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Rania recently posted the names of the 3 most likely candidates for head of UNMOVIC, Celso Amorim, Pasi Patokallio and Rolf Ekeus. Kofi Annan has to make the decision by Sunday, according to SCR1284. It's a highly important post, given the ability of the head of UNMOVIC to make the judgment on Iraqi compliance, & to negotiate entry of UNMOVIC into Iraq. Here's my limited knowledge of the Amorim & Patokallio - I imagine we all know about Ekeus. Pasi Patokallio has been the frontrunner for the job for a long time. Reports from September last year said that the Security Council had in effect already decided that he would lead any future arms body. He was Finland's long-time disarmament chief, heading the Finish mission to the UN Conference on Disarmament - where, despite Finland's support for nuclear disarmament, he was a leading critic of attempts to link the renewal of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to immediate negotiations for universal verifiable nuclear disarmament (a position supported primarily by Middle Eastern States). He also became famous (notorious) as the head of Finland's delegation to the negotiations for a treaty to ban landmines, as he was opposed to any prohibition on the use or stockpiling of landmines (due to the Russian threat). Nevertheless, he is seen to have had good relations with Russia, and closer to the European than the US position on most issues - apparently, the US was the last to be convinced at last September's Security Council talks that he was a suitable candidate. Recently, he has served as Finland's ambassador to Israel and Cyprus. Celso Amorim is the surprise candidate. He's on the list of course because he, as Brazil's ambassador to the UN, assembled and chaired the 3 Security Council panels of 1999, which (by all accounts I've seen) he did very competently. He annoyed the US by excluding Richard Butler from the Weapons panel, and (if I remember correctly) he supported the strong tone on the humanitarian panel, starkly drawing attention to the suffering of the Iraqi people. However, his background is not in the Middle East or disarmament fields at all. Most of his political life has been spent in economic delegations. He rose to be head of the economic department of the Brazilian foreign ministry, was trade ambassador to the GATT talks, and played a significant role in the early running of the WTO. He became Brazil's foreign minister in the early 1990s, again seemingly concentrating on international economic issues. He then shifted to become Brazil's ambassador to the UN; he is credited with trying to exclude all language from UNSC resolutions on Iraq that would seem to imply that unilateral military action could be taken (by the US) if Iraq failed to comply with the inspectors. Latest reports seem to indicate that none of these candidates are getting unanimous support. AP reported this morning that new possibilities are South Africa's deputy director-general for multilateral affairs, Abdul Minty (who I know nothing about) and Indonesia's former ambassador to the UN, Nugroho Wisnumurti. But worst of all, the suggestion has been put forward that Indonesia's notorious former foreign minister, Ali Alatas - a bloodthirsty man who served as the US/UK's middleman for conducting the brutality against the East Timorese - could do the job. I have compromising photos of him, just in case. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full archive and list instructions are available from the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi