(AP)
Updated: 2007-09-12 16:41

Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan displays a AK47 gun transformed to a guitar at Vienna's UN headquarters September 11, 2007. At the Vienna International Center, Annan was guest of honour at the naming ceremony of the Kofi Annan Building on Tuesday. [Reuters]

VIENNA -- Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan attended a ceremony Tuesday to name a building in his honor at the organization's Vienna complex, a day after he received an award from Austria's president.

The building now bearing Annan's name houses the headquarters of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, directed by Antonio Maria Costa.

"This is a fitting tribute to a man who has done so much for humankind, and who has raised the profile of the United Nations in Vienna," Costa, who is also the top official at the UN's Vienna branch, said in a statement before the ceremony.

During the ceremony, Annan received an AK 47 rifle that originated from the disarmament process in Colombia and had been turned into an electric guitar.

Colombian musician Cesar Lopez, who has been working with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia to raise awareness of violence, created the so-called Escopetarra in 2003 from rifles that had been used in conflict.

On Monday, Austrian President Heinz Fischer presented Annan with the country's "Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold With Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria." Annan also met with other Austrian officials, including Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and Ursula Plassnik, the foreign minister. Later Tuesday, he was due to receive the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Human Rights.

Annan was the UN's top official from 1997 until the end of last year.

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