Christopher Robert Paul Gunness (born 1959) is the former chief spokesperson for the

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA, pronounced ) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians who fle ...

(UNRWA). He is currently the Director of the

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

Accountability Project.

Early life

Gunness was born in 1959 in what was then the

Crown Colony A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by Kingdom of England, England, and then Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain or the United Kingdom within the English overseas possessions, English and later British Empire. There was usua ...

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

, part of the

British West Indies The British West Indies (BWI) were the territories in the West Indies under British Empire, British rule, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Antigua and Barb ...

. He was educated in England, initially at

Ardingly College Ardingly College () is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging Boarding school, boarding and Day school, day school in the English Public school (UK), public school tradition located near Ardingly, West Sussex, England. The school ...

, before gaining a scholarship to

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in 1979.

BBC

He joined the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

as a graduate trainee in 1982. During his 23-year career in broadcasting, he covered all the following roles: producer, studio manager, reporter, correspondent and anchor.

UNSCO

In 2005, Gunness left the BBC to join the

United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, formerly known as the United Nations Special Coordinator (UNSCO), "represents the Secretary-General and leads the UN system in all political and diplomatic efforts related to ...

(UNSCO), which was created following the signing of the

Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. They marked the st ...

. He was a member of a UN mission mandated by the UN to try and halt the Lebanon war in July 2006.

UNRWA

In 2007, he was appointed Spokesman and Director of Strategic Communications at UNRWA. In 2014, during the war between Israel and

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

, he made several media appearances. On 27 July 2014 Gunness was interviewed by David Gregory on ''

Meet the Press ''Meet the Press'' is a weekly American television Sunday morning talk show broadcast on NBC. It is the List of longest-running television shows by category, longest-running program on American television, though its format has changed since th ...

''; Gregory was criticized for asking Gunness to comment on unverified video footage that Gunness was not able to see. On 30 July 2014, following a live TV interview from his office in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

with

al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

-Arabic Gunness broke down in tears discussing the shelling of the UNRWA schools in Gaza, which resulted in the death of 15 people. In 2014, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Ron Prosor, called for Gunness’s suspension, accusing Gunness of “an ongoing pattern of anti-Israel bias"; Gunness responded by saying: “We guard our neutrality jealously, and we have a plethora of measures that we take to guard our neutrality." This exchange took place against the backdrop of caches of rockets having been discovered at three separate UNRWA schools, and accusations by the Israeli government that UNRWA had turned over one cache of rockets to Hamas; Gunness called these allegations unsubstantiated. On December 4, 2014, in response to the

Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Je ...

's publication of a piece by Palestinian activist Bassem Eid, Gunness tweeted "boycott the JPost! Don't read their lies!"; in response, the

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

issued a statement underscoring the importance that UNRWA "uphold its stated policy of neutrality." Through a spokesperson, Gunness claimed that "he was not calling for a boycott against any media outlet but instead was making his objections to a single article."

Consulting and Myanmar advocacy

In 2019, Gunness left the U.N.; he founded the Myanmar Accountability Project, MAP, in 2021, and also runs the consultancy Tiresias Communications. In 2021, Gunness advocated on behalf of Kyaw Zwar Minn,

's former ambassador to the UK, as means of undermining the legitimacy of the junta that seized power in a

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

earlier that year. In September, 2021, MAP assisted in producing a legal opinion regarding which ambassador would be officially credentialed to represent Myanmar at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunness, Chris 1959 births Living people People educated at Ardingly College Alumni of the University of Oxford Mass media about the Arab–Israeli conflict British officials of the United Nations