"The stakes are enormous," said Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (Unami) in her first interview, Wednesday, November 13, to an international media, since the beginning of the first movement spontaneous social event in Iraq on 1 October.
Iraqi leaders "must shoulder their responsibilities" and reform the political system conspired by the street, she said.
UN activates to resolve crisis
In recent days, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has endorsed a plan to end the crisis to the great Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a tutelary figure of Iraqi politics.
The 89-year-old cleric, Iraq's highest Shiite cleric, never appears in public and only meets with very few personalities. In front of her, he said he doubted the "seriousness" of the authorities to implement reforms, according to the head of the UN.
Statement by UN SRSG Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert to the Presidency of the Council of Representatives
Baghdad, 13 November 2019 pic.twitter.com/Gl62czg39E
After him, the former defense minister of the Netherlands met parliament speaker Mohammed al-Halboussi and heads of parliamentary blocs in Iraq, a rich oil country whose leaders are accused of corruption and incompetence. There, she told AFP, she "called on all actors, including Parliament, to take up their responsibilities" and "to start implementing a number of key reforms".
In a country where abstention increases every poll and fraud is regularly denounced in elections, "public confidence is at its lowest," she noted. "Promising a lot without doing anything would be very damaging."
"They have been elected by the people and they are accountable to him and they are also responsible for making the voice of the people heard," said the former MEP.
"We must act now otherwise the dynamics will be lost"
The protesters claim, 16 years after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein following the US invasion of Iraq, the overhaul of the system put in place under the auspices of the US occupier, arrived for them breathless.
"We must act now if not the momentum will be lost, just when many Iraqis are demanding concrete results," she pleaded.
The demonstrations have shaken the authorities in early October but the leaders have since closed ranks. Under the pressure of Iran, influential in Iraq, the various parties in power have even agreed to end the challenge, even to resort to force.
On the possibility that her proposal to end the crisis is a response to the growing influence of Iran in her Iraqi neighbor, the head of Unami has denied this intention. But she felt that "many actors, external and internal, could play the troublemakers and undermine the legitimate demands of the people".
A repression "atrocious"
Returning to the violence regularly denounced by the UN, she was alarmed by "a growing number of dead and wounded each day". The number of these is now officially more than 15,000.
"It's atrocious, I make reports, I make things visible," she continued. A recent Unami report found that about 20 protesters had been killed by tear gas canisters, most of them crushed by these weapons, military-type and ten times heavier than those used elsewhere in the world.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert once mingled with demonstrators in Tahrir Square, epicenter of the protest in Baghdad, even taking the break in a touk-touk, these small three-wheeled vehicles that transport the wounded for lack of ambulance.
There she met protesters. "They said to me: 'we have lost brothers, we will not give up because the choice for us is either no life or a free and dignified life, we have chosen the peaceful way and we will pursue it ".
With AFP