At UN, Film about Sergio de Mello Throws Light on Somalia and Algiers, With Balkans Issues Missing

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1demello032408.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 24 -- The denizens of the top floor of the UN descended en masse to the basement auditorium on Monday to watch a documentary about Sergio Vieira de Mello, culminating in his death in a truck bombing attack on the UN in Iraq in 2003. Simone Duarte's film, "En Route to Baghdad," includes archival footage of de Mello in his native Brazil, studying at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1968, then taking on a series of assignments for the UN, in Mozambique, Cambodia, East Timor and Iraq. His time in the Balkans, when some took to calling him "Serbio" due to his perceived friendliness with Slobodan Milosevic, is strangely absent from the film. Given the ongoing controversy about the UN's approach to Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence this year, those in the Dag Hammarskjold Library auditorium's front row may have appreciated this omission.

Just before the film's 1:15 beginning, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his entourage arrived. There was deputy chief of staff Kim Won-soo and chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, and in the midst of the pack, Israel's Ambassador Dan Gillerman. Photographers told Inner City Press that Gillerman greeted Ban in the hall, speaking with him briefly on his way in. After the film, Inner City Press asked Amb. Gillerman for his review. "Too many talking heads," he said.

The film is narrated mostly by UN personalities who knew Sergio: Deputy Envoy McNamara, staffer Jonathan Prentice, Economic Liaison Officer Carolina Larriera. Former U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke insists, on camera, that he was responsible for de Mello goin to Timor L'Este. Jose Ramos-Horta says de Mello stood out from the usual "faceless UN bureaucrats." King Sihanouk of Cambodia appears briefly, interviewed by the filmmakers in his palace in North Korea.

The specifics of de Mello's death in the truck bombing of the UN offices in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad are glazed over. McNamara says, if you're going to help with elections, you can do it from an armored car. The point is made, by Kofi Annan, that sometimes the UN should say "no," if its personnel can't be kept safe on an assignment. How this relates to the December 11, 2007 deadly bombing of UN premises in Algiers, and the currently proposed expansion in Iraq, is not clear. So far, Ban Ki-moon's UN has said "yes" to Iraq, but "no" and now "maybe" to the situation in Somalia. The current Secretary-General spoke before the film, but not after. That was left for the Ambassador he came in with, Israel's Dan Gillerman, who said, "Not enough Sergio." Not enough, indeed.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1demello032408.html