Independent (GB) on Bombing of UN in Baghdad

[Anon Anon <inprekorr@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=435427

Massacre of the peacemakers
By Justin Huggler in Baghdad
20 August 2003

The United Nations chief envoy to Iraq was killed
yesterday by a massive suicide truck bomb that blew
his office in Baghdad to pieces. Sergio Vieira de
Mello was among at least 20 people killed in the
bombing and the death toll was still climbing last
night.

The wing of the UN headquarters that housed Mr Vieira
de Mello's office was obliterated. Where it once
stood, a concrete roof was hanging precariously from
the side of the main building. This was the day the
American occupation of Iraq turned into hell. Mr
Vieira de Mello and his staff, not part of the
occupation forces but here to help the people of this
ravaged land, were crushed by falling concrete and
blown apart in their offices.

No one can remember an attack on the United Nations as
devastating as this. Everybody in Baghdad is wondering
who will be next. An immense cloud of yellow dust was
still rising when we got there half an hour after the
bomb went off, so powerful was the explosion. The
truck was parked in an alley next to the wing housing
Mr Vieira de Mello's office, fuelling speculation that
it was a deliberate assassination. Or else, the target
may have been the UN in general.

The sky was full of American helicopters coming to
collect the wounded - at least 100 - and slowly they
emerged, some with their clothes torn by the blast,
some in shirts wet and heavy with blood. Mahmoud
Shatr, a man I had met smiling and joking only a day
before, stood splattered with the blood of wounded
people he had dragged out from under the rubble. The
dead may include not only international UN workers but
locally hired Iraqi cooks, cleaners and security
guards such as Mr Shatr, and journalists. The building
was packed for a press conference when the bomb went
off at almost precisely 4.30pm local time (1.30pm BST)
yesterday. "There was a big explosion," said Mr Shatr.
"I saw more than 60 wounded, about 20 of them
seriously. I myself saw 15 people dead. There were
four people trapped under the rubble but thank God we
managed to dig them out."

Another survivor, who did not want his name printed,
was still clutching his briefcase, white with dust
from the building. His face and chest were still caked
in his dried blood, hours later in a Baghdad hospital.
"I don't know what happened," he said. "All I know is
that there was an explosion and somehow we got out."

One woman, her clothes torn, was too frightened even
to get into an ambulance and her injured colleagues
had to help her on board. Iraqis desperately afraid
for relatives who work inside the building, crowded
around US soldiers, begging for information. Adaleh
Tawfiq borrowed The Independent's satellite phone to
call her daughter, Enas, inside. She was safe but the
others did not know the right phone numbers for their
relatives. Never Krikor, an elegant lady in a floral
jacket, was terrified for her son, Rafi, and in a
state of panic, calling out beseechingly for
information no one could give her.

What came before was nothing to this. The daily
rocket- propelled grenade attacks on American
soldiers. The bombing of the Jordanian embassy. None
of them killed so many people or sent a shiver of fear
down the spine quite like this. "Why did they attack
the UN?" one Iraqi asked angrily. "The real target is
in front of their eyes." He gestured angrily towards
the American soldiers trying to hold back the crowds.

Moments before the bomb went off the Americans were
celebrating the capture of Saddam Hussein's
vice-president, Taha Yassim Ramadan, but the bombing
of the UN building completely overshadowed it.

There was no way of telling who was behind the blast.
There will be speculation that Saddam loyalists were
to blame but it could equally have been one or more of
the Sunni Islamic resistance groups who oppose both
Saddam and the Americans. It will serve to increase
the chaos and instability on Baghdad streets and to
increase the fear of American soldiers, of
international aid workers, and of ordinary Iraqis. A
sophisticated campaign to destabilise the occupation
seems to be spreading.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, insisted the UN
would stay in Iraq despite the bombing. But with
investigators still uncertain who is behind the
bombing of the Jordanian embassy on 7 August, the
indications are that it could get worse here yet.


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com