Angelina Jolie Sergio Vieira de Mello Lecture 2017 (Full Transcript)

UNHCR’s Special Envoy Angelina Jolie gave the Annual Sergio Vieira de Mello Memorial Lecture at the Palais des Nations, in memory of the UN diplomat killed in a terror attack in Iraq in 2003. This the verbatim transcript of the speech.

Angelina Jolie – Speech TRANSCRIPT

Good evening. I am truly honored to be here with you tonight and thank you to the foundation for inviting me and thank you all for sharing in this moment.

We are here in memory of Sergio Vieira de Mello and the 21 other men and women, most of them UN workers, who died with him in the bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003.

We remember all those who died, to acknowledge each valuable life cut short, and the families who share, even today, in their sacrifice. We also remember them for the power of the example they set: brave individuals from 11 different countries, working to help the Iraqi people, at the direction of the United Nations Security Council, and on behalf of all of us.

This is sometimes forgotten: that in serving under the UN flag they died in our names, as our representatives. And at their head, Sergio was a man of extraordinary grace and ability, as many who knew him will testify. A man who gave 30 years to the United Nations, rising from a field officer to High Commissioner for Human Rights and Special Representative to Iraq.

From Bangladesh and Bosnia to South Sudan to East Timor, he spent the majority of his career in the field, working alongside people forced from their homes by war, and assisting them with his skill as a diplomat and negotiator. Perhaps the greatest testament to his contribution, is how much his advice would be valued today.

As the Syrian conflict enters its seventh year, as we live through the gravest refugee crisis since the founding of the United Nations, as 20 million people are on the brink of death from starvation in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Southeast Nigeria, I cannot imagine that there is anyone in the leadership of the United Nations who would not welcome the opportunity to consult Sergio, or send him into the field once more. He is truly missed.

It is humbling for me to speak tonight in the presence of members of Sergio’s family and his former colleagues. I never knew Sergio, but I have stood before the plaque in the place where he died. I felt profound sadness at the fact that the conflict in Iraq – the source of so much Iraqi suffering to this day – had claimed the lives of men and women whose only intention was to try and improve a desperate situation.

But I also saw clearly the value and nobility of a life spent in service of others. Sergio was a man who never turned down an assignment, no matter how difficult and dangerous – or as others have put it, who “handed one impossible task after another”. He was a man, to borrow the words of Thomas Paine, whose country was the world, and whose religion was to do good.

He will always remain a hero and inspiration to all who follow in his footsteps.

The UN’s work did not end there, in the rubble of the Canal House, 14 years ago. Hundreds of UN staff have served, and continue to, serve in Iraq, as they do from Afghanistan to Somalia, because the task of building peace and security can never be abandoned, no matter how bleak the situation.

My thoughts on Sergio’s life and legacy derive from my 16 years with UNHCR, the Agency he spent so much of his career serving and representing.

But I also speak as a citizen for my country – the United States. I believe all of us who work with the UN preserve this duality. The United Nations is not a country, it is a place where we come together as nations and people to try to resolve our differences and unite in common action.