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Palais des Nations, 29 August, 2003



Remarks of Bertrand Ramcharan,
Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights
at the Ceremony in Honour of Colleagues
fallen or wounded in Baghdad



Deputy Secretary-General, Director-General, Excellencies, Colleagues, Friends,

The United Nations stands for peace, justice, human rights, humanitarianism and development. Our colleagues in Baghdad were working for these ends. The brutal attacks on the UN headquarters in Baghdad were attacks on these noble objectives of the world organization.

When my colleagues and I joined a peaceful march last Wednesday in honour of our fallen and wounded colleagues, one of my colleagues had her three-year old child with her. It was the world in which that child would grow up that was on my mind. I want it to be a world free of terror and oppression; a world of human rights, justice, and development.

Our colleague Jean-Selim died leaving a three-week old baby. I have in my mind’s eye, the world in which that child would grow up. Jean-Selim died for a world free of terror and oppression; a world of human rights, justice and development. Today, I pledge our determination not to falter in the quest for that world.

My friend Rick Hooper of the Department of Political Affairs, was engaged in the search for conflict prevention and peacemaking. A terrorist dirty deed snuffed him out. We shall not stop our efforts to prevent conflicts or to help make peace. Our resolve will be stronger.

My colleague (Fiona Watson) was a peacekeeper, from the peacekeeping department. I was a Director of the Office of the SRSG in the largest-ever peacekeeping operation in the history of the United Nations : UNPROFOR. I know that no peacekeeper would be intimidated by terror. We shall, to be sure, be ever more careful. But we shall go forward. Who can snuff out the universal desire for peace; the work of the United Nations for peace.

Nadia Younes was my friend and colleague. We cooperated on many assignments : at UN Headquarters, in Geneva, and in the field. How can I contemplate her death. I know she would say to me, she says to me: “Get on with it!” in her inimitable style.

I think today of my other colleagues and friends who were killed or wounded in Baghdad. We in OHCHR have had our friends killed or wounded. I reach out to them in spirit and say that I know that the right to life, the right to personal security, the right to family life, the right to dignity, equality and security are important for humankind and we shall maintain the global struggle to defend these values.

Dignity, equality and security were the themes with which our dear High Commissioner, friend and colleague, Sergio Viera de Mello began his term. I have asked myself for the past two weeks : What does it mean that a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was killed in Iraq? At Baghdad airport, when I went there to bring his body home, I answered that the death of a High Commissioner for Human Rights in Iraq must give life to human rights for the people of that country.

Today, I ask myself: What should the brutal slaying of a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights mean for the world? I feel deeply that we need human rights to prevent conflicts. We need human rights to make peace; we need human rights to keep the peace; we need human rights to build peace; we need human rights for development; we need human rights for effective humanitarian action on the ground; in short, we need human rights strategies of governance, nationally, regionally and internationally.

I would like to think that our colleagues who died for Iraq are saying to us now: Go forth and build the world of the Charter and of the Universal Declaration: for the people of Iraq and for the world at large. I said at Baghdad airport and I repeat it here: The Charter is eternal; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is eternal. Their triumph is inevitable. I feel the silent, peaceful assent of our fallen colleagues. The hold aloft the torch of human rights : for all of us, everyhere, for humanity at large.



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