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Sérgio Vieira de Mello (15 March 1948 – 19 August
2003) “Humanitarian
action through dialogue.” (Sergio
Foundation) Sergio
was a Brazilian born United Nations diplomat for more than thirty four years,
earning respect and praise around the world for his efforts in the
humanitarian and political programs of the UN. He was killed in the Canal
Hotel Bombing in Baghdad along with twenty other members of his staff on 19
August 2003 while working as the Secretary-General's Special Representative
in Iraq. Before his death, he was considered a likely candidate for UN
Secretary-General. Assignment: Analyze and
critique the methods of Sergio while he represented the UN in many host spots
around the world from the early 1970’s to his death in Iraq in 2003. Draw up a recommendation to Samantha
Powers, the current US representative to the UN (and biographer of Sergio)
about how to intervene in trouble spots around the world today including o
Northern Iraq and Syria o
The Gaza Strip o
Nigeria o
Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia o
Central African Republic o
The Great Lake Regions of Africa (Congo, Rwanda,
Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan) o
The Ukraine Sergio’s UN Career Highlights: ·
1966-70 Student at the
Sorbonne in Paris including the year of the Student Riots ·
1969-1971: French Editor, UNHCR, Geneva,
Switzerland ·
1971-1972 Project Officer,
UNHCR, Dhaka, East Pakistan ·
1972-1973: Programme Officer,
UNHCR, Juba, Sudan ·
1974-1975: Programme Officer,
UNHCR, Nicosia, Cyprus ·
1975-1977: Deputy Representative
and Representative, UNHCR, Maputo, Mozambique ·
1978-1980: Representative, UNHCR,
Lima, Peru ·
1980-1981: Head of Career Development and Training
Unit of Personnel Section, UNHCR, Geneva, Switzerland ·
1981-1983:
Senior Political Officer, UNIFIL, DPKO, Lebanon ·
1986-1990: Director of Asia
Bureau, UNHCR, Geneva, Switzerland where he supervised repatriation of Vietnamese Boat People ·
1993-1994: Director of Political
Affairs, UNPROFOR, DPKO, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina ·
October–December 1996: Special Envoy of
Secretary-General to the Great Lakes Region (Tanzania Hutu repatriation) ·
June–July 1999: Special
Representative of Secretary-General to Kosovo ·
May–August 2003: Special
Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Iraq Notes from the
Biography of Sergio de Viereia Mello (from the foundation
made in his memory). Born
in Brazil, Sergio went to college at the Sorbonne in Paris, graduating the
year that student/worker riots shook French politics. In 1970, he earned his
master’s degree in philosophy and was then hired by the UN to work in its
Geneva offices as a French translator. Sergio had marched during the student
riots of 1969, even avowing Marxism as an undergraduate, but his ideology
changed during his first field assignment for the UN in 1971 to East Pakistan
which was on the verge of becoming Bangladesh. There Sergio worked for the
UNHRC, the UN organization charged with protecting refugees during political
crises, then helping them go home and restart their lives. He earned his
doctorate in philosophy during his first four years working at the UN writing
his dissertation on Kant. ·
1969-1971: French Editor, UNHCR, Geneva,
Switzerland ·
1971-1972: Project Officer, UNHCR, Dhaka, East
Pakistan: o
The Bangladesh
Liberation War 1971: massive
refugee repatriation engineered with
UNHCR personnel receiving and handling refugees who sought to return home ·
1972-1973:
Programme Officer, UNHCR, Juba, Sudan o
The First Sudanese
Civil War (1955-72) The British administered both areas and in 1953
granted the former colonies independence. The North Sudan formed a government
dominated by Moslem Arabs which sought control over the South Sudan which
remains populated predominately by Animists and Christians. (A refugee
transport bottleneck was relieved when Sergio was part of the team which
negotiated the gift of a prefabricated bridge from donors in the Netherlands.
The bridge remains a key travel point between central and east Africa in the
region.) ·
1974-1975:
Programme Officer, UNHCR, Nicosia, Cyprus o
1975
Turkish Invasion and Division of Cyprus in support of ethnic Turkish
Cypriots who sought to succeed from the Greek dominated government. “The UN
Peace-Keeping troops deployed on the island since 1964 could not calm the
tension and all it could do was to deploy along the ceasefire line to prevent
direct confrontation and violence.”
The island has remained divided right across the capital, Nicosia to
this day. (UNHCR launched a humanitarian effort to aid the refugees displaced
by the crisis by providing relief assistance and the construction and
extension of schools and hospitals. Sergio made important professional
contacts with military officers that would serve him throughout his career.) ·
1975-1977:
Deputy Representative and Representative, UNHCR, Maputo, Mozambique o
The rebellion against Ian Smith’s Rhodesia (the Rhodesian Bush War)
led to the creation of Mozambique and Zimbabwe (Again Sergio works for the
UNHCR to repatriate and reintegrate refugees who had fled the country during
the war. When the UNHCR Representative in Maputo completed his assignment,
Sergio, at age 28, took command of the UNHCR office in the country becoming
one of the youngest UNHCR Representatives in the field.) ·
1978-1980:
Representative, UNHCR, Lima, Peru o
September 1973 General
Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of
Salvador Allende and seized power in Chile. This ushered in a wave of
right-wing dictatorships soon to spread to Argentina. Refugees from these
countries sought asylum in Europe. (Sergio helps negotiate an agreement which
allows the European relocation of some refugees but forces the local
dictators to accept portions of the remaining refugees, the vast majority
going to populist Peron’s Argentina.) ·
1980-1981:
Head of Career Development and Training Unit of Personnel Section, UNHCR,
Geneva, Switzerland o
During this time period worldwide refugees topped
ten million people. UNHCR determined that simply relocating refugees to other
countries was no longer tenable. UNHCR representatives sought to persuade
refugees to accept and governments to allow voluntary repatriation without
repercussions.(Sergio led a team which addressed the
problem of the Vietnamese
Boat People who had fled Indochina after the end of the Vietnam
War.) ·
1981-1983:
Senior Political Officer, UNIFIL, DPKO, Lebanon o
In March 1978, to prevent continuous incursions
and rocket attacks by Palestinians, Israel invaded Lebanon despite UN
objection and occupied all land south of the Litani
River. The UN Security Council demanded Israeli withdrawal and decided to
deploy a peacekeeping force in the region. Its main task was to ensure the withdrawal
of the Israeli troops and re-establish peace and security in the region by
helping the Government of Lebanon restore its authority throughout its
territory. Initially, the Israelis complied with the UN resolution and
withdrew from Lebanon. (Sergio served as Special Political Advisor to General
Callaghan - in charge at this time of UNIFIL. His responsibilities included
liaison between the UN troops and local authorities, assessment and
evaluation of the humanitarian needs of the civilian populations and
administration of various projects.) o
In June 1982
Israel decided to eliminate once and for all the Palestinian military
presence in Lebanon by driving out Yasser Arafat and the 15,000 fighters of
the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Israel pushed all the way to
Beirut and by the end of 1982 its attack had killed thousands, including
standing by while local militia massacred hundreds at the Sabra and Shatila
refugee camps. ·
1983-1985:
Deputy Head of Personnel, UNHCR, Geneva, Switzerland o
In the mid-eighties, UNHCR faced an unenviable
dilemma: On the one hand, the organization's mandate empowered it to ensure
that refugees were not expelled to countries where they feared for their
lives and freedom. On the other hand, the organization was left with millions
of refugees in its hands to cater for, often with very high cost for the
countries of asylum, precisely because these very governments were unwilling
to resettle them on their territories. Several examples of refugees stuck in
legal limbo, ironically known as "Palestinisation",
could be cited. o
Since neither local integration nor third country
resettlement were feasible in these situations, UNHCR institutionalized
voluntary repatriation as the linchpin of its policy of durable solution for
refugees. o
An important achievement Sergio and the
operational arm of UNHCR, represented by the Emergency Unit, realized was the
refinement and strengthening of the effective system of rapid and timely
deployment of staff in the field at the height of an emergency. This
contributed immensely in winning respect and credibility for the
organization, especially amongst donors. ·
1986-1988: Chef de Cabinet and Secretary to the
Executive Committee, UNHCR, Geneva, Switzerland ·
1988-1990: Director of Asia Bureau, UNHCR, Geneva,
Switzerland o
June 1989 Geneva Conference was the adoption of a
Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA): By introducing individual status
determination, a repatriation option was introduced within the CPA for Boat
People not recognized as refugees. Refugees who were in fact economic
migrants had to return home, but they received substantial cash grants to
return to their country of origin. (i.e. Vietnam) ·
1990-1991: Director of External Affairs, UNHCR,
Geneva, Switzerland o
What distinguished the 1990s from earlier decades
was the weakening of central governments shored up by super power support and
the proliferation of identity-based conflicts, many of which plunged whole
societies into violence. o
The new head of UNHCR Mrs. Sadako
Ogata oversaw the expansion of organizations budget in response to large
scale emergency operations in Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and the
Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. ·
1991-1993:
Director for Repatriation and Resettlement Operations, UNTAC, DPKO, and Special
Envoy of High Commissioner Sadako Ogata, UNHCR,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia o
In 1991, the UNHCR head Sadako
Ogata named Sergio as her Special Envoy in Cambodia. He simultaneously
assumed the responsibility of the Head of the Division of Repatriation of the
United Nations Transitional Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC) o
In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia
and imposed one of the most oppressive rules in the history of mankind. It
spread terror in the country, killing over one million and maiming and displacing
hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, most of them as refugees in
neighboring countries. Over 200,000 orphans were left abandoned, compelled to
look after themselves. This chapter of Cambodia's history is now viewed as
representing one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity in the
Twentieth Century. This reign of terror was only brought to an end when the
Vietnamese forces invaded the country in 1978 and routed the regime. It took
the UN twelve years for the five permanent members of the Security Council to
create a United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in
November 1990. o
On the 23rd of October 1991, following a series of
extensive high-level meetings by the five permanent members of the Security
Council, the Paris Peace Agreement involving all the parties in the Cambodian
conflict was concluded. This was followed shortly afterwards by the
appointment of Yasushi Akashi as the UN Secretary-General's Representative
for Cambodia and the launching of UNTAC. UNTAC was structured on seven
pillars : military, human rights, elections, civil administration, law and
order, rehabilitation and repatriation and resettlement of refugees and IDPs o
(The major challenge that Sergio encountered in
assuming his responsibilities in Phnom Penh was in overseeing the
repatriation, return and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of refugees,
preferably in their homes of origin. The fragile agreement did not
immediately produce tight binding ceasefires, requiring Sergio to constantly
negotiate access and concessions with all the different factions. Refugees
agreed to return home if they could go to their old villages and bring with
them their animals. The toughest of his tasks was negotiating with the Khmer
Rouge, which was known for its intransigencies. o
Against the advice of his colleagues and
superiors, he embarked on a lone mission that eventually led to direct
negotiations with the Khmer Rouge on their own territory. It led to the Khmer
Rouge releasing thousands of refugees to repatriate in their locations of
choice in their country. He answered his critics by saying: “I have had to
shake hands with many war criminals, because if you want results, you must
negotiate with the devil.” Sergio successfully concluded his mission in
Cambodia in June 1993 after repatriating and resettling 370,000 refugees and
hundreds of thousands of IDPs o
Perhaps the hallmark of Sergio's admirable
negotiating skills and deft diplomacy are best represented by his success in
negotiating with a group of lost Vietnamese soldiers, the Montagnards
(reportedly sponsored earlier by the Americans to fight in Cambodia) (see Apocalypse Now), and persuading them
to surrender their weapons and move to a refugee camp. He later negotiated
with the Americans, including North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, and had the
group of 385 combatants and their families resettled in the United States
where they reunited with their extended families. ·
1993-1994:
Director of Political Affairs, UNPROFOR, DPKO, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina o
In 1992 the UN Security Council established the
United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Zagreb, Croatia, with a mandate
to initially create a conducive environment of peace
and security for negotiating a comprehensive settlement of the Yugoslav conflict.
This included demilitarizing the three “United Nations Protected Areas"
and ensuring persons residing therein were fully protected from harassment
and intimidation by armed elements. In April 1992, when war broke out in
Bosnia, UNPROFOR was already on the ground. Its strength was increased to
cater to the additional duties of securing Sarajevo airport and ensuring the
delivery of humanitarian assistance to the besieged city and surrounding
areas. In September 1992, UNPROFOR's mandate was expanded to support UNHCR to
deliver humanitarian assistance through Bosnia-Herzegovina and to protect
convoys of released civilian detainees. UNPROFOR was mandated under Chapter
VII to only reply to attacks against the UN designated "Security
Zones" comprising Sarajevo, Bihac, Tuzla, Zepa, Srebenica and Gorazde in conjunction with NATO. o
Sarajevo was besieged by Serb artillery. The
constant bombardment and the uncontrollable sniping that earned the city the
notorious name of a “Sniper's Paradise" rendered the helpless civilians
as easy targets to a formidable force. They had not only to endure the
bombardments with rising casualties but forgo food, water, heating and safe
passage to hospitals. Sergio was convinced that the only way to break the
vicious stalemate was to negotiate directly with the Serbs. The
responsibility fell upon his shoulders to lead these negotiations. He relied
on his good sense of judgment, flair for diplomacy, courage and daring the
impossible to engage the Serbs in a substantive dialogue that made a major
difference in the lives of the beleaguered Bosnians. o
Sergio convinced the Serbs to allow the evacuation
of the wounded to hospitals and even fly them out B-H. He negotiated
ceasefires between the Serbs and Bosnians only to see them broken every now
and then. At the peak of the winter, he negotiated the reconnection of gas to
warm the freezing homes of Sarajevo. o
As Serb troops closed in on the northern Bosnian
town of Gorazde, Sergio volunteered to lead a
mission to the town to prevent a massacre. ·
1994-1996: Director of Operations and Planning,
UNHCR, Geneva, Switzerland ·
October–December
1996: Special Envoy of Secretary-General to the Great Lakes Region o
The 1994 genocide in Rwanda and subsequent
take-over of power by the Patriotic Front led by Paul Kagame
forced thousands of Hutus to flee into the neighbouring countries, Zaire,
Tanzania and Burundi. Armed Rwandan Hutu elements (Interahamwe)
mingled with the refugees, creating insecurity for the latter. This came to a
climax in May 1996 when Congolese rebels led by Laurent Kabila and supported
by Rwanda attacked the sprawling refugee camps in Goma,
Eastern Zaire, killing thousands of innocent, mostly Hutus, and forcing the
refugees to either flee into the forest or return unwillingly to an unknown
fate in Rwanda. These developments posed very serious moral questions to the
humanitarian community and especially to UNHCR. o
In mid-1996, the situation in the Great Lakes
Region had become extremely tense. In Burundi, there was considerable tension
between Hutus and Tutsis following the murder of the Hutu President and
takeover of power by a Tutsi. This led to outbursts of violence in which
thousands of people from both ethnic groups were killed. It had also led to
the flight, mainly to Rwanda, of about 700,000 Hutus. The neighbouring
countries convened an emergency meeting and declared an embargo against
Burundi. Elsewhere in the region, relations between Uganda and Sudan were
deteriorating as each country accused the other of arming and supporting
rebels against the other. In eastern Zaire, the conflict in South Kivu was
spreading to North Kivu. Guerrillas attacked Banyamulenge
(a Zairean Tutsi group). o
The work of UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies
in the Kivus became even more difficult. UNHCR was
portrayed by the Rwanda government and its allies as supporting not so much
the refugees but the genocidaires and their
sponsors, the Mobutu regime in Zaire. To make things worse, the refugees and
the Zairean government also criticized UNHCR. In
1996, UNHCR faced a very difficult situation with the Rwandan refugees in
Tanzania as they were later reported to have been forcibly repatriated. o
Sadako Ogata was
convinced that this stalemate could only be broken by UNHCR leading the
humanitarian operations in the Great Lakes Region. Consequently, she agreed
to release Sergio Vieira de Mello to serve as the UN Humanitarian Coordinator
in the Great Lakes Region for two months. o
Sergio's assignment entailed guaranteeing secure
space for the refugees, ensuring that effective humanitarian assistance
reached them and negotiating access and protection for them with the State
and Non-State parties. Sergio used his strong diplomatic skills to promote
dialogue and understanding between the authorities, the refugees, the
non-state actors and the operational humanitarian agencies and partners with
resounding success. By the time he returned to Geneva, in December 1996, the
tension, violence and insecurity that had exacerbated the situation on the
ground had given way to an acceptable level of normalcy in which the refugees
could receive care and protection and the majority of them had returned to
Rwanda... Although the refugees returned safely home, the contention and
debate that these refugees were forcibly repatriated continues to this day.
The verdict is still out there. ·
1996-1998: Assistant High Commissioner for
Refugees, UNHCR, Geneva, Switzerland ·
1998-2002: Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs, UN, New York, US ·
June–July
1999: Special Representative of Secretary-General to Kosovo o
The place of Kosovo in the larger context of the
Balkans has always been an uneasy one. A predominantly Moslem Albanian
society under a Serb-dominated government, Kosovo enjoyed a certain degree of
autonomy. This delicate arrangement was shaken when Slobodan Milosevic, after
coming into power in 1989, announced his intention to revoke Kosovo's
autonomy. Tension grew between the two ethnic groups. Matters came to a head
in March 1998 when the Yugoslav army clashed with the armed Kosovo militia,
the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). These clashes continued with increasing
ferocity. The Army carried out raids on a number of Kosovo villages, killing
about 2,000 and forcing 250,000 to flee as refugees o
On 23rd September 1998, the Security Council
appealed for a ceasefire, called for the withdrawal of Serbian forces and the
start of negotiations. Milosevic agreed to withdraw his forces but clashes
continued. This escalation was marked by ethnic cleansing. A last ditch
negotiation effort by the American Envoy Richard Holbrooke with Milosevic
collapsed. Following agreement within NATO, its Secretary General Javier
Solana ordered the aerial bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
On4th June 1999, Milosevic capitulated under the pressure of NATO bombardment
and withdrew his troops from Kosovo on 20th June. Peace and stability
returned to Kosovo although friction between the two ethnic groups continued. o
The Secretary General Kofi Annan sent Sergio, then
Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, on a humanitarian needs
assessment mission to Kosovo in June 1999. His report to the Security Council
gave a powerful, candid and grim account of a whole people who had been the
victims of violence and forced displacement with very few left to choose
where to go. He emphasized the importance of returning these people home and
giving them humanitarian assistance. He urged the Council to work towards
establishing an international presence in Kosovo. On 11th June, the Secretary
General appointed Sergio as his Special Representative for Kosovo on an
interim basis. Thus the basis for establishing a UN Administrator in Kosovo
came into being. In that capacity, Sergio took charge of the UN Interim
Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).Sergio took over his responsibilities in Pristina on
13th June. The overwhelming challenges facing the mission included
establishing law and order, providing humanitarian assistance to thousands of
returnees, establishing an administration, reviving basic social services and
embarking on reconstruction. Sergio summed up their mission well by stating
"This UN mission in Kosovo is probably the greatest challenge the UN has
faced since the launching in the late 1940's of the concept of peacekeeping.
Never elsewhere, even in Cambodia, has the UN assumed such a broad, such
far-reaching, such important executive tasks." o
Sergio persuaded the EU to include a police
contingent in the mission. He encouraged UNHCR to open five offices in Kosovo
and UNICEF to lead the Back-to-School Campaign. He turned his full attention
to rebuilding the strained relationships between the Albanian and Serb
Kosovars through promoting dialogue, that for the
first time brought the two communities to sit together, discuss their
problems and try to reconcile their differences. ·
1999-2002:
Transitional Administrator, UNTAET, DPKO, and Special Representative of the
Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dili, East
Timor o
In July 1976 Indonesia invaded and annexed the
former Portuguese colony of East Timor. The United Nations never recognized
the annexation. A struggle for liberation under the FLANTIL Movement led by Xanana Gusmao started almost
immediately and lasted until June 1999. About 200,000 people lost their lives
in the war and thousands either fled the island or were internally displaced.
Gusmao himself was captured and imprisoned by the
Indonesians. Despite several UN Security Council resolutions, East Timor
remained under the firm grip of Indonesian suppression for 23 years. o
In June 1999 the United Nations established a
mission in East Timor. The UN supervised a referendum on 30th August 1999 in
which the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence. A
reign of terror followed in which pro-Indonesian militias
wreaked havoc on the population. In the space of only two months between 600
and 2,000 people were killed and 250,000 fled as refugees to the western part
of the island. On 15th September, the Security Council passed resolution 1264
calling for the deployment of the Australian-led international force
INTERFET. On 25th October 1999, the Security Council passed resolution 1272
that created the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
(UNTAET) comprising 8,000 UN Peacekeepers drawn from 24 countries, plus 1,000
international staff and volunteers. Sergio Vieira de Mello, then
Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, was appointed Transitional
Administrator by the Secretary General Kofi Annan to head the mission and was
given the overall responsibility of this major UN operation. o
The mission of the interim UN Administration that
governed East Timor from late 1999 until independence in May 2002 was to
restore law and order and create a conducive
environment in which the 740,000 people of East Timor could be assisted to
rebuild their lives and country to prepare them for independence. Under
Sergio's dynamic leadership, UNTAET succeeded in creating a viable state with
a functional infrastructure of political administration, judicial system,
police, defense, health and education. Thousands of returnees were
repatriated and reintegrated. At independence in May 2002, the East Timorese
could point with pride to all these achievements and to the enrolment of
240,000 children in schools, 5,000 students attending university and about
10,000 civil servants recruited and trained. Success on the political front
was likewise impressive. The East Timorese participated actively in
legislative and presidential polls, electing a 98-seat parliament, and their
hero Xanana Gusmao, as
the first President of the young state. Sergio established a strong and close
relationship with him and his Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos-Horta. o
After two peacekeepers were killed and rumors
abounded of militia having infiltrated Dili, Sergio
acted firmly by persuading the Security Council to change the mandate of
UNTAET to Chapter VI and prevented the undermining of the mission and
shattering its credibility. Thus empowered, UNTAET was able to crush and
eliminate the militia and ensure peace, security and stability for Timor Leste. Sergio left Dili on 21st
May 2002, one day after Timor Leste gained
independence. ·
2002-2003:
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland o
Sergio's tenure in OHCHR was also marked by two burning
human rights issues. He felt strongly and spoke openly of the failure of the
UN and the International Community to respond robustly and put a stop to blatent human rights abuses in Iraq. While he did not
condone terrorism, he felt and expressed the strong view, publicly and even
to President George Bush, that the manner in which the “war on
terrorism" was approached, planned and executed, would have a negative
impact on human rights. Events would later prove him right. A former senior
UNHCR staff, Ghassan Arnaout,
paid tribute to Sergio in these words, "His intellectual foundations and
his own personal sensitivity compelled him to espouse all of the noble
causes, to transcend and to refuse forcefully and with conviction all
prejudices concerning race, culture and religion.” o
Indignant over the wave of Islamphobia
that had swept through the Western world after the tragic event of 11th
September 2001, Sergio told me of his intention and determination to organize
a large conference in order to denounce this phenomenon and to invite Muslim
nations to publicly emphasize their belief in the Islamic values of respect
for human beings, in the hope of fostering peace and reconciliation, he
personally intended to lead and participate in the discussions and debate." ·
May–August
2003: Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Iraq o
The British-American Coalition of the Willing, invaded Iraq unilaterally on 19th March 2003. The
speedy military action led to the quick fall of Saddam Hussein and the
collapse of the Iraqi government and the country's administration. Following
weeks of inertia and indecision, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution
1483 on 22nd May to chart the way forward for managing post-conflict Iraq. It
charged the UN with the responsibility of assisting the Iraqi people in
coordination with the Coalition Authority in a number of areas including
humanitarian assistance, repatriation and reintegration of refugees and IDPs,
re-establishing basic social services: reconstruction; rehabilitation of
infrastructure; restoring governance through legal and judicial reforms and
re-establishing the police. o
Throughout his short tenure, he listened to the
complaints, wishes, pains and hopes of the Iraqis with unwavering attention.
He expressed the candid view that unless the Iraqis were convinced that it is
they and not the Americans who were in charge of democratization, this
important political process would not take root in the country. o
On 22nd July Sergio, for the first time since
taking over his position in Baghdad, addressed the UN Security Council in New
York. He gave them his candid appraisal and reminded them that the mission, "Was the cornerstone of the Secretary
General's approach to the work of UN in Iraq. That everything done must be
for the benefit and empowerment of the people and country of Iraq; it must be
decided on by or in consultation with them and must be aimed at enabling the
full restoration of sovereignty and Iraq's full return to the community of
nations... Democracy could not be imposed from outside. The Iraqis wanted the
arrival of security and of the rule of law, the restoration of basic services
and the establishment of permanent, Iraqi, representative and credible
institutions" o
In the summer of 2003, the security situation in
Iraq began to worsen. Sergio raised the alarm to the UN, reporting the deep
concerns of the Iraqis over the deteriorating security situation, especially
in Baghdad. At a press conference in New York following his address to the
Security Council, Sergio expressed his fear that even international staff
could be targeted. He insisted repeatedly that the Coalition Provisional
Authority was primarily responsible for maintaining security, law and order.
Sergio's relationship with the Civilian Administrator of the Coalition, Paul
Bremer, was not an easy one. On18th August, the day before the bombing of the
UN Headquarters in Baghdad, an article published in the Mail and Guardian
stated that Sergio Vieira de Mello had, "recently reported that he had
told the US Administrator, and his British counterpart, about his anxiety
over searches, arrests, the treatment of detainees, duration of preventive
detention, access by family members and lawyers, and the establishment of a
central prison data base". o
In his last televised interview, just forty-eight
hours before his death, Sergio was asked by a BBC film crew, "What do
you think of the conditions in which people were being arrested? He
replied" Unnecessarily rough, I have made that point and often (they
are) not respecting local sensitivities, culture, and religion, and that is
unnecessary because I presume you can achieve the same purpose by displaying
more respect for local traditions and local culture." o
On the hot afternoon of August 19th 2003, Sergio
was in a meeting in his Canal Hotel office in Baghdad. Meanwhile, a truck
laden with explosives was making its way around the security perimeter using
a dirt road on the side of the building and stopping a few meters away from
Sergio's office. It was 4.30 p.m. local time when the explosive charges in
the truck were set off, causing one side of the building to collapse,
wounding hundreds and killing 22, including Sergio. o
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the chief of Iraq'a Al-Qaeda
branch, quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which marked the start
of a bloody string of violent attacks in Iraq. o
A security perimeter was quickly erected around
the explosion site by the US military and the UN close protection staff for
the purpose of facilitating rescue operations. Despite Sergio being found
under the rubble by his two body guards, Gabriel Pichon
and Romain Baron, help was very slow in
materializing on the site, due to the rudimentary state of the means of
rescue and the general chaos that hit the place in the wake of the bombing. o
Romain, with a
bleeding head wound, had to be evacuated to a medical facility. Gabriel and
Sergio's military attaché, Jeff Davie, managed to dig their way through the
rubble of the building to arrive at Sergio's side to try and save him. They
were the last persons to have spoken with Sergio and bear witness to his last
moments of suffering, pinned down by the rubble of the Canal Hotel. |
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