Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (56 page)
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Authors: Samantha Power
BOOK: Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
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Vieira de Mello knew the flaws of the UN system intimately. While working in New York, he had kept a cartoon pinned to the wall from the mid-1990s, at the time that Euro Disney was suffering its financial crisis. The cartoon showed Mickey saying to his companion Goofy: “It looks as if the UN is taking over—now it really can’t get worse.”
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But understanding those flaws was different from living them. The people of East Timor had high hopes for self-governance and improved living conditions, but Vieira de Mello felt as though he and UNTAET were dashing them daily. “Our vision was we’d administer the place and we’d consult with the Timorese. Then, after elections we’d hand over the keys to the Timorese and be on our way,” recalls Prentice. “The Timorese, who had been waiting centuries to govern themselves, understandably had different ideas.” And eventually so did Vieira de Mello, who came to see that he would need to bend the UN rules in order to save the mission. The most effective way for him to exercise power in East Timor would be to surrender it.
35
But understanding those flaws was different from living them. The people of East Timor had high hopes for self-governance and improved living conditions, but Vieira de Mello felt as though he and UNTAET were dashing them daily. “Our vision was we’d administer the place and we’d consult with the Timorese. Then, after elections we’d hand over the keys to the Timorese and be on our way,” recalls Prentice. “The Timorese, who had been waiting centuries to govern themselves, understandably had different ideas.” And eventually so did Vieira de Mello, who came to see that he would need to bend the UN rules in order to save the mission. The most effective way for him to exercise power in East Timor would be to surrender it.
Sixteen
"A NEW SERGIO”
If Vieira de Mello revealed an important quality in East Timor, it was not his wisdom so much as his adaptability. As early as the spring of 2000 he felt that his mission, which was seen outside of East Timor as a rare UN success, was on the brink of failure. Physical security was breaking down, the economy was in ruins, and the Timorese had begun to view the UN as a second “occupier.” Desperate to recover, he aggressively cracked down on security threats and attempted to give the Timorese a meaningful say in their own affairs. In order to regain momentum, he realized, he would have to pay more attention to Timorese dignity and welfare than to UN rules.
The greatest fear of the Timorese was that the Indonesian militias would return. While they resented the UN political footprint, they valued the UN military presence. When the peacekeeping troops took over from the Multinational Force, Vieira de Mello made clear there would be no letup in security. The UN force, he warned, would “maintain the highest deterrence and reaction capacity in East Timor, which I would not advise anyone [to] test.”
1
Rumors still swirled that the pro-Indonesian militia planned to come back to massacre the population. On July 24, 2000, Private Leonard Manning, a twenty-four-year-old blue helmet from New Zealand, became the first battle casualty of the peacekeeping force when he was shot in the head while out on patrol near the town of Suai, on the border with West Timor. When his body was recovered several hours later, his throat had been slashed and his ears cut off.
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1
Rumors still swirled that the pro-Indonesian militia planned to come back to massacre the population. On July 24, 2000, Private Leonard Manning, a twenty-four-year-old blue helmet from New Zealand, became the first battle casualty of the peacekeeping force when he was shot in the head while out on patrol near the town of Suai, on the border with West Timor. When his body was recovered several hours later, his throat had been slashed and his ears cut off.
2
The day of the attack Alain Chergui, one of Vieira de Mello’s bodyguards, drove to his boss’s house. When he arrived at the door, Vieira de Mello skipped his usual pleasantries and said simply, “We are going to Suai.” Chergui recalls the transformation. “His face was so serious, so heavy, dour,” the French protection officer remembers. “He was not like Sergio.” When they arrived in the town where the killing had occurred, Vieira de Mello grilled Manning’s colleagues in the Kiwi battalion. “He was obsessed,” says Chergui. “He wanted every detail of what Manning had done all day long.” He would use the information to argue with New York that the peacekeepers’ rules of engagement should be made more aggressive. But he would also use it to soften the blow suffered by Manning’s parents, who would be left with a precise picture of the good their son had been doing the day he died. He would make a point of visiting them when he passed through New Zealand on official business.
Vieira de Mello had learned a vital lesson in Bosnia and Zaire. It was essential to signal to armed elements that the UN would not roll over. If the militants smelled weakness, he knew, they would exploit it. Therefore, in the wake of Manning’s death, he revised the peacekeepers’ rules of engagement to maximize peacekeepers’ flexibility to defend themselves and to protect civilians. Previously, peacekeepers had had to wait to be fired upon before they struck back, and they had to fire warning shots before directly targeting anybody. But henceforth the blue helmets would be able to initiate fire at suspected militia without waiting. UN soldiers and police would also be permitted to apprehend suspicious individuals on the basis of minimal evidence. Vieira de Mello authorized large police and military sweeps to drive out the militia and restore public confidence. He later reflected, “We chose not to opt for the usual and classical peacekeeping approach: taking abuse, taking bullets, taking casualties and not responding with enough force, not shooting to kill. The UN had done that before and we weren’t going to repeat it here.”
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At a speech in which he congratulated the troops on neutralizing the threat, he presented a bellicose face of the UN. “Let them try again, and they will get the same response,” he said.
4
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At a speech in which he congratulated the troops on neutralizing the threat, he presented a bellicose face of the UN. “Let them try again, and they will get the same response,” he said.
4
His favorite part of the job, he made clear, involved managing military affairs. His staff teased him for his seeming delight at attending military parades in the scorching sun. A big believer in such parades ever since he had accompanied Brian Urquhart around southern Lebanon in 1982, he visited with each unit separately and often found occasions to present medals to the soldiers to boost their morale. “A parade may never have been the most important event in Sergio’s day,” recalls Jonathan Prentice, “but he knew it was likely to be the most important event in a soldier’s day.”
Neither he nor the peacekeepers had jurisdiction over West Timor, which was part of Indonesia. Nonetheless, UN humanitarian agencies like UNHCR operated there in order to help repatriate some 90,000 East Timorese refugees who had not yet returned home. On September 5, 2000, militia leader Olivio Moruk, one of nineteen men named by the Indonesian attorney general as a key orchestrator of the 1999 massacres and a suspect in the murder of Leonard Manning, was killed in his home village in West Timor. Word of his death spread quickly. The following day a funeral procession of some three thousand people wound its way past the UNHCR compound in the town of Atambua, in Indonesian-controlled West Timor. UNHCR security staff considered evacuating the office, but the local police chief assured them that the demonstration would pass peacefully. Instead, an advance group of thirty to fifty militiamen on motorbikes, armed with a mix of stones, bottles, homemade guns, and semiautomatic weapons, broke off from the march and stormed the UN office. “White people have caused our loss in the referendum,” one gunman shouted, “and now they’re causing our suffering.”
5
The men burned the UNHCR flag and raised the Indonesian flag. As the militia shouted insults nearby, Carlos Caceres, a Puerto Rican UNHCR worker inside the agency compound, responded to an e-mail from a colleague. Caceres wrote:
5
The men burned the UNHCR flag and raised the Indonesian flag. As the militia shouted insults nearby, Carlos Caceres, a Puerto Rican UNHCR worker inside the agency compound, responded to an e-mail from a colleague. Caceres wrote:
My next post needs to be in a tropical island without jungle fever and mad warriors. At this very moment, we are barricaded in the office. A militia leader was murdered last night. He was decapitated and had his heart and penis cut out . . . Traffic disappeared and the streets are strangely and ominously quiet. I am glad that a couple of weeks ago we bought rolls and rolls of barbed wire . . .
We sent most of the staff home, rushing to safety. I just heard someone on the radio saying that they are praying for us in the office.The militias are on the way, and I am sure they will do their best to demolish this office.The man killed was the head of one of the most notorious and criminal militia groups of East Timor.These guys act without thinking and can kill a human as easily (and painlessly) as I kill mosquitoes in my room.
You should see this office. Plywood on the windows, staff peering out through openings in the curtains hastily installed a few minutes ago. We are waiting for this enemy, we sit here like bait, unarmed, waiting for a wave to hit. I am glad to be leaving this island for three weeks. I just hope I will be able to leave tomorrow.
Carlos
Minutes after hitting “send,” Caceres was brutally hacked to death, along with Samson Aregahegan, an Ethiopian supply officer, and Pero Simundza, a Croatian telecommunications officer.
6
Their bodies were then set aflame in front of the office. Another UNHCR staffer suffered machete wounds to the head. The mob, which then ransacked and torched the UNHCR office, went around town on trucks and motorcycles inspecting private houses and hotels, saying they were looking to “finish” the “white people from UNHCR.”
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With Vieira de Mello’s strong support, Secretary-General Annan declared “security Phase V” for West Timor, ordering the withdrawal of all international staff and the suspension of UNHCR operations until security could be established and the guilty brought to justice.
6
Their bodies were then set aflame in front of the office. Another UNHCR staffer suffered machete wounds to the head. The mob, which then ransacked and torched the UNHCR office, went around town on trucks and motorcycles inspecting private houses and hotels, saying they were looking to “finish” the “white people from UNHCR.”
7
With Vieira de Mello’s strong support, Secretary-General Annan declared “security Phase V” for West Timor, ordering the withdrawal of all international staff and the suspension of UNHCR operations until security could be established and the guilty brought to justice.
The Indonesian authorities proved uninterested in reining in the militia or rounding up the killers.
8
Conditions in West Timor remained too volatile for the UN to return. While Vieira de Mello knew that a UNHCR presence in West Timor might speed refugee repatriation, he never recommended that the UN resume its operations there because he was never satisfied that it could do so safely. The humanitarian imperative no longer trumped all other concerns.
8
Conditions in West Timor remained too volatile for the UN to return. While Vieira de Mello knew that a UNHCR presence in West Timor might speed refugee repatriation, he never recommended that the UN resume its operations there because he was never satisfied that it could do so safely. The humanitarian imperative no longer trumped all other concerns.
In East Timor itself he focused on improving the performance of UN police. Although he was a committed multilateralist, he took what for him was the heretical step of deciding that on occasion geographic distribution should be sacrificed in the interest of unit cohesion. “What is more important?” he asked. “That twenty countries each send six policemen, or that the UN police stop crime?” In March 2001 UNTAET began to experiment with new models for UN policing, assigning responsibility for the Bacau district to police from a single country, the Philippines.
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When UN officials in New York objected because they thought that the new single-nationality units were an affront to the UN ethos, Vieira de Mello successfully defended the move.
9
When UN officials in New York objected because they thought that the new single-nationality units were an affront to the UN ethos, Vieira de Mello successfully defended the move.
In 2001 he persuaded his friend and foil Dennis McNamara to become his deputy. He had talked up the mission and the fun they would have conspiring together once again. But by the time McNamara arrived, Vieira de Mello was drained by the relentless job pressure. His sense of play seemed to have vanished, and even though the two men had clashed often over principle in the past, they had never feuded as they did in East Timor. “Sergio didn’t want a number two,” McNamara recalls. “He wanted special assistants who were loyal to him above all.”
Vieira de Mello made McNamara responsible for cleaning up the UN Serious Crimes Unit, which was meant to pursue those responsible for crimes against humanity. Talk of an international tribunal modeled on those for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia had quickly faded, as Western states rushed to normalize ties with Indonesia. The serious crimes panel, which consisted of two international judges and one Timorese, would investigate 1,339 murders and indict 391 suspects. Although 55 trials would be eventually held, 303 leading suspects, including the ex-governor of Timor and General Wiranto, the head of the army during the massacres, would live comfortably on the Indonesian mainland and in West Timor.
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Vieira de Mello didn’t give McNamara support when he needed it. His deputy traveled to Indonesia to press Jakarta to arrest suspected war criminals, but Vieira de Mello backed his chief of staff, Nagalingam Parameswaran, a Malaysian who encouraged the militia leaders to return to East Timor and assured them that they would not be prosecuted. Vieira de Mello believed that if he could persuade the spoilers to reintegrate in East Timor, it would enhance East Timor’s prospects for peace. “Sergio, you’ve become like a bloody politician,” McNamara said. “How can you just let the killers go free?” Stability mattered more to Vieira de Mello than immediate justice. Although he personally supported war crimes tribunals, Gusmão and Ramos-Horta were eager to normalize ties with Indonesia, even if that required pardoning those with blood on their hands. In the role he was in, Vieira de Mello believed he should defer to their assessment that the peace of the present should be valued above reckoning for the crimes of the past. McNamara continued to press the prosecutor’s office to pursue indictments and arrests. And the clash with Parameswaran grew bitter, with the Malaysian publicly calling McNamara a “racist” and a UN oversight body accusing him of political interference in serious crimes. To McNamara’s shock his friend did not speak up for him. Instead Vieira de Mello focused on the overall mission, urging his critics in East Timor and beyond to take a long-term view and not despair. “Regularly,” he said, “we hear of aging war criminals from the Second World War being indicted.”
11
11
The UN Security Council had given Vieira de Mello a mandate to govern East Timor on his own for more than two years. During his first six months he did not challenge this assumption, even as he struggled to manage the colossal responsibilities associated with absolute powers. But in the spring of 2000, with Timorese unrest boiling over, he sent a half-dozen trusted members of his staff on a two-day retreat and asked them to return with proposals for overhauling the mission. He delivered a new set of options to the Timorese at the annual gathering of their resistance movement. “The most acute phase of the emergency is overcome,” he told the Timorese leaders. “We hear clearly your concerns that UNTAET fails to communicate or involve the East Timorese sufficiently.” He described the two alternative models. “Under the first model UNTAET and myself will continue to be the punching bag,” he told the audience, smiling. Under a second “political model” the UN would speed up the “Timorization” process and form a “co-government” in order to “share the punches with you.”
12
He would create a mixed cabinet divided evenly between four Timorese and four internationals. “Faced as we were with our own difficulties in the establishment of this mission, we did not, we could not, involve the Timorese at large as much as they were entitled to,” Vieira de Mello said. “To the extent that this was due to our omissions or neglect, I assume responsibility and express my regret. It has taken time to understand one another.”
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He would create a mixed cabinet divided evenly between four Timorese and four internationals. “Faced as we were with our own difficulties in the establishment of this mission, we did not, we could not, involve the Timorese at large as much as they were entitled to,” Vieira de Mello said. “To the extent that this was due to our omissions or neglect, I assume responsibility and express my regret. It has taken time to understand one another.”
13
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