Ending assignment as top UN envoy to Afghanistan, Brahimi gets national honour

Lakhdar Brahimi completed his two-year assignment as the top United Nations envoy to Afghanistan over the weekend just as the war-wracked country took the important step of adopting a democratic constitution.

Mr. Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister with wide experience in international diplomacy, was awarded the Order of Ghazi Amanula Khan, Afghanistan's highest decoration, by President Hamid Karzai at the end of the constitutional assembly - known as the Loya Jirga - on Sunday.

In impromptu remarks at the closing ceremony, Mr. Brahimi told delegates they had "every reason to feel proud" of what they had achieved and called the constitution "a new source of hope" for Afghans. But he warned that the constitution was just a piece of paper with words in Dari and Pashto, and called on all Afghans - Government and people - to translate these words "into a living reality."

Speaking of insecurity in the country, where a bomb exploded outside a UN building on Christmas day and a UN refugee worker was killed in November, he emphasized that the absence of the rule of law puts "fear into the heart of practically every Afghan." He also encouraged Afghan women to continue their struggle to achieve respect and their rights.

In a statement last night Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised Mr. Brahimi, who was appointed the Secretary-General's Special Representative to Afghanistan in October 2001, "for the vital role he has played" in the country.

Until a replacement is appointed, Mr. Annan has decided that Jean Arnault, Mr. Brahimi's Deputy for Political Affairs, will be the Officer-in-Charge of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva told a news briefing today in Kabul, the Afghan capital.