Statement: Death of Sergio Vieira De Mello

The world has lost an unsung hero with the death of UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello in the terrorist attack on UN Headquarters in Iraq. He represented the best that the United Nations can be – a force for the collective good in a world wracked by turmoil. During my presidency, we were well served by Vieira de Mello's leadership – in stabilizing war-torn Kosovo; in easing the untold misery of the people of Central Africa's Great Lakes region; and in seeing East Timor through a transition from hopelessness and war to progress and peace.

Sergio Vieira de Mello and his team in Iraq were pursuing yet another noble cause in Iraq, as he himself put it upon accepting the appointment as the Secretary General's Special Representative – “to ensure that the suffering comes to an end and that the Iraqi people take their destiny into their own hands.”

My heart and prayers are with the families of Sergio Vieira de Mello and all the victims of the bombing, with the men and women of the United Nations who risk their lives so that all of us might live in a better world, with our troops and with the people of Iraq. We owe it to all of them to carry on, and to live by the principles that Sergio Vieira de Mello stood for, and practiced.

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