Articles By ShashiTharoor

A friend and humanitarian at home beside kings

By Shashi Tharoor
Thursday, January 15, 2004

GENEVA: There's always a lot to do in Geneva, especially if you're a skier, a lover of fine chocolate or finer watches, or a delegate to an international conference. But on my last visit here, there was something else I needed to do, something I'd never done before in Geneva. I needed to visit a cemetery.
Not just any cemetery - this one, in the heart of Geneva, bears the unlikely name for a city overly proud of its republicanism: the Cemetery of Kings. There aren't many crowned heads buried there, though. The kings who make this verdant part of Geneva their final resting place are kings of the spirit - writers, philosophers, humanitarians, internationalists all.
If New York is the commercial and political capital of the world - as home to Wall Street and the headquarters of the United Nations - Geneva is probably the world's humanitarian capital. It's a curious distinction for this pristine, sparkling jewel of a city, built at the edge of an azure lake with scenic hills rising on either side, dotted with ritzy hotels, expensive jewelers and those ubiquitous Swiss private banks. But it's part of the Geneva paradox that a city that seems to reek of wealth should also be the home of so many who devote their lives to ending poverty and suffering. The Red Cross, the World Council of Churches and a raft of UN organizations - including those dedicated to protecting and assisting refugees and the victims of disasters - are headquartered here.
Among those who made Geneva their home while serving the world was my friend Sergio Vieira de Mello, killed in Baghdad last August in his prime. The tributes that have appeared in the world press in the wake of Sergio's death have portrayed him well, as the most brilliant and most widely experienced of the remarkable officials who have served the United Nations in trouble-spot after trouble-spot. But he was also a good human being, a loyal and generous friend, and long after all the official speeches and memorial services and state funerals were over, it was Sergio the friend I had come to mourn.
I entered the cemetery one quiet Saturday morning. The grass was a manicured green, the air fresh, and there was not a soul about to disturb the peace. I had no directions, but I knew I would find what I was looking for, the most recent of the graves at this hallowed corner of Geneva.
It was hard enough to imagine Sergio, so full of life always, in this place of the most profound stillness. There is something closed and final about a cemetery, but Sergio had always been so open; he laughed easily, inveigling those around him into the shared complicity of his humor. He was an outstanding listener. I could still recall him in conversation, his eyes narrowing in concentration, his head nodding in engagement with your argument. He had that rare gift of establishing a close rapport with strangers in a matter of minutes; and his warmth was genuine. He embraced his fellow human beings whole, whether individually or collectively. Many of us he called his brothers, and there is no doubt at all that he meant it, sweeping us into a fraternity of shared commitment to the ideals of the world organization to which he devoted his entire adult life.
Now he was among another fraternity, that of the "kings" who had been honored by Geneva, this most international and humanitarian of cities. Sergio, a Brazilian, had studied and worked in Geneva, had married a French woman from across the border, and had always returned to this place from his various forays around the globe. Sometimes, with a close companion, he would spend a weekend hour or two at the Cemetery of Kings.
He had a favorite spot there, and that's where I found myself: at the grave of the great Argentinian novelist Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). It sat unostentatiously at one side of the cemetery, but I was arrested by the headstone, which said (in a language I took to be ancient Greek) "And Ne Forhtedon Nà." Sergio, a lifelong Borges fan, had been captivated by this, and found out that it meant "Be Afraid of Nothing."
The motto was Borges' and could have been Sergio's. The writer meant it to apply to the world of ideas, the humanitarian to the world of action. Sergio took risks others might have shirked in Bosnia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Kosovo. In one of our last conversations we had spoken of the dangers he faced in Baghdad and he had urged me not to worry: "I've been in far more dangerous places," he said.
And now he lay not thirty paces from Borges, in a spot that, in a curious way, he might have thought of as home. I stood for a long time at the grave, absorbing the silence, looking at the fresh flowers surrounding the temporary tombstone. The soil of Geneva had reclaimed a favorite son. And one of the world's great humanitarians lay at rest in the calm, still center of the storm.

The writer, whose most recent book is "Nehru: The Invention of India," is the UN under secretary general for communications and public information.