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I finally got round to dealing with this. The 10 years and 1 month takes the vacancy into account already, although it is 3,683 days not 3,684. I added some clarification and a source. Richard75 (talk) 14:09, 26 October 2018 (UTC)