MAJOR GENERAL HERMANN K. LOIDOLT APPOINTED CHIEF MILITARY OBSERVER

IN UNITED NATIONS MILITARY OBSERVER GROUP IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced today the appointment of Major General Hermann K. Loidolt of Austria as Chief Military Observer in the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to succeed Major General Saavedra whose contract expired on 10 July.

Major General Loidolt was born in 1950 and has served in the Austrian armed forces since 1970.  He has held several command and staff appointments up to the battalion level and at the Austrian Armed Forces Headquarters.  He is currently the Director of Information Technology Acquisition in the Department of Communication and Electronic Equipment in the Ministry of Defence.  Previously, he held appointments with the Department of Military Comprehensive Planning.  From 1985 to the present, he has been a professor in the General Staff courses, and from 1995 to 1997, he was Guest Instructor at the George Marshall Institute, Germany.  He has attended courses at the National Defence Academy and in the International Fellowship Programme on Disarmament at the United Nations.  In 1995, he earned a Master of Science degree in National Resource Strategy at the National Defence University, Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the United States.

In 1976-1977, Major General Loidolt served as the Engineer Officer in the Austrian Battalion in the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).

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