United Nations pays tribute to staff slain in Timor

September 13, 2000
Web posted at: 6:57 AM HKT (2257 GMT)

GENEVA (Reuters) -- United Nations refugee agency chief Sadako Ogata on Tuesday led hundreds of mourners in paying tribute to three aid workers murdered in West Timor last week, saying their "extraordinary humanitarian spirit" would live on.

She read from an e-mail message sent by one of the victims, Carlos Caceres, a 33-year-old lawyer from Puerto Rico, minutes before pro-Jakarta militias burst into their U.N. compound last Wednesday.

"We sit here like bait, unarmed, waiting for the wave to hit. ... As I wait for the militias to do their business, I will draft the agenda for tomorrow's meeting," Caceres wrote to a friend at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Macedonia.

Ogata called for more to be done to prevent attacks on her staff. The agency has lost 18 workers in the line of duty during the past 13 years.

Caceres died with Samson Aregahegn, a supply officer from Ethiopia, and Pero Simundza, a telecommunications operator from Croatia, in the West Timor border town of Atambua.

The Geneva-based refugee agency and all other relief workers have pulled out from the Indonesian-controlled half of the island, where 120,000 East Timorese refugees remain.

"I feel anger that humanitarian workers have become targets of threats, aggression and murder," Ogata told a crowded auditorium at the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva.

"We must move to reverse this intolerable trend and find ways to prevent such inexcusable crimes," she said.

Ogata, a 72-year-old Japanese academic due to retire from UNHCR at the end of the year, said she had rarely been so saddened in her 10 years at its helm. The agency has 800 staff in Geneva and deploys 5,000 staff in the field.

Carolyn McAskie, a U.N. emergency relief coordinator who spoke on behalf of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, called for increased protection for all U.N. staff.

"Our message to member states must be clear -- we will work to dramatically increase protection of all staff. A demarche has been made by the Security Council to (Indonesian) President (Abdurrahman) Wahid urging that the perpetrators of this crime be brought to justice."

Relatives of the slain were among those attending the hour-long ceremony, which heard tributes from colleagues. Photos of the three victims, three white candles and three bouquets of white lilies were arranged at the podium.

Caceres, 33, had joined UNHCR in Russia in 1997. He worked with North Korean refugees in Vladivostok and Iraqis in Moscow before becoming a protection officer in Indonesia in March.

Simundza, 29, was recalled by Neil Wright, a senior UNHCR official who worked alongside the radio operator in the divided town of Mostar, on the front line during the Bosnia war.

"He would string an aerial across the Neretva River, the kind of link which has become vital for field staff security over the past decade. We all took comfort that he would stay there in his radio room until we were all back safely, like a good shepherd," Wright said.

Aregahegn, a 44-year-old Ethiopian, was remembered by supervisor Victoria Akyrampong as "reserved but hard-working." "Most unfortunately he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Isn't that what work with UNHCR is all about?"

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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