Denis Halliday

Denis Halliday (2019)

Denis J. Halliday (* 1941 ) is a former Irish UN diplomat . On behalf of the UN , he was Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq from September 1, 1997 to 1998 .

Halliday holds degrees in Economics, Geography and Public Administration from Trinity College, Dublin .

Professional career

Halliday worked for the UN for 34 years.

After an internship with Quakers in Kenya from 1962 to 1963, he was hired by the UN in 1964 and initially deployed in Tehran. From 1966 to 1972 he was employed in the Asia Bureau of UNDP Headquarters in New York until he was transferred to Malaysia in 1972 and from then on was deployed in various countries in Asia. In 1987 he returned to New York, to the Asia and Pacific Bureau , where he was involved in organizing the first "Round Table" of UNDP Asia. In 1985 he became Deputy Director of Human Resources.

His task as humanitarian coordinator from 1997 - the highest position that the UN has to assign in connection with humanitarian missions abroad - was to observe and analyze an increasing humanitarian emergency in Iraq. Iraq was placed under an economic embargo by the UN after the second Gulf War, which had a significant impact on the Iraqi civilian population. After 34 years of membership in the UN, Halliday resigned in protest of the UN embargo on Iraq after witnessing the consequences of the embargo on Iraqi civilians. In his opinion, the behavior of the UN would constitute genocide . On the occasion of his resignation, he made the following statement:

“I have often been asked why I wanted to resign after a 30-year career at the UN, why I messed with all the powerful states of the UN Security Council and why I am interested in the well-being of the Iraqi people even after 5 years. In truth, I had no other choice. Had they held my post in Iraq, they would have done the same. I was driven to resign because I refused to obey orders from the Security Council, the same Security Council that established and upholds the genocidal sanctions that hit the innocent in Iraq ( '... the same Security Council that had imposed and sustained genocidal sanctions on the innocent of Iraq. ' ) I didn't want to become an accomplice, I wanted to speak freely and publicly against this crime. The most important reason is that my innate sense of justice was indignant and is about the violence of the impact that UN sanctions had and is having on the lives of children, families. There is no justification for killing the young, the old, the sick, the poor in Iraq. Some will tell them that it is the leadership that is punishing the Iraqi people. This is not my perception or experience of life in Baghdad. And where that is the case, how is that supposed to justify the further punishment, which is de facto a collective punishment by the UN? I don't think there is any justification ( I don't think so ) and international law has no basis for the disproportionate and murderous consequences of the UN embargo that has been going on for over 12 years. "

His successor was the German diplomat Hans-Christof von Sponeck , who also resigned from this post in 2000 in protest and gave reasons similar to Halliday.

On October 25, 2007, Halliday protested in a letter against the inauguration of a statue of former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George , who was responsible for area bombing in the Middle East.

Awards

In 2003 Denis Halliday received the “ Gandhi International Peace Award ” for his services in drawing attention to the plight of the Iraqis. In 2007 he presented this award to the Media Lens website .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Powell: The Deaths He Cannot Sanction; Ex-UN Worker Details Harm to Iraqi Children . In: The Washington Post . December 17, 1998. Archived from the original on October 26, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 16, 2009. 
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated December 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Denis Halliday. Biographical information for Denis Halliday , December 1998
4. ^ Former UN official says sanctions against Iraq amount to 'genocide' , Cornell Chronicle , September 30, 1999.
5. ↑ Jennifer Byrne Dennis Halliday - UN Iraq sanctions ( Memento of the original from October 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Australian Broadcasting Corporation . March 28, 2000 
6. ↑ Denis Halliday: 2003 Gandhi International Peace Award Acceptance Speech . Retrieved November 7, 2008.
7. ^ "Bad Lloyd George" - Daily Telegraph Letter Signed by Halliday, Pinter and Pilger.
8. ↑ David Edwards: HALF A MILLION CHILDREN UNDER FIVE ARE DEAD IN IRAQ - WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? . Media Lens. 2001. Archived from the original on October 20, 2008. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 14, 2011. 

Web links

• Short biography, engl.
• Hadani Ditmars. Salon interview , March 2002
• Denis Halliday & Hans-Christof von Sponeck . Hostage Nation , November 29, 2001
• Amira Howeidy. Death for Oil - an Interview with Denis Halliday , July 19, 2000
• Richard Roth (a CNN Anchor). CNN interview ( memento of July 3, 2004 on the Internet Archive ), March 19, 2004