The

Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, the

Foreign Policy and United Nations Association of Austria and the
Invitation
United Nations Information Service in Vienna
in cooperation with the
Bruno-Kreisky-Forum for International Dialogue

are pleased to announce on occasion of the ACUNS-Conference a

talk on

AFGHANISTAN AND ITS

REGIONAL ENVIRONMENT
Lakhdar BRAHIMI
Former Algerian Foreign Minister and international diplomat,
working mainly for the United Nations until the end of 2005. He is
W.D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University and presently
Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global
Government at the London School of Economics.
Welcome:
Hans WINKLER
Director, Diplomatic Academy of Vienna
Maher NASSER
Director, United Nations Information Service in Vienna

Wednesday, 2 June 2010, 7.00 p.m.

Festsaal of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna
Favoritenstrasse 15a, 1040 Wien
Underground-station: U1 Taubstummengasse
Registration under fax 01/504 22 65 or send us an e-mail to
info@da-vienna.ac.at if you wish to attend:

Name

Tel/Fax/e-mail
Former Algerian Foreign Minister and Ambassador, Lakhdar Brahimi retired from national
service in 1993 and started a new career as an international diplomat, working mainly for the
United Nations until the end of 2005.

He recently spent two years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, USA. He is
also W.D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University. He is presently (2009/2010) Senior
Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Government, The London School of
Economics.

He is a member of "The Elders," a Group of elder statesmen and personalities created in July
2007 at the initiative of Nelson Mandela. Chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Elders
include Kofi Annan, Maarti Aahtissari, Ella Bhatt, Lakhdar Brahimi, Gro Harlem Brundtland,
Fernando Henrique Cardozo, Jimmy Carter, Graca Machel, and Mary Robinson. Nelson
Mandela (at his request, in 2008) and Aung San Suu Kyi are Honorary Members.

Brahimi took an active part in the struggle for liberation of his country (1954/1962) and
served as Algeria's Ambassador to Egypt (1963/69) and the United Kingdom (1971/1979).
He also was Under Secretary General of the League of Arab States (1984-1991) and Foreign
Minister (1991/1993). He was the rapporteur of the "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

Ambassador Brahimi has done extensive work in the field of conflict resolution, peace-
making, peace-keeping and worked more generally on peace and security issues.

When Mr. Brahimi relinquished his position in the United Nations, in December 2005,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan made the following statement: "The Secretary-General has
accepted, with great regret, the decision of his Special Adviser, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, to retire
at the end of this year after long and highly valuable service to the United Nations. The
Secretary-General extends his deep and abiding gratitude to Mr. Brahimi for his courage,
counsel, wisdom and dedication, and hopes to be able to continue to call on his advice. He
wishes Mr. Brahimi an enjoyable and well-earned rest after a series of profoundly challenging
assignments, during which he indisputably helped build better lives for millions of people in
some of the most troubled regions of the world".

In 1988/1990, he mediated the end of the 17 year civil war in Lebanon on behalf of a High
level Committee of the League of Arab States comprised of the President of Algeria and the
Kings of Saudi Arabia and Morocco and brokered the "Ta'eif Agreement," which is still very
much in the news in Lebanon.

During his time as Under Secretary General of the United Nations (1993/2005) he led some
high profile missions.

In 1993/94 he was the head of the United Nations Observer Mission to South Africa
(UNOMSA), which observed the historic election in April 1994 that ended apartheid and
heralded the birth a the new, non racial, democratic Republic of South Africa with Nelson
Mandela as its first President.

From September 1994 to February 1996, Brahimi was the Special Representative of the UN
Secretary General for Haiti.

He moved on to Afghanistan as Special Envoy of the Secretary General in 1997. He resigned

from that position in September 1999 to protest against the lack of support that UN efforts to
end that country's complex conflicts were receiving from the major powers, as well as from
regional governments.

After 9/11 he was asked to resume his efforts in Afghanistan. He organized and chaired the
Bonn Conference (24November/5 December 2001) and moved on to Kabul to head the new
United Nations Assistant Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA).

In between his two Afghanistan assignments, he served as Under Secretary-General for

Special Assignments in support of the Secretary-General's preventive and peacemaking
efforts.

He chaired an independent panel established by Secretary-General Annan to review United

Nations Peace Operations. The report was endorsed by the "Millennium Summit" held in
September 2000 and became known as the "Brahimi Report." It assessed the shortcomings of
the existing system of peacekeeping and made specific recommendations for change, focusing
on politics, strategy and operational as well as organizational areas of need. The Brahimi
Report and his recommendations remain a key reference work at the United Nations and
received wide attention in academia and the media.

In January 2004, Mr Brahimi returned to New York and was appointed Special Adviser to the
Secretary-General.

From February to June 2004, he was sent to Baghdad as a Special Envoy of the Secretary
General to help form a new government for Iraq, which was supposed to herald the return of
national sovereignty after the invasion and occupation of that unhappy country by the United
States and a number of its allies.

Mr. Brahimi was educated in Algeria and France, and is fluent in Arabic, English and French.
He has basic knowledge of Indonesian.

He was awarded Honorary Doctorates from: The American University of Beirut, Lebanon;
Oxford University, England; The University of Nice, France; The University of Bologna,
Italy.
Brahimi is 76. He is married with three children and six grand children.