In the rubble and ashes that was once the Canal Hotel, the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, lie the victims of a terrorist attack that has touched 191 nations sharing a common bond: membership in the largest multilateral organisation of our time. The glue that binds all of us, the UN Charter, is a declaration of international principles of self-governance, freedom and respect for individual rights.
Working under
dire conditions of extreme heat, lack of water, and unnerving insecurity, the daily mission
of the civil servants was clear: to support the Iraqi people in realising their
freedom, in spite of the immense problems faced in a post-war situation for
which most UN members felt the planning had been inadequate. No 250-kilogram
truck bomb can destroy the values and ideals that guided those international
civil servants who perished that day.
The meaning of an atrocity
Like other
notorious dates, Tuesday 19 August will become a record of the sad reality that
even the neutrality of the United Nations may be insufficient to protect its
staff and its mission from the anarchy of terrorism. This end of neutrality has
been a feature of the post-cold war experience, making vulnerable precisely the
institutions that were created to draw a line between innocent civilians in a
conflict and the armies that perpetrated the wars. Exploding the UN edifice and
killing its international staff reaffirms that civil wars are not about
military gain, or territorial expansion, but about victimising innocent people
who aspire to a life of security, justice and well-being.
What stands
out, however, in this singular event is the context of the UN presence in Iraq.
Unlike other post-conflict environments of the last decade, the UN was never
permitted full partnership in the reconstruction efforts designed by the United
States-led coalition. The Security
Council’s post-war resolution assigned broad yet vague tasks to the UN in
Iraq. Its most specific pronouncement was the willingness to support a Special
Representative of the Secretary General to become part of the UN architecture
in Iraq.
It was
precisely through this SRSG, Sergio Vieira
de Mello, that the world community offered its best hope of having a
skilled, talented, and relentless advocate serve as a mediator with the
coalition in the difficult efforts of the UN to serve its “vital role” in the
post-war period. Through Mr. de Mello’s
efforts the UN was able to establish a presence and authority in the process of
rebuilding, and most importantly, to serve as a source of legitimacy for the
creation of the unelected governing
council that was appointed in July.
In spite of the
US wish to exclude the UN from the rebuilding of Iraq, it was precisely through
the UN that Iraqis demanded legitimacy for their newly-formed council. By
immediately seeking a UN Security Council Resolution to recognise the governing
council after its creation, and by actively lobbying the UN Security Council
toward that end, only days before this devastating bombing, the Security
Council acted by passing yet another resolution that provided an incremental
approach to placing the UN in Iraq on a par with the Coalition.
On 14 August
the UN established a formal mission in Iraq. The formal mission represented the
acknowledgement by the Coalition that the US could not remain the sole
authority in governing and directing the transition of power to Iraqi control.
It was surely the work of Sergio
Vieira de Mello and his staff, and the dedication of people like Rick Hooper,
of the secretariat, that moved this agenda forward. Hooper, like his colleague
de Mello, perished in Tuesday’s bombing.
The lesson of a tragedy
Only a month
ago I sat in Mr. de Mello’s offices, and talked
with his staff and assistants about the UN role, progress to date, and what the
next steps would be. In some ways the
lack of security on the outside of the building was matched with a certain
fortress mentality on the inside. UN staff recognised the dangers they faced in
Iraq. They understood that they were highly vulnerable, but preferred to tough
it out in the dangerous back streets of Baghdad.
For them, the
mere presence of the UN outpost, far from the jersey barriers of the security
zone around the palace of the Coalition was almost an act of defiance. The UN
mission in Baghdad was trying to be with the Iraqi people, rather than act in
isolation above them. Sometimes, this type of hubris can also be its undoing.
At the end of the day, the attack was not against the UN per se, but against
all foreign agents. It was an act most likely born out of the thoughts of a
tiny minority of Iraqis and other neighbours, who cannot countenance an Iraq
that embarks on its future with an embrace of the west.
Where do we go
from here? After we say our farewells to such good friends as Sergio Vieira de
Mello, Rick Hooper, Arthur Helton,
Fiona Watson,
Nadia Younis, and others who perished in this cowardly act, we must recognise
the lesson we have learned from other post-conflict operations. Rebuilding a
broken society cannot be done alone, under-resourced and understaffed. Only the
UN can provide
a legitimacy that helps prevent the rancour and divisiveness that
unilateral occupation represents.
