Read Online Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World by Samantha Power - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Samantha Power
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Mello for his insights into the PLO and other armed groups. He also valued his read on southern Lebanon. “I was wild with jealousy that he could talk to people I couldn’t,” Crocker recalls. “Whenever I thought, ‘Oh my God, are we falling off the edge here?’ or ‘What does this mean?’ he’d be the guy to bounce things off of.”
FALLING OFF THE EDGE
In February 1982, sensing mounting Israeli hostility toward the PLO,Vieira de Mello met with Yassir Arafat in Beirut and warned him that if he did not remove PLO fighters from the UN area, the Israelis would likely take matters into their own hands. 16 Abu Walid, Arafat’s chief of staff, gave his “word of honor” that “not one single violation” of the cease-fire was the fault of the PLO. 17 Met with such lies,Vieira de Mello knew the UN’s efforts at mediation were hopeless.
UN officials and Western governments began to fear a second, all-out Israeli invasion. In April 1982 Urquhart, in New York, wrote to General Callaghan in Lebanon: “There is great concern in virtually all quarters here tonight about immediate future Israeli intentions. We have no firm facts to go on but I felt you should be aware of mood here.” 18 The two men drew up contingency plans. They agreed that since the Security Council had neither equipped nor mandated the peacekeepers to make war, the blue helmets would stand aside in the event of an Israeli attack. Urquhart was so firm a believer that peacekeepers should avoid using force that when asked once why UN soldiers did not fight back, he said: “Jesus Christ is universally remembered after 2,000 years, but the same cannot be said about his contemporaries who did not turn the other cheek.” 19 All UN units in southern Lebanon were informed that the Israelis might soon launch “an airborne, airmobile, amphibious or ground operation, or a combination of these.” In the event of an invasion, Callaghan cabled his troops, the UN radio code signal would be “RUBICON.” 20
The tenuous cease-fire was falling apart and the propaganda war was escalating. On April 21 Israel launched massive air raids against PLO targets in southern Lebanon. It did the same on May 9, and PLO fighters in Tyre fired rockets into northern Israel for the first time in nearly a year. UNIFIL’s chief medical officer in Naqoura began to investigate hospital facilities in Israel, Lebanon, and Cyprus in the event that the UN took mass casualties in a new war. 21
On June 3, 1982, a gunman with the Abu Nidal organization, which the Israelis accused of being linked to the PLO, shot Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, outside the Dorchester Hotel in London. 22 On the morning of June 6, General Rafael Eitan, the chief of staff of the Israeli army, summoned Callaghan to Zefat in Israel, some twenty miles from UNIFIL headquarters.Vieira de Mello accompanied his boss and took notes. As soon as the UN team sat down, Eitan told Callaghan that the Israeli army was about to “initiate an operation” to ensure that PLO artillery would no longer reach Israel. Eitan said he “expected” that UN troops would not interfere with the Israeli advance. 23
Callaghan was enraged both by the invasion and by Eitan’s ploy to pull him away from the UN base just as the attack was being staged. “Israel’s behavior is totally unacceptable!” the Irish general exclaimed. Eitan was unmoved. “Our sole targets are the terrorists,” he said. “We shall accomplish our mission as assigned to us by our government.” He told Callaghan that UN resolutions were “a political matter for politicians to deal with,” and that twenty-eight minutes hence Israel would embark on its military operation. 24 Callaghan knew that he had to alert his troops immediately. Out of radio range, he had no choice but to deliver the coded message—RUBICON—on an Israeli army phone. 25 And remarkably the real humiliation had
FALLING OFF THE EDGE
In February 1982, sensing mounting Israeli hostility toward the PLO,Vieira de Mello met with Yassir Arafat in Beirut and warned him that if he did not remove PLO fighters from the UN area, the Israelis would likely take matters into their own hands. 16 Abu Walid, Arafat’s chief of staff, gave his “word of honor” that “not one single violation” of the cease-fire was the fault of the PLO. 17 Met with such lies,Vieira de Mello knew the UN’s efforts at mediation were hopeless.
UN officials and Western governments began to fear a second, all-out Israeli invasion. In April 1982 Urquhart, in New York, wrote to General Callaghan in Lebanon: “There is great concern in virtually all quarters here tonight about immediate future Israeli intentions. We have no firm facts to go on but I felt you should be aware of mood here.” 18 The two men drew up contingency plans. They agreed that since the Security Council had neither equipped nor mandated the peacekeepers to make war, the blue helmets would stand aside in the event of an Israeli attack. Urquhart was so firm a believer that peacekeepers should avoid using force that when asked once why UN soldiers did not fight back, he said: “Jesus Christ is universally remembered after 2,000 years, but the same cannot be said about his contemporaries who did not turn the other cheek.” 19 All UN units in southern Lebanon were informed that the Israelis might soon launch “an airborne, airmobile, amphibious or ground operation, or a combination of these.” In the event of an invasion, Callaghan cabled his troops, the UN radio code signal would be “RUBICON.” 20
The tenuous cease-fire was falling apart and the propaganda war was escalating. On April 21 Israel launched massive air raids against PLO targets in southern Lebanon. It did the same on May 9, and PLO fighters in Tyre fired rockets into northern Israel for the first time in nearly a year. UNIFIL’s chief medical officer in Naqoura began to investigate hospital facilities in Israel, Lebanon, and Cyprus in the event that the UN took mass casualties in a new war. 21
On June 3, 1982, a gunman with the Abu Nidal organization, which the Israelis accused of being linked to the PLO, shot Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, outside the Dorchester Hotel in London. 22 On the morning of June 6, General Rafael Eitan, the chief of staff of the Israeli army, summoned Callaghan to Zefat in Israel, some twenty miles from UNIFIL headquarters.Vieira de Mello accompanied his boss and took notes. As soon as the UN team sat down, Eitan told Callaghan that the Israeli army was about to “initiate an operation” to ensure that PLO artillery would no longer reach Israel. Eitan said he “expected” that UN troops would not interfere with the Israeli advance. 23
Callaghan was enraged both by the invasion and by Eitan’s ploy to pull him away from the UN base just as the attack was being staged. “Israel’s behavior is totally unacceptable!” the Irish general exclaimed. Eitan was unmoved. “Our sole targets are the terrorists,” he said. “We shall accomplish our mission as assigned to us by our government.” He told Callaghan that UN resolutions were “a political matter for politicians to deal with,” and that twenty-eight minutes hence Israel would embark on its military operation. 24 Callaghan knew that he had to alert his troops immediately. Out of radio range, he had no choice but to deliver the coded message—RUBICON—on an Israeli army phone. 25 And remarkably the real humiliation had
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