Expat News UN Mission Chief in Haiti: A Humble, Tenacious Man
UN Mission Chief in Haiti: A Humble, Tenacious Man
Sunday, 17 January 2010 17:39
(Huffington Post, January 17, 2010) UNITED NATIONS - Amid Haiti's unimaginable suffering, the death of Hédi Annabi, a highly-educated humble man, inflicted a raw pain to generations of UN staff and journalists who remember his kindness, his droll humor, his mastery of detail and his tenacity.
Despite his high-level jobs -- an assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping in New York -- Annabi, a Tunisian, who turned 65 last September, kept a low profile outside of UN headquarters where he was the first at work in the morning and the last to leave. In September 2007 he was appointed head of the UN mission in Haiti.
"During the years we worked together, I probably saw him more than my wife. Hédi WAS peacekeeping," said Jean-Marie Guéhenno, his boss from 2000 to 2007.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (in Haiti on Sunday), confirmed Annabi had died in the earthquake on January 12 that devastated the Caribbean nation. He also announced the deaths of Annabi's deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa of Brazil, and the acting UN police commissioner, Doug Coates of Canada. Their bodies were buried in the rubble of UN headquarters in the Christopher Hotel.
The official UN death toll is now 40 but many more names are anticipated with the total expected to reach over 100 among the 12,000 peacekeepers and civilians with the world body in Haiti. The UN mission, designed to help Haiti enjoy some security and plan for development "is an effort now set back by this unimaginable catastrophe," said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the UN.
Worst disaster for UN
UN casualties are small compared to the tens of thousands of Haitians who perished. But the tragedy is the worst one-day disaster in the history of the world body. The loss of life is even larger than the terrorist bombing in Baghdad in 2003 that killed 22 people, including the Sergio Vieira de Mello, the chief UN envoy in Iraq.
Annabi studied and had degrees in political science, English literature and international relations from institutions in Tunis, Paris and Geneva. He joined the United Nations 28 years ago, concentrating mainly on the political chaos in Cambodia. He was assigned to the peacekeeping department in 1992 and served as director of the Africa division until 1996, including the Rwanda debacle in 1994. In 1997 he became an assistant secretary-general.
"I think he had been deeply bruised by the tragedy of Rwanda, said Guéhenno, the former undersecretary-general for peacekeeping. "He felt that states are often more interested in posturing than changing the world. But he was a tenacious realist who would not give up"
Before going to Haiti, one of Annabi's his last tasks in organizing tens of thousands of peacekeepers was the operation in Darfur, in conjunction with the African Union. "Don't mention the word 'hybrid' to me again," he once told me, frustrated at dealing with even more politics than usual.
Secretary-General Ban, shortly after taking office in 2007, replaced all the top peacekeeping officials. "I remember that when his departure from the Department of Peacekeeping Operation was announced, the whole department went to his office, and nobody wanted to leave," Guéhenno said.
No seat at the table
By September 2007 Ban appointed Annabi to lead the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym MINUSTAH, the first time he had led a mission on the ground and was said to be glad to be closer to those who had no seat at the diplomatic table.
Most of those who survived were on the lower floors of the Christopher Hotel. Annabi had been meeting with an eight-member Chinese police delegation in his top-floor office. The Chinese apparently had left and were trapped in a stairwell along with Alexandra Duguay, a young Canadian press officer, according to an entry on Hope for Alexandra Duguay on Facebook.
Mark Turner, a former Financial Times correspondent, went to Haiti with his wife Anna Shotton, a peacekeeping official who worked in the Christopher Hotel, and their two young children. They were on vacation in Miami when the disaster occurred. "Losing its civilian leadership is an enormous blow to the mission and the UN system as a whole. Of those UN officials that survived, many have left the country. The mission will need to rebuild its staff from the ground up," he wrote.
Writer James Traub related a conversation on The Daily Beast with Annabi after the UN Security Council in 2000 decided to send thousands of troops to keep a psychotic band of rebels known as the RUF from toppling the Sierra Leone government.
A delegation of 25 officials from the Clinton administration descended on his office, Annabi said. "And one of them just looked at me and said, 'What are you going to do about this mess?' And I said, 'Are you coming to tell me how I'm going to fix it with the troops you're not giving me, or are you coming to help me figure out how to fix it? Because if it's the first, this is going to be a short meeting.'"
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May Allah (swt) reward him for his humanitarian work! Mr. Annabi is a "true citizen of the world" and a Tunisian hero who preferred to do great work while keeping a low profile. He passed away in the line of duty.
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