Read Online Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World by Samantha Power - Free Book Online
Authors: Samantha Power
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use force only in self-defense. The commander of UNIFIL’s French parachute battalion constantly referred to the rival armed factions as “the enemy.” When Urquhart traveled from UN Headquarters in New York to southern Lebanon, he had to take the officer aside to explain that, unlike a soldier fighting under his national flag, a peacekeeper had no “enemies.” He had only “a series of difficult and sometimes homicidal clients.” 14
Vieira de Mello had never seen the UN operate with so little clout. While working as a humanitarian for UNHCR in Bangladesh, Sudan, Cyprus, and Mozambique, he had found it frustrating merely to address the symptoms of violence—feeding and sheltering refugees in exile or preparing to welcome them home—while doing nothing to stop the violence or redress the insecurity that had caused people to flee their homes in the first place. But at least as an aid worker he had generally been able to bring tangible succor to those in need. Because he and other humanitarians were unarmed, they did not raise expectations among civilians who, when they saw UN soldiers, expected them to fight back against their attackers.
UNIFIL headquarters had been established in Naqoura, a desolate Lebanese village on a bluff overlooking the sea just two miles north of the Israeli border. When the UN had first arrived in 1978, the village had only two permanent buildings—a border customs house and an old Turkish cemetery—but it had since turned into a lively beach town that catered to the foreign soldiers and civilians. 15 Most evenings Vieira de Mello drove across the border to the Israeli town of Nahariya, where he lived with Annie and their two young sons. Because Palestinian Katyusha rockets sometimes landed near Nahariya, Annie grew practiced at bringing Laurent and Adrien into the local bomb shelter. Vieira de Mello remained in close contact with his mother, Gilda, who was in a state of such perpetual anxiety about her son’s safety that she developed acute insomnia, a condition that would not abate even after he left the Middle East.
When he first began traveling from southern Lebanon to Beirut, which still experienced violent flare-ups despite the truce in the civil war, he too was skittish. Once, while he was attending a meeting with the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, the sound of a heavy exchange of fire drew near. Unsure of what was occurring in this, his first live combat zone, he passed a note to Samir Sanbar, a UN colleague based in Beirut.“Are we finished?” his note read. “Is this our end?” Sanbar assured him that they were not in immediate danger, and the meeting concluded uneventfully. “At the start Sergio was new to war,” recalls Sanbar. “After a few more trips to Beirut, he learned that gunfire was as natural a background noise as the sound of passing cars.”
On most of his trips to the Lebanese capital, Vieira de Mello stopped into Western embassies to urge the Irish, Dutch, French, and other diplomatic staff to persuade their governments to extend or expand their troop contributions to UNIFIL. He had a sense of foreboding and knew reinforcements were needed. Vieira de Mello also made a point of stopping in to see Ryan Crocker, the thirty-two-year-old head of the political section at the U.S. embassy and a fluent Arabic speaker. The two men would cross paths again in 2003 in Iraq, where Crocker would serve as a senior administrator in Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority. 7 Vieira de Mello immediately won over the U.S. diplomat by telling him, “People say you know your way around. I could really use your help.” As Crocker remembers,“Nothing quite succeeds so well as carefully constructed flattery. He had me.”
In fact, each man had something to offer the other. U.S. diplomats, unlike their European counterparts, were prohibited from making contact with terrorist groups. Thus Crocker came to rely on Vieira de
Vieira de Mello had never seen the UN operate with so little clout. While working as a humanitarian for UNHCR in Bangladesh, Sudan, Cyprus, and Mozambique, he had found it frustrating merely to address the symptoms of violence—feeding and sheltering refugees in exile or preparing to welcome them home—while doing nothing to stop the violence or redress the insecurity that had caused people to flee their homes in the first place. But at least as an aid worker he had generally been able to bring tangible succor to those in need. Because he and other humanitarians were unarmed, they did not raise expectations among civilians who, when they saw UN soldiers, expected them to fight back against their attackers.
UNIFIL headquarters had been established in Naqoura, a desolate Lebanese village on a bluff overlooking the sea just two miles north of the Israeli border. When the UN had first arrived in 1978, the village had only two permanent buildings—a border customs house and an old Turkish cemetery—but it had since turned into a lively beach town that catered to the foreign soldiers and civilians. 15 Most evenings Vieira de Mello drove across the border to the Israeli town of Nahariya, where he lived with Annie and their two young sons. Because Palestinian Katyusha rockets sometimes landed near Nahariya, Annie grew practiced at bringing Laurent and Adrien into the local bomb shelter. Vieira de Mello remained in close contact with his mother, Gilda, who was in a state of such perpetual anxiety about her son’s safety that she developed acute insomnia, a condition that would not abate even after he left the Middle East.
When he first began traveling from southern Lebanon to Beirut, which still experienced violent flare-ups despite the truce in the civil war, he too was skittish. Once, while he was attending a meeting with the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, the sound of a heavy exchange of fire drew near. Unsure of what was occurring in this, his first live combat zone, he passed a note to Samir Sanbar, a UN colleague based in Beirut.“Are we finished?” his note read. “Is this our end?” Sanbar assured him that they were not in immediate danger, and the meeting concluded uneventfully. “At the start Sergio was new to war,” recalls Sanbar. “After a few more trips to Beirut, he learned that gunfire was as natural a background noise as the sound of passing cars.”
On most of his trips to the Lebanese capital, Vieira de Mello stopped into Western embassies to urge the Irish, Dutch, French, and other diplomatic staff to persuade their governments to extend or expand their troop contributions to UNIFIL. He had a sense of foreboding and knew reinforcements were needed. Vieira de Mello also made a point of stopping in to see Ryan Crocker, the thirty-two-year-old head of the political section at the U.S. embassy and a fluent Arabic speaker. The two men would cross paths again in 2003 in Iraq, where Crocker would serve as a senior administrator in Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority. 7 Vieira de Mello immediately won over the U.S. diplomat by telling him, “People say you know your way around. I could really use your help.” As Crocker remembers,“Nothing quite succeeds so well as carefully constructed flattery. He had me.”
In fact, each man had something to offer the other. U.S. diplomats, unlike their European counterparts, were prohibited from making contact with terrorist groups. Thus Crocker came to rely on Vieira de
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