Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the WorldFrom Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Power, an epic tale-part thriller, part tragedy-for our age, the political career and tragic death of the incomparable humanitarian Sergio Vieira de MelloIf there is a single individual who can be said to have been at center stage through all of the most significant humanitarian and geopolitical crises of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, it was Sergio Vieira de Mello. Vieira de Mello was born in 1948 just as the post-World War II order was taking shape. He died in a terrorist attack on UN Headquarters in Iraq in 2003 as the battle lines in the twenty-first-century's first great power struggle were being drawn. In nearly four decades of work for the United Nations, Sergio distinguished himself as the consummate humanitarian, able to negotiate with-and often charm-cold war military dictators, Marxist jungle radicals, reckless warlords, and nationalist and sectarian militia leaders. By taking the measure of this remarkable man's life and career, Power offers a fascinating answer to the question: Who possesses the moral authority, the political sense, and the military and economic heft to protect human life and bring peace to the unruly new world order? Chasing the Flamebrings us deep into the thorniest, least well- understood episodes of recent world history-the conflagration in the Middle East, through Vieira de Mello's troubleshooting in Lebanon in the aftermath of Israel's 1982invasion; the clean-up of the cold war's residue, through Vieira de Mello's taming of the Khmer Rouge and his repatriation of four-hundred-thousand Cambodian refugees in the early nineties; the explosion of sectarian and ethnic militancy, through his efforts to negotiate an end to the slaughter in Bosnia; the struggle to nation-build in war-torn societies, through his quasi-colonial governorships of Kosovo and East Timor; and the engulfing of Iraq in civil war and terror, through his tragic final posting as the UN representative in Baghdad, where he became the victim of the country's first-ever suicide bomb. Readers of Chasing the Flamewill recognize the particular mixture of deep reporting and incisive analysis that Power uses to imbue Sergio's life with significance, and lessons, for our own. In this exquisitely reasoned and imagined book, Samantha Power reveals Sergio Vieira de Mello's powerful legacy of humanity and ideological strength in an age sorely in need of both. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
DISPLACED | 15 |
UNACCEPTABLE Again | 34 |
BLOOD RUNNING BLUE | 55 |
HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING | 75 |
BLACK BOXING | 97 |
WHITE CAR SYNDROME | 115 |
SANDWICHES AT THE GATES | 134 |
INDEPENDENCE IN ACTION | 249 |
VICEROY | 265 |
BENEVOLENT DICTATOR | 286 |
HOARDING POWER HOARDING BLAME | 303 |
A NEW SERGIO | 323 |
PART III | 345 |
DONT ASK WHO STARTED THE FIRE | 374 |
YOU CANt Help People from a DistANCE | 396 |
SERBIO | 159 |
IN RETROSPECT | 180 |
DAMNED IF YOU DO | 191 |
GIVING WAR A CHANCE | 225 |
REBUFFED | 421 |
AUGUST 19 2003 | 451 |
POSTMORTEM | 496 |
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Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World ... Samantha Power No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
administration aid workers airport Akashi Albanians American April arrived asked attack August Baghdad Bakhet blue helmets bomb Bosnian Brazilian Bremer Bush Cambodia camps Canal Hotel civilians Clinton Coalition colleagues convoy countries diplomats East Timor elections forces French Geneva going Gorazde Gusmão head Headquarters High Commissioner human rights humanitarian Hun Sen Hutu Ibid Indonesian Iraq Iraqi Israeli June Khmer Rouge killed Kofi Annan Kosovar Kosovo Larriera leaders Lebanon Loescher Lopes da Silva March McNamara meeting Mello knew military mission months NATO never officials Ogata peace peacekeepers Phnom Penh police political President recalls refugees repatriation resolution rubble Rwanda Saddam Salamé Sarajevo secretary-general Security Council senior September Serbian Serbs staff SVDM Timorese troops U.S. soldiers UN's UNHCR UNIFIL United Nations UNPROFOR UNTAC vehicles Vieira de Mello Washington Post wrote York Zaire Zehle