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Sergio
Vieira de Mello was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 15 March
1948. He studied Philosophy and Humanities in Brazil and France
and he received two doctorates from the University of Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne).
He
has held the position of High Commissioner of Human Rights since
September 2001; and he will retain this post for a four-year
term, even after he has been named as United Nations Special
Representative to Iraq on Friday, 23 May 2003. His nomination
for the human rights post was welcome by the United States and
Britain.
Prior
to that, and until May 2002, Vieira was United Nations
Transitional Administrator in East Timor (UNTAET) and Special
Representative of the Secretary-General. He supervised East
Timor’s secession from Indonesia.
In
1999, Sergio Vieira de Mello established the United Nations
Mission in Kosovo as Special Representative of the
Secretary-General ad interim.
For
a year and a half, and until January 1998, Vieira served in the
UN Headquarters in New York as Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
De
Mello worked for the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees for most of his UN career,
particularly from 1969 to 1996. He started as assistant editor,
secretariat to the UNHCR in Geneva, Switzerland. And in 1996, he
became United Nations Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees
at the rank of Assistant Secretary-General.
In
a HARDtalk interview, aired on BBC World on 14 April 2003, Sergio Vieira De Mello
answered Tim Sebastian’s questions regarding the
Anglo/American forces’ conduct during their war in Iraq.
Vieira asserted that the coalition forces were trying their best
to meet their humanitarian requirements. When asked whether or
not the Iraqi people had been paying too high a price during the
war, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights replied that war is
always too high a price to pay.
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