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On August 19th, a yellow cement truck exploded outside the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad. At least 20 people were killed. Mr. Vieira de Mello lay trapped, alive, in the rubble for several hours before he too, died. Evil triumphed, at least temporarily.
Obituary of Vieira de Mello, “the UN’s top man in Iraq”, The Economist, August 23rd 2003
Health Ministry Statistics say that the incidence of abnormal births has increased 400-fold since 1991. The Iraqis also say that, all told,1.7m children have died because of the various effects of UN sanctions.
The Economist, September 14th 2002
2 million children died in the 12-year siege
Of Iraq; yet one man’s death made the headlines.
Those murders were all legal: this one wasn’t.
Who was the vigilante who killed him
And himself? Father? Uncle? What sort of
Relationship with the dead children would
Justify his own death, and murder, too,
Just as the little funerals had been?
In the hours that Vieira de Mello lay
Buried alive, what were his thoughts, one wonders?
Initially, there must have been hope, then
Despair; like mothers watching children for
Signs of recovery before the signs of death:
Did evil triumph now, or had it triumphed then?
Iftekhar Sayeed
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