U.N. compound bombed in Iraq- Top U.N. envoy killed

[Chewbacca]

Why?

Story

UNITED NATIONS -- Sergio Vieira de Mello, a United Nations veteran who served for more than 30 years as a troubleshooter in the world's most dangerous hotspots and became the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, was killed Tuesday in a truck bombing against his offices in Baghdad. He was 55. After being named to the Iraq post in June, the Brazilian diplomat said his top priority was to protect the interests of the Iraqi people under the U.S.-led occupation. "I have been sent here with a mandate to assist the Iraqi people and those responsible for the administration of this land to achieve ... freedom, the possibility of managing their own destiny and determining their own future," he said on arrival in Baghdad in June. All the national flags that ring the U.N. headquarters' entrance in New York were removed from their poles. The blue and white U.N. flag was lowered to half staff. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Vieira de Mello was "an outstanding servant of humanity." "The loss of Sergio Vieira de Mello is a bitter blow for the United Nations and for me personally," Annan said in a statement. "I can think of no one we could less afford to spare." Vieira de Mello's spokesman in Baghdad, Salim Lone, said, "He was a wonderful guy. He was the U.N. in a way." "Wherever there was suffering he was there," he said. "He was everywhere. He was a very brilliant man, totally wedded to the United Nations." The Iraq posting capped a career as the United Nations' crisis pointman, sent to conflict zones from Kosovo to Cyprus to East Timor to help end the bloodshed and rebuild in the aftermath. Since September, he served as the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, taking leave from the post to serve in Baghdad. There, he had to rely on both diplomacy and tough talk as the United Nations tried to find its place after the Iraqi war come close to rendering it obsolete. He had to work with the United States, even while distinguishing the world body from the occupation, unpopular with many Iraqis. In his last interview published before his death, Vieira de Mello sympathized with Iraqi resentment at having foreign troops on their soil. "It is traumatic. It must be one of the most humiliating periods in their history. Who would like to see their country occupied? I would not like to see foreign tanks in Copacabana," he told the Brazilian newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo in an interview published Monday. Throughout his tenure in Baghdad, he took pains to remind everybody that the United Nations would be in the country long after U.S. forces leave and insisted that the world body -- not the U.S.-led coalition -- should control the spending of Iraqi oil revenues. "We're truly in a unique situation here," he said of the occupation. "By the usual U.N. standards, this is at best a bizarre situation." Born in Rio de Janeiro on March 15, 1948, Vieira de Mello studied philosophy at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris before embarking on a career in the United Nations, rapidly gaining a reputation as a smooth-talking, hands-on operator. He joined the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in 1969, serving in Bangladesh during its independence in 1971. Following the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus he worked with refugees on the island. He spent three years in charge of UNHCR operations in Mozambique during the civil war that followed its independence from Portugal in 1975, and three more in military-ruled Peru. He became senior political adviser to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon between 1981 and 1983, covering the period when Israel invaded. Vieira de Mello returned to the UNHCR, working at its head office in Geneva for 10 years. The early 1990s found him in Cambodia and then in disintegrating Yugoslavia. After working on the refugee problem in central Africa, in 1996 he was made assistant high commissioner for refugees and in 1998 became undersecretary-general in New York. He was a special U.N. envoy in Kosovo following the U.S.-led bombing raids that broke Serbian control of the province in 1999. When Indonesia withdrew from East Timor later that year, Vieira de Mello was sent there. He arrived in the tiny island territory in the far reaches of the Indonesian archipelago shortly after a rampage by pro-Jakarta forces left it in ruins. "I felt like an ambulance driver arriving at the site of a car crash and finding a dismembered body in a state of clinical death," he recalled shortly before East Timor gained its independence in May 2002. Nevertheless, he gained widespread praise for overseeing the country's three-year transition to independence. "You don't change the devastation of 1999 into a Garden of Eden in 2 1/2 years," he said, but added, "we have laid solid bases for the country to live in peace." Vieira de Mello was divorced and had two sons. His mother lives in Rio de Janeiro.

[Hayashi]

Why? Who knows? Who can understand such blind & senseless hatred of all things perceived as Western such as the UN, that they would kill themselves to kill others (assuming it was a suicide bombing), even those who would help them?

Words cannot express the sense of outrage I felt when I read this headline in the newspaper. I hope the perpetrators burn in hell for all eternity.

[Iron_Ranger]

Just goes too prove you cant reason with Terrorist.

[Sir Taliesin]

Totally outragous!!! The more I think about what happened, the more I'm not sure that Iraqis were behind this. This is how Al Quida operates. Huge truck bombs are almost a signature of theirs. Also why would Iraqis bite the hand that fed them. The UN gave food to everyone in Iraq last week. Not very smart IMO. The Iranians could alo be behind this as well. We'll find out soon who was responsible.

[Faceman]

Originally posted by Sir Taliesin: This is how Al Quida operates. Huge truck bombs are almost a signature of theirs.

I agree that it could have been El Kaida work but huge truck bombs are the signature of the GLA in C&C Generals not of the real El Kaida which hasn\t comitted enough (admitted) bommbings to read a pattern like this.
Or do I miss some vital infromation?

[True_Moose]

Absolutely silly. Seriously, if you're going to fight a war, fight a war. Fight with the soldiers, they're the ones you have a beef. Leave the humanitarians out of it.

That's the difference between terrorists and soldiers. Soldiers fight other armed, trained men. Terrorists are simply murderers shrouding their crimes with a cause. Although apparently soldiers can be terrorists if you listen to Mr. Rumsfeld talk about "illegal combatants."

[Iron_Ranger]

Originally posted by True_Moose: That's the difference between terrorists and soldiers. Soldiers fight other armed, trained men. Terrorists are simply murderers shrouding their crimes with a cause. Although apparently soldiers can be terrorists if you listen to Mr. Rumsfeld talk about "illegal combatants."

??

Are you saying soldiers cant be terrorist? Vietnam anyone?

[Skunk]

Totally outragous!!! The more I think about what happened, the more I'm not sure that Iraqis were behind this. This is how Al Quida operates. Huge truck bombs are almost a signature of theirs. Also why would Iraqis bite the hand that fed them. The UN gave food to everyone in Iraq last week. Not very smart IMO. The Iranians could alo be behind this as well. We'll find out soon who was responsible.

Well, first of all it was Iraq that gave food to the Iraqi's last week - the aid was bought and paid for months ago with Iraqi oil - but supplies had been held up by the war.
Secondly, many Iraqis see the UN as the enemy too - it was after all, ten years of UN sanctions (at the behest of the US) that brought the country to its knees, ruined the middle class and was responsible for so many deaths through sickness and disease. Many Iraqis were probably glad that they could finally take a shot at the organisation that 'teamed up with the US' to ruin their lives.

I suspect that, when the UN refused to authorise the war on Iraq, it gained more respectability - but immediately lost that respectability once more when it 'welcomed' the 'puppet' regime in Iraq (as seen by the Iraqi résistance groups). In so doing, it took political sides with the US and the UK and that moment on, its compound became part of the 'occupation' forces and therefore its officials and representatives became legitimate targets.

The UN has no business taking sides in an ongoing war - it should have just stuck with the humanitarian side - organising a civilian relief effort: and there *certainly* should not have been US/UK troops guarding the compound - there should have been troops from other countries - wearing blue berets.

[ 08-20-2003, 10:03 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

[Djinn Raffo]

Originally posted by Iron_Ranger: quote: Originally posted by True_Moose: That's the difference between terrorists and soldiers. Soldiers fight other armed, trained men. Terrorists are simply murderers shrouding their crimes with a cause. Although apparently soldiers can be terrorists if you listen to Mr. Rumsfeld talk about "illegal combatants."

??

Are you saying soldiers cant be terrorist? Vietnam anyone? [/QUOTE]Yes you're correct, many US soldiers definetly terrorized Vietnamese villagers.

[True_Moose]

Soldiers can be terrorists, Iron_Ranger. But I have seen nothing to indicate that the ones being called illegal combatants were anything other than fighters. Remember that not every Nazi footsoldier was deemed a war criminal.