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Authors: Samantha Power
Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (61 page)
BOOK: Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
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But his romantic happiness came at a price. Annie was resisting his efforts to divorce her, failing to show up for court appointments. He was most stung by the criticism he was getting from his sons, who were protective of their mother and refused to meet Larriera. He could not convince them of his sincerity. “I should have done this ten years ago,” he told his friend Annick Stevenson. “Maybe it would have been easier on them if they were younger. But I can’t delay any longer. I have got to deal with my life.” When his sons refused to take his calls, he e-mailed them, proposing a “direct dialogue.” He wrote that he did not seek to undermine their loyalty toward their mother but wanted “a chance to explain to you many things so you could maybe understand my mistakes.”
10
10
In this time of profound personal change,Vieira de Mello became more spiritual. He had long been vehement about his atheism. Once, when he and Larriera attended a mass in East Timor performed by Bishop Felipe Ximenes Belo, everyone else made the sign of the cross, but despite his prominence he kept his hands by his sides, stubbornly staring down at the floor. Afterward she ribbed him about his defiance, but he shook his head. “You know I don’t believe in all the bullshit of the Catholic Church,” he said. “I can’t betray my principles.” In his twenties and thirties he had told religious colleagues, “We have to realize God in man.” He had shown no signs of moving toward organized religion, but had long observed the superstitions of his native Brazil. “If God is Brazilian,” he often said, knocking on wood twice, “I’ll be safe.”
11
11
But Buddhism, which he saw more as a philosophy than a religion, had always intrigued him. Ever since 1989 he had carried with him a silver Buddha given to him by Bakhet. When he felt he needed luck during the Cambodian refugee repatriation launch in 1992, he had lit incense in front of the Buddha statue near the Thai border. Bakhet traveled annually to India on a six-week meditation retreat, and while in the early years of their friendship Vieira de Mello had mocked his friend’s interest in “mystical nonsense,” his attitude had begun to change.“One of these days I need to sit down with you, Omar,” he said. In 1998 Bakhet had given him a large glossy picture book on Buddhism and assumed that he simply filed it away, unread. But when Bakhet visited him in East Timor, he spotted the book lying prominently on the coffee table. When Vieira de Mello disappeared into the shower, Bakhet opened the book and discovered his friend’s meticulous scribbles all over the margins.
“When I retire,” Vieira de Mello announced one day to his friend Morisset, “I want to be a Buddhist.” In the meantime, although he did not have the time to seek formal instruction, he learned what he could. In November, shortly after he moved back to Geneva, he and Larriera visited the British Museum in London, and he e-mailed their guide afterward that he had “developed, jointly with my wife Carolina, a curiosity and eager taste for Buddhist philosophy, art and culture,” which he noted was “rather unusual for two Latin Americans.” He asked for further clarity on Luohan, whom he understood to be a guide to truth. He asked specifically about Luohan’s “effort to transcend mundane repetitiveness (did I get it right?) and attain unity with the world.”
12
The guide responded that Luohan had managed to reach a personal nirvana without leaving the earthly world and had therefore reached a level of spirituality somewhere between ordinary man and Buddha. “Sergio’s level of consciousness was rising,” Morisset recalls, “and this meant he was more in touch with the world’s cruelty.”
12
The guide responded that Luohan had managed to reach a personal nirvana without leaving the earthly world and had therefore reached a level of spirituality somewhere between ordinary man and Buddha. “Sergio’s level of consciousness was rising,” Morisset recalls, “and this meant he was more in touch with the world’s cruelty.”
As he settled into his new life in Geneva,Vieira de Mello tried to get a quick handle on the high commissioner’s job. The office seemed mired in an impossible paradox. Without the direct support of governments, he would not get the funds or political cooperation he needed; but if he was seen to be too close to powerful governments, he would lack credibility. He answered his early critics. On September 20, 2002, he declared, “My job will require speaking out.... But it also requires tact and political acumen, as well as the ability to roll up one’s sleeves and get down to work to protect human rights away from the spotlights and the microphones.”
13
He joked that his preparation for a job that entailed tiptoeing in political minefields came when he ran the Mine Action Center in Cambodia.
14
He admitted to friends that publicly criticizing governments would require the biggest adjustment of his career. “Sergio was aware that his days of being loved by everyone were coming to an end,” recalls Prentice.
13
He joked that his preparation for a job that entailed tiptoeing in political minefields came when he ran the Mine Action Center in Cambodia.
14
He admitted to friends that publicly criticizing governments would require the biggest adjustment of his career. “Sergio was aware that his days of being loved by everyone were coming to an end,” recalls Prentice.
He began to conceive of his role as that of emergency “first responder.” He could swoop into a place where abuses were being carried out and attract a burst of media coverage. At a brainstorming session in New York, Harold Koh, who had been assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor in the Clinton administration and had subsequently become dean of Yale Law School, urged him to try to pass the “taxi driver test.” “When the driver of the average taxi cab that you hail—whether in Delhi, Rio, Nairobi, Cairo, Paris, Beijing, or New York—asks, ’Aren’t you Sergio, the high commissioner?’ (placing you on a first-name basis with Saddam, Madonna, and Pelé), you will finally be well on your way to having the independent political base that you will need.”
15
The better known Vieira de Mello became, the less dependent he would be upon particular governments.
15
The better known Vieira de Mello became, the less dependent he would be upon particular governments.
He would never have found it easy to be office-bound again, but the high commissioner’s perch was worse than most offices. As he became acquainted with his new employees, he thought many of them were measuring their impact not by the lives they bettered but by the number of human rights conferences they planned or the number of human rights treaties they invoked. “The place is just infested with fucking lawyers,” he told his close associates. He noted that the way to reach those desperate for the UN’s help was “certainly not workshops.”
16
“If our rules, our debates, this commission and my office’s very existence, cannot protect the weak,” he declared, “then what value do they have?”
17
His deputy Bertrand Ramcharan suggested the office acquire more space in order to manage the influx of new hires that the new commissioner hoped to make. Vieira de Mello was incredulous: “No, we’ll have every office doubled up. The little money we have should be spent on human rights.” In a note to Prentice in the margins of his draft human rights strategic plan, he scrawled, “What would victims expect from us, from me?”
18
16
“If our rules, our debates, this commission and my office’s very existence, cannot protect the weak,” he declared, “then what value do they have?”
17
His deputy Bertrand Ramcharan suggested the office acquire more space in order to manage the influx of new hires that the new commissioner hoped to make. Vieira de Mello was incredulous: “No, we’ll have every office doubled up. The little money we have should be spent on human rights.” In a note to Prentice in the margins of his draft human rights strategic plan, he scrawled, “What would victims expect from us, from me?”
18
Most of the human rights staffers he encountered in Geneva were UN lifers who had rarely ventured into the field.
19
He vowed to make the office more operational. “The majority of people who work at human rights have been here forever. Forever! Ask them whether they have seen one violation of human rights in their professional careers. Most of them will tell you they haven’t,” he told Philip Gourevitch of
The New Yorker.
"This is a crazy system that kills motivation and that kills the flame.”
20
He e-mailed a colleague that bureaucratic life in the UN “demotivated young and capable staff, rewarded dinosaurs who have made their entire careers behind their HQs desks, punished those who believed in mobility, rotation and dared volunteer for field missions and undermined the goals of the UN as a result.”
21
He planned to begin systematic rotation of staff from Geneva to the field so that the violations they were trying to curb became more real to them.
19
He vowed to make the office more operational. “The majority of people who work at human rights have been here forever. Forever! Ask them whether they have seen one violation of human rights in their professional careers. Most of them will tell you they haven’t,” he told Philip Gourevitch of
The New Yorker.
"This is a crazy system that kills motivation and that kills the flame.”
20
He e-mailed a colleague that bureaucratic life in the UN “demotivated young and capable staff, rewarded dinosaurs who have made their entire careers behind their HQs desks, punished those who believed in mobility, rotation and dared volunteer for field missions and undermined the goals of the UN as a result.”
21
He planned to begin systematic rotation of staff from Geneva to the field so that the violations they were trying to curb became more real to them.
As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, he struggled to distance himself from the UN Commission on Human Rights, which he saw as an embarrassment to the UN and to human rights. The UN Commission on Human Rights, which met for six weeks every March and April in Geneva, was made up of fifty-three states that were elected after being nominated by countries in their regions. Often those elected were themselves flagrant human rights abusers. The year before he arrived, the United States, which had occupied a seat on the commission continuously since 1947, had been denied a seat in a secret vote.
22
The snub was seen as payback for the U.S. failure to pay some $580 million in back dues to the UN, its rejection of the Kyoto environmental pact, its frontal assault on the International Criminal Court, and its decision to expedite the building of a nuclear missile shield. Each year the commission directed several resolutions at Israel’s occupation of Palestine, but it had never in its history passed resolutions against China, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. In 2002 the UN Commission on Human Rights had failed to censure Iran, Zimbabwe, and Russia. And in 2003 Gadaffi’s Libya was elected to serve as the chair of the upcoming commission.
22
The snub was seen as payback for the U.S. failure to pay some $580 million in back dues to the UN, its rejection of the Kyoto environmental pact, its frontal assault on the International Criminal Court, and its decision to expedite the building of a nuclear missile shield. Each year the commission directed several resolutions at Israel’s occupation of Palestine, but it had never in its history passed resolutions against China, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. In 2002 the UN Commission on Human Rights had failed to censure Iran, Zimbabwe, and Russia. And in 2003 Gadaffi’s Libya was elected to serve as the chair of the upcoming commission.
Vieira de Mello was irked by the natural association people made between him and the commission, the most widely criticized part of the UN. People seemed to expect him as commissioner to be able to influence the body’s composition and habits, which he was powerless to do. He tried to be patient with the journalists who constantly grilled him about the human rights abusers who populated the commission. “The UN High Commissioner’s office is what I control,” he said. “The UN High Commission is an intergovernmental organ comprised of states.” He understood why people might be unhappy with the chair of the upcoming commission, but he told critics to “address that question” to the governments that had elected Libya.
23
23
Sitting through his first six-week session of the UN Commission on Human Rights proved excruciating. The members defeated a resolution criticizing Zimbabwe and eliminated the position of human rights rapporteur for Sudan.The Palestinian representative charged Israel with “Zionist Nazism.”
24
Seeking to preserve his office’s integrity and speak his mind, Vieria de Mello ridiculed the ritual “insulting language” that made the commission seem “stuck in an earlier time.”
25
“I would suggest to you,” he said, “that when a denunciation has become traditional it should perhaps be abandoned or revised.” The commission’s problem was not that it was “too political,” which was to be expected of a body made up of governments. “For some people in this room to accuse others of being political,” he said, “is a bit like fish criticizing one another for being wet.”
26
The trouble was not politics. The trouble was simply that many countries on the commission had little regard for human rights.
24
Seeking to preserve his office’s integrity and speak his mind, Vieria de Mello ridiculed the ritual “insulting language” that made the commission seem “stuck in an earlier time.”
25
“I would suggest to you,” he said, “that when a denunciation has become traditional it should perhaps be abandoned or revised.” The commission’s problem was not that it was “too political,” which was to be expected of a body made up of governments. “For some people in this room to accuse others of being political,” he said, “is a bit like fish criticizing one another for being wet.”
26
The trouble was not politics. The trouble was simply that many countries on the commission had little regard for human rights.
The part of the job that he liked most was philosophical: He was returning to his roots. His speeches before international organizations, human rights groups, and gatherings of dignitaries were sprinkled with references to Arendt, Kant, and Hegel. “What are the fundamental human rights?” he asked. “Are they not the basis for philosophy?”
27
In East Timor he had been responsible for making sure that school textbooks were printed and water pipes were repaired. As high commissioner, he parsed definitions of democracy. He frequently noted democracy’s shortcomings: “Democratic rule does not automatically correlate with respect for human rights, nor does its presence necessarily lead to economic and social development.”
28
He delighted in promoting his concept of “holistic democracy,” which encompassed Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want.” He faulted those who equated democracy with the casting of ballots, and argued, “Democracy is as much about what happens between elections as it is about what happens during them.”
29
He liked to paraphrase Nelson Mandela, saying that people should never be “forced to choose between ballots and bread.”
30
Holistic democracy would provide physical and economic security as well as voting rights.
27
In East Timor he had been responsible for making sure that school textbooks were printed and water pipes were repaired. As high commissioner, he parsed definitions of democracy. He frequently noted democracy’s shortcomings: “Democratic rule does not automatically correlate with respect for human rights, nor does its presence necessarily lead to economic and social development.”
28
He delighted in promoting his concept of “holistic democracy,” which encompassed Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want.” He faulted those who equated democracy with the casting of ballots, and argued, “Democracy is as much about what happens between elections as it is about what happens during them.”
29
He liked to paraphrase Nelson Mandela, saying that people should never be “forced to choose between ballots and bread.”
30
Holistic democracy would provide physical and economic security as well as voting rights.
He argued that human rights were the foundation for interstate stability. He wanted human rights to matter to geopolitics (as he always wanted to be where “the action was”), but he also did not understand why disarmament was a key item on the Security Council checklist while human rights were not. “A regime that can grossly violate the rights of its own people is
ipso facto
a threat to its neighbors and to regional and international peace and security,” he insisted.
31
He had viewed some human rights advocates he had clashed with in his career as shrill and absolutist. When they urged him to delay refugee returns to Cambodia, or to avoid negotiating with the Khmer Rouge, Serb nationalists, or the Taliban, he thought they were being unrealistic and often unhelpful. But now he appreciated that even if international humanitarian law, refugee law, and human rights law were politically inconvenient, they were also essential mechanisms for regulating state behavior.
32
He told skeptics that “human rights” was another phrase for rule of law, which they found less controversial. “He was impressed and surprised,” recalls Prentice. “It was an education for him that his core values—all of his basic instincts and beliefs—were out there in this body of human rights law.” “I’ve been dealing all my life with the effect of human rights violations,” he told Edward Mortimer, a senior adviser to Annan in New York. “At last I have a job which deals with the source of the problem.” He was fond of quoting the former Afghan ambassador to the United Nations Abdul Rahman Pazhwak, who in 1966 had presided over the General Assembly and said: “If the United Nations could be said to have any ideology, it must be that of human rights.”
33
ipso facto
a threat to its neighbors and to regional and international peace and security,” he insisted.
31
He had viewed some human rights advocates he had clashed with in his career as shrill and absolutist. When they urged him to delay refugee returns to Cambodia, or to avoid negotiating with the Khmer Rouge, Serb nationalists, or the Taliban, he thought they were being unrealistic and often unhelpful. But now he appreciated that even if international humanitarian law, refugee law, and human rights law were politically inconvenient, they were also essential mechanisms for regulating state behavior.
32
He told skeptics that “human rights” was another phrase for rule of law, which they found less controversial. “He was impressed and surprised,” recalls Prentice. “It was an education for him that his core values—all of his basic instincts and beliefs—were out there in this body of human rights law.” “I’ve been dealing all my life with the effect of human rights violations,” he told Edward Mortimer, a senior adviser to Annan in New York. “At last I have a job which deals with the source of the problem.” He was fond of quoting the former Afghan ambassador to the United Nations Abdul Rahman Pazhwak, who in 1966 had presided over the General Assembly and said: “If the United Nations could be said to have any ideology, it must be that of human rights.”
33
BOOK: Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
7.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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