IRAQ: OUTGOING UNITED NATIONS HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR, HANS VON SPONECK LEAVES BAGHDAD

Record ID: 336953

  • Title: IRAQ: OUTGOING UNITED NATIONS HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR, HANS VON SPONECK LEAVES BAGHDAD
  • Date: 31st March 2000
  • Summary: BAGHDAD, IRAQ (MARCH 29, 2000) (REUTERS) 1. SCU OUTGOING UNITED NATIONS HUMANITARIAN CO-ORDINATOR HANS VON SPONECK LEAVING HOTEL 0.08 2. SOUNDBITE (English) VON SPONECK, ASKED WHAT ADVICE HE HAD FOR HIS SUCCESSOR: "Honesty, be honest, learn quickly and then have the courage to advise the Secretary General very, very straightforwardly." 0.19 3.
  • Embargoed: 15th April 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BAGHDAD, IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVA6CWEYQZLEFWSI0H2I9PQGPUYB
  • Story Text: The outgoing United Nations Humanitarian
    Coordinator, Hans von Sponeck, who recently tendered his
    resignation in protest at the continuation of the crippling
    sanctions against Iraq, has left Baghdad.

    The top U.N.humanitarian official in Iraq left the
    country on Wednesday (March 29) after resigning from his post,
    saying the programme he headed had prolonged the suffering of
    the Iraqi people instead of alleviating it.

    Hans von Sponeck, co-ordinator of the U.N.'s humanitarian
    oil-for-food programme, told reporters before his departure
    for Jordan by road: "I cannot any longer be associated with a
    programme that prolongs sufferings of the people and which has
    no chance to meet even basic needs of the civilian
    population."
    Von Sponeck, a German U.N.career official, resigned in
    February after saying the programme was not meeting the
    minimum needs of Iraq's 22 million people.

    He said he saw no prospects for improvement in Iraq under
    a U.N.Security Council resolution passed in December which
    would ease sanctions if Baghdad allowed international weapons
    inspectors to return to the country.Iraq has rejected the
    resolution.

    Von Sponeck said: "I leave with a deep conviction that the
    overwhelming evidence that the international community now has
    is that things have not gone well in Iraq and that the target
    has been missed."
    Von Sponeck angered the United States by criticising the
    trade sanctions that have been imposed on Iraq since it
    invaded Kuwait in 1990.Washington welcomed his resignation.

    Tun Myat, an official of the Rome-based World Food
    Programme (WFP) and a native of Myanmar, was named on Tuesday
    to replace Von Sponeck, whose predecessor, Dennis Halliday of
    Ireland, also resigned for similar reasons.


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