Since the early 1980's, the Office of United Nations Secretary General,
acting on a mandate from General Assembly resolutions, has been involved with
various degrees of success in resolving the Afghan conflict.
The Soviet Accords assured Soviet troop withdrawal on a fixed
schedule, while leaving in place a proxy war, by establishing the
United Nations Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan (UNGOMAP) to
monitor the implementation of the Accords.
The UNGOMAP included a military section under a Finnish general and a
political section under Benon Sevan. The mission was empowered to receive and
investigate complaints from both sides that the Accords were not being
properly implemented. The mandate for UNGOMAP lapsed as of February 14, 1990,
one year after the end of the Soviet withdrawal.
The U.N. then established a successor, the Office of the Secretary General
in Afghanistan and Pakistan (OSGAP). Benon Sevan headed OSGAP's main office in
Islamabad.
In a UN resolution of December 21, 1993, entitled "Emergency
international assistance for peace, normalcy and rconstruction of war-stricken
Afghanistan" was a request to the secretary general "to dispatch to
Afghanistan, as soon as possible, a UN special mission to canvass a broad
spectrum of the leaders of Afghanistan, soliciting their views on how the UN
can best assist Afghanistan in facilitating national rapproachment and
reconstruction." Persuant to this resolution, on February 12, 1994,
Secretary General Boutros-Ghali named former Tunisian Foriegn Minister Mahmoud
Mestiri as his special envoy to Afghanistan, as Head of UN special mission to
Afghanistan (UNSMA).
Kofi Anan: UN secretary general, 1997-present.
Lakhdar Brahimi: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Algeria. UN diplomat.
Head of UNSMA, July 1998-present.
Diego Cordovez: UN under secretary general for special political
affairs and personal representative of the the secretary general for
Afghanistan, 1982-88. Chief mediator in Geneva negotiations.
Javier Perez de Cuellar:
UN secretary general, 1982-92.
Felix Ermacora:
Austrian jurist. Special rapporteur on Afghanistan,
UN Commission on Human Rights, 1984-1995. Died, 1995, of a disease contracted
on a mission to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Boutros-Ghali: UN secretary general, 1992-97.
Dr. Norbert Holl: German diplomat. Head of UN special mission to
Afghanistan (UNSMA), 1996-97. Resigned his post effective December 29, 1997.
Mahmoud Mestiri: Former minister of foreign affairs of Tunisia. Head
of UN special mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA), Feb 1994 - May 1996.
Appointed special envoy to Afghanistan of the UN secretary general, February
12, 1994.
James Ngobi: Diplomat from Zimbabwe. Deputy Head of UNSMA, 1997 and
Acting Head of UNSMA 1997.
Giandomenico Picco: Assistant for special political affairs, UN
Secretary General's Office, 1982-92.
Benon Sevan: Armenian Cypriot. U.N official. Political
officer, UNGOMAP, 1988-90; OSGAP, 1990-92.
UNGOMAP:
February 1989 - February 1990:
Political section headed by Benon Sevan.
Military section headed by a Finnish general.
OSGAP:
February 1990 - February 1994:
Headed by Benon Sevan, 1990-94
UNSMA:
Headed by Mahmoud Mestiri, February 1994-May 1996
Headed by Dr. Norbert Holl, 1996 - December 1997
Lakhdar Brahimi, July 1998-present