News, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
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The UN should seek protection, not pullout
Jordan Times
Monday, September 29, 2003
AT A time when the international community, including the permanent members of the UN Security Council such as France and Russia are calling for an increased role for the UN in Iraq, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has decided to scale down the UN role in the country and downsize its international personnel in Baghdad.
The decision is understandable given the lack of a secure environment in Iraq and the two fatal attacks on UN headquarters there. Among the dead was UN special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, who, shortly before his death, had expressed his wish that the UN not pull out of the country because of the attack that took his life and called on the UN not to panic and flee. There must be something more that can be done to provide the UN offices and the international staff with more security and protection.
There will come a time when the UN will have to play a central and maybe the only role in the war-ravaged Arab country. There is no doubt that security for the UN offices and the UN staff has been relatively speaking too lax given the overall insecure environment in which they are situated.
The Sept. 19 attack could have been foiled had there been more protection provided. It was thought then that the international organisation is not on the hit list of the forces that are opposing the occupation of Iraq. It was taken for granted that international civil servants are viewed as neutral and therefore immune from attacks. This may explain the relaxed safety arrangements that were in place in and around the headquarters.
If the UN can succeed in distancing itself from the coalition forces operating in Iraq, it will succeed in attaining a higher degree of protection. And if more protection is provided to the UN and its staff, so much the better.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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