TOP OF FORM
Life in the field: working for human rights in Iraq
DAVID WINCH
In January 2006, Gianni Magazzeni of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights left Geneva to join the human rights component of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) as its chief. Despite his long professional experience in field-related work, including on missions to Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, to Liberia during the civil war in 1993 and to Timor-Leste following the massacre in Dili in 1992, among other assignments, the Iraq mission looked especially challenging from a human rights standpoint. Having worked with Sergio Vieira de Mello and the staff tragically killed at the Canal Hotel on 19 August 2003, Iraq had additional meanings for Magazzeni: continuing something that the UN had started but was abruptly and dramatically halted, and also searching for the truth about what happened on that terrible day...
By the end of January 2006, when he first flew into Baghdad International Zone (I.Z., aka Green Zone) by Chinook helicopter in the middle of the night, Iraq had had its first democratic elections, had written a new Constitution and would soon appoint a new national unity Government. Mr. Magazzeni saw a window of opportunity, a real chance to build the foundations of a new State based on the respect of human rights and the rule of law. Security Council resolution 1564 (2004) had asked UN-AMI specifically to assist the Government of Iraq to "promote the protection of human rights, national reconciliation, and judicial and legal reform in order to strengthen the rule of law in Iraq". And this in the context of a federal, democratic, pluralist, and unified Iraq in which there was full respect for human rights. Sure enough, after his security training in Jordan, and arrival in the fortified Green Zone, where the Al Rasheed Hotel housed the 80-90 international staff of UNAMI, the situation in Iraq took a turn for the worse. Despite some tentative progress through 2005, the bombing in Samarra, one month after Mr. Magazzeni's arrival and two days after he had a close encounter with death in Ramadi, on 22 February 2006, started the vicious cycle of sectarian violence and revenge killings which made efforts at the rule of law ever more difficult. "The attack on the holy Shrine of Imam Ali al Hadi Mosque was clearly an attempt to strike the country at its very core: Iraqis should have rejected this provocation and should have avoided falling into a trap of escalating violence leading to the disintegration of the very fabric of the society", Magazzeni stressed. "Terrorism should not have been rewarded and neither those who wished Iraq to be weak or who desired its disintegration", he pointed out. Unfortunately, none of this happened: the number of civilians violently killed increased daily, as did the number of unidentified bodies found regularly in Baghdad and throughout Iraq's morgues, for a total of 34000 killed in 2006. Mr. Magazzeni worked hard to support Iraqi ownership in the process of building up the rule of law which meant strengthening the judiciary, the administration of justice and fighting impunity for on-going crimes. It meant also healing the wounds of the past - and ensuring accountability for decades of human rights violations. "I had no doubt that strengthening the rule of law was a priority requirement for Iraq and central to creating conditions for the success and sustainability of security, national reconciliation and development efforts". This same message was reiterated in the International Compact for Iraq, a multi-year reconstruction plan launched by Iraq and the international community in May 2007 in Egypt.
Despite the violence and wartime chaos of life in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, Magazzeni noted some basis for hope : the work with the Ministry of Human Rights with the High Judicial Council to strengthen national capacities as well as with the Council of Representatives in order to draft a law for the establishment of an independent national human rights commission. UNAMI bimonthly reports on the human rights situation in the country were also the most well read accounts of torture, summary executions, arbitrary detention, kidnappings and other terrible violations occurring daily in Iraq. They were regularly cited in international media such as the BBC, CNN as well as the Washington Post and the New York Times, and some issues, especially concerning the legality and conditions of detention, were forced into the open first in these reports. They were fully covered by the national press.
For staff, Iraq today is definitely a high-stress hazard assignment, from which there is little respite in daily life. There is tension and risk, especially for UNAMI national staff coming into the Green Zone every day. They really do a marvellous job, but even in the Green Zone there is the constant threat of indirect fire from mortars and rocket attacks on fragile structures. In addition, the threats of suicide bombing and kidnapping cannot be underestimated.
There were 8 check points between the Al Rasheed Hotel and the Diwan School, where UNAMI is located. There were concrete walls and barbed wire everywhere on the road. It is often not known that to reach the IZ from Baghdad Airport is a military operation carried out by MNF-I Humvees or by Apache helicopters. To get out of the IZ you have to go through the same procedure. Since UNAMI left the Al Rasheed Hotel and moved into trailers in a camp, the problem of overhead protection against indirect fire became critical for staff in Baghdad - a problem addressed by the Secretary-General in his latest report (June 2007) to the Security Council. "You would often go to bed not knowing whether you would ever wake up".
Overall, Mr. Magazzeni sees the work of UN human rights officials in Iraq as tremendously important - even irreplaceable in order to ensure peace and development. Human rights staff thus can make a unique contribution in the field and towards the achievement of the overall objectives of the UN Organization, in keeping with the Charter. "Our role is crucially important even in the middle of a conflict so as to shed light on violations, fight impunity and enhance national protection systems". Regarding the Canal Hotel bombing, Mr. Magazzeni managed to meet twice the individual who was sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in March 2006 for the bombing of UN Headquarters in Baghdad. "I really hope that the Secretary-General will soon release information we have gathered on what happened on that day to the concerned families and to the public and thus close a most painful chapter in the history of our Organization".
