MAJOR-GENERAL FRANCISZEK GAGOR APPOINTED FORCE COMMANDER OF UNITED NATIONS DISENGAGEMENT OBSERVER FORCE

Biographical Note

MAJOR-GENERAL FRANCISZEK GĄGOR APPOINTED FORCE COMMANDER

OF UNITED NATIONS DISENGAGEMENT OBSERVER FORCE

Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced today the appointment of Major-General Franciszek Gągor of Poland as Force Commander of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), with effect from 13 August 2003.  He will succeed Major-General Bo Wranker.

Major-General Gągor has served in the Polish Armed Forces for 34 years.  He has held several command and staff appointments and is presently Chief of the General Directorate Operations General Staff.  From 1996 to 1999, he served as the Director, Military Foreign Affairs Department, and from 1991 to 1995, as Deputy Director and Director of the Bureau of Arms Control and Peacekeeping Missions of that Department.  In 1991, he was Head of the Peacekeeping Operations Division General Staff.

General Gągor has served as a senior interpreter in the Second United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF II) (1976-1977), as Chief Operations Officer of the Polish Battalion in UNDOF (1980 and 1985), as Deputy Chief Logistics Officer in UNDOF (1989-1990), and as Deputy Sector Commander in the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM) in 1992.

General Gagor has served as the Force Commander of UNIKOM since January 2003.

General Gągor graduated from the Higher Military School of Mechanized Infantry, Warsaw, in 1973 and holds a master’s degree (1983) from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and a Ph.d. (1998) from the Polish Academy of National Defence in Warsaw.

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