Throughout his entire life, Sergio Vieira de Mello led a peripatetic existence, first as the son of a Brazilian diplomat and then during his 35-year long career at the UN, during which time he was posted to almost every conflict zone in the world. In the summer of 2003, as the senior-most UN official in Iraq, Sergio died in the notorious bombing of the UN offices at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad carried out by al-Qaeda.
In many ways, Sergio Vieira de Mello’s story is the story of the UN and a history inside most of the major conflict of the past 35 years – a story of tough choices made in a politically charged, often dysfunctional organization called upon to mend irreparable divisions in a splintered world. Samantha Powers pulls no punches, rendering both the man and the organization in a direct, straightforward style that elicits equal measures of frustration borne of perfect hindsight, anger, sympathy and some profound insights into the inner workings of this under-appreciated organization. Powers delivers not a hero or a myth but a conscientious, flawed man struggling to reconcile his education as a philosopher with rapidly unfolding events as he experiences them. You cannot complete this book without feeling loss – loss for Sergio, for the UN and for the many thousands of people touched by this imperfect, thoughtful leader. Called upon to make spur-of-the-moment decisions of tremendous human import under extreme pressure, most men would be lost in the sea of recriminations that inevitably followed. Sergio cared only about how what he had learned could be applied to the next crisis that would inevitably follow. In human affairs, chaos is the status quo. Nobody gets credit for making things “less bad”.
During his 35-year career as a UN official, Sergio emerged to become the UN’s most valuable, pragmatic leader; respected inside and outside the UN as a nation-builder, mediator and problem solver. Thought by many to be a likely future UN Secretary-General, one can’t help but wonder how his 35-plus years of field experience on the frontlines might have influenced decisions he would have made later on, and to what degree they might have resulted in fundamental restructuring of the UN itself. Painfully aware of the disconnect between policies propagated in NYC and the artificial constraints they placed on those in the field, Sergio’s experience was unlike any of the S-G that have led the UN so far. Sadly, for the UN and perhaps the world, we’ll never know. But, as a loyal “company man”, Sergio, the pragmatist, would be quick to remind us that, with all its failings, who can say how much worse off the world if the UN didn’t exist?
A son of a Brazilian diplomat and sometime-historian, Sergio Vieira de Mello was educated in Rio de Janeiro, Genoa, Milan, and Rome (in French schools,) Beirut, Lebanon, the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and the Sorbonne in Paris. Introduced to leftist writers during a period of protest against the Vietnam war, it was in Paris that he became radicalized and participated in the tumultuous street protests of 1968, in which he was badly beaten by police.
After graduating from the Sorbonne, Sergio joined the UN High commission for Refugees with headquarters in Geneva and, while there earned a doctorate in Philosophy at the Sorbonne. His first posting was to Bangladesh, followed by postings in the Sudan, Cyprus, Mozambique, Peru, Lebanon, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, Kosovo, East Timor, and, tragically, his last, intended to be for just 4 months, Iraq. As the years passed, Vieira de Mello matured and shed his leftist views in favor of a more pragmatic humanistic worldview. When faced with human suffering, ideology was a luxury he came to distain.
The best vantage point from which to understand international conflict is from the inside, in the teeth of conflict, as was the case in Bosnia and Iraq, or cleaning up after its devastation, as in Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo and East Timor. By virtue of his willingness to go anywhere, anytime – his family life took a backseat – Sergio was the rare UN official that the S-G could rely on to assemble a team and be on his way to a conflict zone within hours. Ironically, his final posting to Iraq came over his own objections at a point in his life in which he was planning to retreat from the field. In all likelihood, with just a month and a half to go, Iraq would have been Sergio’s last field assignment.
More than any other organization, the UN staff – as opposed to the Security Council – has to face many of the most challenging moral questions of war and peace. As peacekeepers, their decisions often have life and death consequences, and it was impossible to know beforehand, absolutely, which direction would yield less suffering and death. We, the public, can make a pretense of taking the high road and glibly hide behind ideology and second-guessing; officials caught in the fog of war or its aftermath don’t have that choice.
What should the role of the UN be? Are there limits to the UN’s neutrality? What limits should be placed on the “blue helmets” – international UN peacekeepers? At what point should peacekeepers use deadly force? At what point does the population view an occupying force or UN peacekeepers as legitimate? What is the best response to “spoilers, rogue states and non-state militants?”
Six months before the Iraq war, Vieira de Mello became High Commissioner for Human Rights. He quickly concluded that “Dignity is the cornerstone of order,” and without security, human rights were unachievable. “Outsiders” – meaning the UN itself – “must bring humility and patience to its dealings in foreign lands.”
In its involvement in the most intractable international struggles, even when the UN fails – and success is allusive and virtually impossible to define – the UN and its permanent staff deserve immeasurable respect. This important book educates and inspires that respect – for Vieira de Mello and the UN.
