The
UN, de Mello And The US Occupation Of Iraq
By
Peter Symonds
World
Socialist Website
28 August 2003
In
the aftermath of the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, there
has been an outpouring of sanctimonious comment from political leaders
and the international media defending the UNs role in Iraq and
eulogising its special envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who died in the
attack.
The UN, it is argued,
was simply in Iraq to help the Iraqi people. De Mello and his staff
were engaged in humanitarian relief, not military operations. This theme
was summed up by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who denounced the attack
on men and women who went to Iraq for one purpose only: to help
the Iraqi people recover their independence and sovereignty.
Annans remarks,
coming just three months after the UN Security Council sanctioned the
illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq, are the height of hypocrisy.
Whatever its limited efforts at relieving the suffering of the population,
the UNs overriding function in Iraq has been political: to legitimise
Washingtons indefinite subjugation of the country and the plundering
of its oil and other resources.
UN officials were
well aware of what the Bush administration wanted the organisation to
do. At a joint press conference in late May following his appointment
as Annans special representative to Iraq, de Mello unambiguously
declared his attitude to the US occupation: Working with the Authority
is part of the rules of the game. They are responsible for the administration
of the country until there is a new order.
Throughout his time
in Iraq, de Mello openly functioned as a political emissary for Washingtons
proconsul in Baghdad, Paul Bremer IIIsounding out Iraqi leaders,
soliciting support and acting as a go-between. He had a major hand in
last months formation of the quisling body known as the Iraqi
Governing Council. When key Shiite leaders threatened to boycott the
council, de Mello and his deputy, former Lebanese culture minister Ghassan
Salam, travelled to southern Iraq to convince them to back down.
De Mello and Salam
were largely responsible for repackaging Bremers proposed advisory
body as a governing councilwith no significant change
in its function or powers. We have been very active in the process
of creating the council and more particularly in the defining of tasks,
de Mello proudly declared after its inaugural meeting. He then set out
on an extensive tour of the Middle Eastto Saudi Arabia, Iran,
Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey and Syriain an effort to persuade regional
leaders to recognise and work with the puppet council.
Having helped erect
a political framework for US rule in Iraq, de Mello was due to resume
his post as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He obtained the job
last September with the backing of the Bush administration which was
openly hostile to his predecessor Mary Robinson. De Mellos willingness
to keep his mouth shut over Washingtons flagrant abuses of democratic
rightswith the sole exception of a muted criticism of the illegal
detention of hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bayclearly endeared
him to Washington. Indeed he was even being touted as the future UN
Secretary General after Annan retired.
De Mellos
prominent role in Iraq, far from indicating any genuine concern on the
part of the UN for the plight of the Iraqi people, was a measure of
the assignments political importance and sensitivity. Whoever
took the job was required to dress up an openly neo-colonial occupation
in order to defuse the widespread anger of the Iraqi people and to enlist
the support of competing Iraqi elites, other Middle Eastern governments
and US rivals in Europe and Asia.
De Mello was handed
the task for two main reasons. Firstly, he had the support of the Bush
administration. Just prior to his announced appointment, he flew to
Washington for private talks at the White House with President Bush
and National Security Adviser Condolezza Rice. Secondly, de Mello, probably
more than most UN bureaucrats, epitomised the shifting role of the UN
in the 1990s. During that time he made a high profile career out of
providing an acceptable public face for imperialist interventions.
The UN has been
a den of imperialist intrigue ever since its formation in 1945. Throughout
the Cold War, however, the existence of the Soviet Union remained an
obstacle to the predatory interests of the major powers. In its relations
with Asia, Africa and Latin America, Washington was compelled to wheel
and deal with the Stalinist bureaucrats in Moscow and to recognise,
in form at least, the principle of national sovereignty. The UN served
as a useful clearinghouse for mediating these Cold War relations.
But in the 1990s,
the collapse of the Soviet Union ended these constraints. Driven by
profound economic contradictions, the US and its rivals increasingly
turned to direct military intervention to secure their interests. In
the name of humanitarian concerns, national independence and sovereignty
have been trampled upon. And in what has been cynically termed ethical
imperialism, the UN has performed the critical function of providing
the ethical gloss for ever-more naked neo-colonial ambitions.
Nowhere have these
political processes been as evident as in Iraq. Seizing on the invasion
of Kuwait as the pretext, all the major and minor powers backed the
US-led Gulf War in 1990-91 as a means of legitimising their own colonial
adventures. As the International Committee of the Fourth International
explained at the time: The proceedings at the United Nations,
that rather seedy centre of imperialist debauchery, were as dignified
as those of a military brothel, with scores of bourgeois diplomats lining
up outside the doors of the Security Council to get in on the
act... Underlying the broad participation in this coalition was
the unstated understanding that the war against Iraq would legitimise
a revival of colonial policy by all the imperialist powers [Oppose
Imperialist War and Colonialism! Manifesto of the ICFI, page 3].
A political troubleshooter for imperialism
It was in this political
climate that De Mellos career flourished. The son of a senior
Brazilian diplomat, de Mellos entire working life, after graduating
from the Sorbonne University in Paris, was spent as a UN functionary.
He started with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva
and rose through its ranks by acting as its on-the-spot representative
in a number of areas of sharp political conflict, including East Pakistan/Bangladesh
1971-72 in the immediate aftermath of Indias invasion; Cyprus
1975-77 following the Turkish invasion; and Mozambique 1975-77 in the
midst of independence and civil war.
De Mello proved
his adaptability when he was assigned in 1981-83 as senior political
adviser to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Initially established
in 1978 to supervise the withdrawal of the Israeli troops that had invaded
southern Lebanon, UNIFIL rapidly became little more than the humanitarian
face for a permanent occupation force when the Israeli army reinvaded
in 1982, attacked Beirut and unleashed a brutal massacre of 2,000 Palestinians
in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. De Mello functioned as the
intermediary between the Israeli army, its fascistic militia allies
and a hostile population.
In the 1990s, de
Mello rose to prominence as one of the UNs top political figures.
In 1991-92, he played a major role in implementing the settlement to
end the long-running civil war in Cambodia. This was the first in a
series of aggressive imperialist interventions in which the principle
of national sovereignty was openly cast aside. Anxious to end the destablising
influence of the civil war and to open up Cambodia as a source of cheap
labour, the major powers pressured the rival Cambodian factions into
agreeing to hand power to a UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)
which would supervise a power-sharing arrangement and future elections.
De Mello was appointed
special envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Cambodia in December 1991
and given the task of laying the political groundwork for the formation
of UNTAC the following year. He headed the advance party of 1,500 military
and civilian personnel, which rapidly swelled to over 20,000 when UNTAC
was established. While too junior to head the UN body, de Mello nevertheless
stayed on as director of refugee repatriation and in charge of mine
clearance. A decade after the UNTAC intervention, Cambodia is as poor
and politically unstable as it was in 1991but it is open for business
to foreign investors.
De Mellos
role as a senior UNHCR official was no small factor in the growing demand
for his services. Throughout the 1990s, the plight of refugees increasingly
became one of the main political pretexts for imperialist intervention
in the Balkans, Africa and Asia. In this new era of ethical imperialism,
de Mello was an ideal front man. He combined good looks and charm with
a certain political adroitness and ruthlessness that were all put to
good use by his paymasters: the UN and the major powers.
In 1993, he was
sent to the Balkans as the delegate in Bosnia Herzogovina for the Special
Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the former Yugoslavia.
Having provoked the breakup of Yugoslavia by recognising first Slovenia
and Croatia then Bosnia Herzogovina, the major powers were determined
to exploit the ethnic violence they had helped to instigate to further
their own interests in this key strategic region. The UN provided the
overarching framework for the intervention of NATO troops from the US
and Europe.
The United Nations
Protective Force (UNPROFOR) originally established to manage three areas
of Croatia was extended in 1992 to Bosnia Herzegovina. Its size was
increased by 1995 to nearly 40,000 military personnel who were assigned
to enforce a ban on all military flights over Bosnia Herzegovina and
supervise safe areas around Sarajevo and five other towns. In 1994,
de Mello as head of Civil Affairs for UNPROFOR lay the political basis
for the 1995 Dayton Accord, which transformed Bosnia Herzegovina into
a new kind of semi-colonial entity run by a High Representative imposed
by the US and the EU.
In 1995, de Mello
returned to UNICEF Headquarters in Geneva where he was elevated to the
key post of Director of Policy Planning and Operations. He had particular
responsibilities for the refugees in the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS)that is, the masses of people left destitute by the
break-up of the former Soviet Union. He also oversaw UN operations in
Central Africa in the midst of civil strife that erupted in Rwanda.
In 1998, he was rewarded with the post of Under Secretary General for
Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the UN Headquarters
in New York.
Neo-colonial governor
But de Mellos
most critical role was played in three key arenasKosovo, East
Timor and Iraq.
In June 1999, he
was installed in Kosovo as Special Representative of the Secretary Generalan
interim administrator with full powers to establish and preside over
a new civilian authority in the province of Yugoslavia. In what was
to become the modus operandi for subsequent interventions, the US and
EU had whipped up a hysterical media campaign based on lies and half-truths.
Wildly exaggerated claims of systematic killings of ethnic Albanians
by the Yugoslav army and Serb militia were used to justify a massive
bombardment of Yugoslav cities and towns. As later, more sober reports
indicated, the greatest loss of life in Kosovo and the largest waves
of refugees were the result of the NATO bombing campaign, not the activities
of the Yugoslav military.
The UN subscribed
to and promulgated all of Washingtons falsifications without a
murmur of criticism, legitimising the NATO takeover of Kosovo. Again
de Mello was the political trailblazer. In May 1999, before the hostilities
were over, he led a 12-day mission of UN agencies into Kosovo. While
the UN insisted that the mission was purely humanitarian,
it lay the basis for a complete takeover of civilian functions. Like
the High Representative in Bosnia Herzegovina, de Mello filled the role
of a colonial governor resting on the military might of some 50,000
NATO and Russian troops occupying the province. As head of the UN Interim
administration in Kosovo (UNMIK), he wielded power over the police and
judiciary as well as UN officials at the district and municipal level.
Along with NATO, he bears responsibility for the vicious campaign of
violence by the thugs of the Kosovo Liberation Army which led to the
expulsion of tens of thousands of Serbs and Gypsies from the province.
Having laid the
political basis for continuing NATO domination of Kosovo, de Mello was
installed just months later as UN Transitional Administrator in East
Timor (UNTAET)a post he held until formal independence was granted
to the half island in May 2002. Like the NATO war on Yugoslavia, the
humanitarian justification for the Australian-led military
intervention into East Timor was completely manufactured. Canberra was
well aware of the attacks that the Indonesian military and its militia
were preparing to unleash on pro-independence supporters in East Timor
but cynically calculated that the violence would provide the necessary
pretext for plans being drawn up for the deployment of Australian troops.
Far from acting out of concern for the plight of the East Timorese,
the Howard governments primary motive was to counter renewed Portuguese
claims in its former colony and to secure control over the lucrative
Timor Gap oil and gas reserves.
In all the media
obituaries, de Mellos reign in East Timor is counted as his greatest
triumph. What he left behind, however, is a tiny state which is completely
dependent politically, economically and militarily on the major powers
and whose population remains mired in poverty. De Mellos legacy
in East Timor is an unrepresentative regime installed with scant regard
for the democratic rights of the East Timorese. The vast majority of
people, particularly the youth, are unemployed and have no prospects
of a job. Under de Mello, the limited social services available under
Indonesian rule were slashed, leaving large sections of the population
without adequate access to health, education and other basic services.
In the eyes of the
major powers, de Mellos great achievement was that amid this deepening
social and economic disaster he created the illusion of peace, progress
and independence. Behind the façade, the UN still exercises key
functions in independent East Timor, the Australian-dominated
military force remains and Canberra has managed to bludgeon the Dili
government into ceding control over the lions share of the Timor
Gap gas reserves to Australia.
The US-led invasion
of Iraq represented a turning point for the United Nations. It brought
to the surface in the Security Council deep-going tensions between the
US and Europe over their interests in the Middle East and internationally.
Although the UN did not put the final seal of approval on the US invasion,
by passing resolution 1441, it nevertheless legitimised the lie upon
which the war was based: that Iraq had an arsenal of nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons that posed an imminent threat to the world. After
the event, the UN stepped in to endorse what was an illegal and preemptive
war of aggression that had cost the lives of thousands, if not tens
of thousands, of Iraqi civilians. The UNs willingness to do so
exposed its utter worthlessness in the eyes of millions of people around
the world who took to the streets to protest the war.
Having sanctioned
the US occupation, the UN sent its top troubleshooter to Iraq to repeat
what he had done during the previous decade. But in the case of Iraq,
the population had already suffered 12 years of bitter experiences of
the UN acting on behalf of the US and its allies. The UN had supervised
the devastating economic sanctions that are estimated to have cost the
lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civiliansmen, women and
children. Its offices in Baghdad were the operational centre for the
UN weapons inspection teams and the intrigues that were used to justify
one US military provocation after another against Iraq.
De Mello was able
to use his political skills, honed throughout the 1990s, to cajole,
badger and bully various Iraqi politicians, religious leaders and emigres
into forming a Governing Council as a front for the US occupation. But
the illusion remained precisely that. De Mello could do nothing to halt
the tide of frustration and anger, which is giving rise to daily attacks
on occupation forces. As he noted himself in one of his final interviews:
This must be one of the most humiliating periods in history [for
Iraqis]. Who would like to see their country occupied? I would not like
to see foreign tanks in Copacabana.
But for all de Mellos
efforts to cultivate a caring image, the UN was and is broadly viewed
by Iraqis as a tool of the US occupation. The bombing of its headquarters
in Baghdad is a sign that the 60-year period in which the UN could function
as a cloak for the intrigues of the major powers is rapidly coming to
an end. Instead of regarding the UN as an agency for peace, justice
and social inequality, millions of Iraqis, along with many others around
the world, are coming to see the UN for what it is: a dirty accomplice
in the crimes of imperialism.