Vieira de Mello responded to Gusmão’s demands, and in January 2001 he finally laid out a political road map. An eighty-eight-member constituent assembly would be elected in August.This assembly, in turn, would draft and adopt a constitution within ninety days, decide upon the date for presidential elections, and choose the date on which East Timor would become independent. The assembly, duly elected, would decide to sign the constitution in March 2002, hold presidential elections in April, and receive full independence at long last in May.
By mid-September Vieira de Mello had formed a new cabinet, composed only of Timorese. With the deadlines in place, the Timorese were finally confident that they would soon take over, and tensions abated.
A GAP TOO FAR
Vieira de Mello had managed to bend UN rules in order to do what he thought was best for East Timor when it came to security and self-government. But he was never able to redress the greatest source of frustration in East Timor: the UN rules that forbade him from spending money directly on the country. In the economic sphere, these rules ensured that the large UN peacekeeping and political mission managed to distort local economies without being able to contribute to development. Rebuilding the country and revitalizing the economy were tasks left to the UN Development Program, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Since these agencies and funds worked slowly, the UN mission took the blame for leaving little tangible behind. The economic side of what Gusmão had called the “Cambodia trauma” was in fact being repeated in Timor.
Vieira de Mello fought with New York over taxation policy. In March 2001 he wrote to Headquarters, describing his “Solomon’s dilemma.” On the one hand, under UN rules UN staff and UN contractors could not be taxed locally. On the other hand, as the head of a government, he needed tax revenue and was sending a bad signal to the Timorese by exempting the richest people on the island from taxes. He argued the case from the Timorese perspective. If the UN paid workers extra to make up the difference in taxes, the added toll on the UN budget would be minor, while the infusion of such revenue into the Timorese budget would make a significant difference.18 But he was again informed that the rules could not be altered.
Although he knew that the rules were the rules, he urged the Secretariat to try to see if the countries in the UN could be persuaded to change them. “What we spend on spare parts for our vehicles, for example, is the same amount as East Timor is able to spend on justice,” he wrote to Headquarters. “We spend on helicopter charters three times what is foreseen in the national budget for education.” He proposed that at a minimum after independence UN member states agree to allow UNTAET to hand over used UN assets to the East Timorese government.19 Lacking even basic infrastructure and equipment, the Timorese welcomed hand-me-down UN vehicles, generators, computers, and other hardware. After a long struggle Vieira de Mello succeeded in getting permission to donate 11 percent of UN assets—about $8 million worth of equipment—to the new government of East Timor.20 By claiming that East Timor’s ravaged roads were damaging UN vehicles, he also managed to get a portion of his budget used for road repair—a major victory.
The press had little knowledge of his internal struggles and started to make him a target of their attacks. Tempo, an Indonesian weekly, published an exposé on the discrepancies between international staff (who earned an average of $7,800 per month) and local staff (who earned only $240). The article inaccurately described Vieira de Mello as the “flamboyant father of three” and as “one of the most diligent partygoers” in Dili. Living off a salary of $15,000 per month, he was said to host “lavish parties teeming with wine and food.” Although most of the facts (apart from his salary) were false, the article stung him, as its core observations—for example, the UN spent more on dental care for its peacekeepers ($7 million) than it did on local staff salaries ($5.5 million)—hit home.21
Since he was the effective governor of the place, any criticisms of the UN mission were in effect criticisms of his leadership. In early 2001 the Brazilian daily O Globo quoted extensively from a letter sent by an anonymous female Brazilian Catholic missionary, referred to only as “A.M.” A.M. had described UNTAET as a “job bank for foreigners” who acted like “‘pharaohs,’ arrogant and authoritarian.” UN officials drove air-conditioned SUVs, while the Timorese crowded onto trucks filled with “roosters, pigs, goat kids, bags of rice, vomit, and suffocating heat.” The majority of UN officials treated the Timorese as “monkeys,”A.M. wrote. “They do not come to serve.They come to command and to be served.”22
Vieira de Mello stewed over the article for a month, then erupted in writing, denouncing the author. He wrote:
I am, proudly, a career functionary of the UN, ever since I left university 31 years ago. I served—or, according to your informer, I spent delightful holidays—in tourist paradises such as Bangladesh, Sudan, Cyprus, Mozambique, Peru, Lebanon, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and, since November 1999, East Timor . . . I left my position in New York and I came to Dili because I believed in the cause of this suffering people. I accept—in fact, I stimulate—constructive criticism, but I do not allow gratuitous attacks such as yours . . .
It was the UN that kept ablaze the flame of the right to self-determination since Indonesia’s invasion of Timor in December 1975. It was our Secretary-General who mediated the agreement of May 5, 1999, that made possible the referendum of August 30, 1999, in which more than 78 percent of the population chose independence. I lead, with humility, this mission, and I take responsibility for all of its errors. We had to improvise and, with scarce resources, to create a government in an environment of desolation . . .
We share the frustration of the people with the slow execution of these projects. If destroying is easy—it took a few days here—constructing a new public administration and civil service takes time. I did not learn to make miracles, and one of the reasons for the delay is the control mechanisms, whose objective is precisely to prevent that which your source affirms to be the norm: corruption . . .
The headline of your article was “White Intervention in East Timor.” Intervention, yes! White? There are more Asian, African and Arab people than Europeans in this mission . . . I haven’t served the UN for more than three decades to swallow gratuitous effrontery from anybody. To the readers of O Globo I excuse myself for the tone of this reply. It is easy to assail when one does not have knowledge of the facts.23
The one fight Vieira de Mello refused to lose with Headquarters was that over securing compensation for families of sixteen UN employees killed during the 1999 referendum. When New York requested their marriage, birth, and death certificates, as well as written proof of employment, he patiently explained by cable that East Timor presented a “very unique case” where all documentation had been destroyed and the UN would have to be flexible and accept witness statements vouching for a staff member’s employment and death. “I am sure you will agree that we have a moral obligation to staff members who died in their line of duty,” he wrote,“particularly since rampaging militias specifically targeted local staff.”24
In March 2001 Jean-Marie Guéhenno, head of the Department of Peace-keeping Operations, wrote to Vieira de Mello expressing regret that “our hands are tied.” Despite the unusual circumstances surrounding the deaths and the compensation claims, Guéhenno wrote, the department was unable to get the standard requirements waived. More than two decades after he had battled New York for compensation for a Lebanese doctor killed by peacekeepers, Vieira de Mello argued that the UN needed to overhaul its entire approach. “In my long association with UN peacekeeping operations, the issue of the UN’s incredibly late payment of compensation to nationals of our host countries [has] always been a source of embarrassment to the Organization,” he wrote. “Victims’ families are usually very poor, and it is difficult for them to understand how the UN, which is perceived to be wealthy, could not pay compensation within a reasonable amount of time.” He informed Guéhenno that he intended to go ahead and “grant a one time l
ump sum payment of $10,000” to each family. Knowing how to force a response, he advised: “If I do not hear from you by 19 July, I shall direct the Director of Administration to disburse these funds immediately.”25 This cable got New York’s attention, and Vieira de Mello’s multiyear campaign finally bore fruit. Guéhenno informed him that he had finally persuaded UN administrators to allow the Timorese families to be compensated beginning on August 1, 2001.26
Vieira de Mello’s fiercest clash with Headquarters came over his handling of petroleum, East Timor’s one potentially lucrative source of revenue. In 1989, when Australia had recognized Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, a grateful Indonesia granted Australia generous access to oil resources that lay close to East Timor’s shores. Vieira de Mello knew that UNTAET would be considered a failure if it did not manage to persuade the Australians to return what rightfully belonged to the Timorese. Australia’s GDP dwarfed any oil revenues the country would receive from the vicinity of East Timor. By contrast, if the UN could secure the oil fields for Timor, they could potentially triple the island’s GNP.
The negotiations were tense from the start. Australian diplomats tried to claim that the oil was worth so little that the status quo should be preserved. Sensing that Australia would not give up its claim without a fight, Vieira de Mello decided to preserve his own warm ties with the Australian government by removing himself from the proceedings and appointing as the lead UN negotiator Peter Galbraith, who had been U.S. ambassador to Croatia in the Balkans and whom he had made UNTAET’s minister of political affairs. Galbraith, who could be undiplomatic, threatened to sue Australia at the International Court of Justice if it did not offer the Timorese, in accordance with the law of the sea, all revenues north of the midway point between East Timor and Australia. The Australians complained repeatedly to Vieira de Mello that Galbraith was raising Timorese expectations unreasonably and sabotaging ties between the UN and Australia. They had expected the UN to negotiate the agreement, not to act strictly in the interests of the Timorese. But the Security Council had tasked UNTAET to act as the Timorese government, so mere mediation was not appropriate. Vieira de Mello urged Galbraith to drive the best bargain for the Timorese.
In order to drive that bargain, he, Galbraith, and others in UNTAET pleaded with Headquarters to send a lawyer with expertise in petroleum law. But just as UN Headquarters took two years to respond to pleas for experts in organized crime for Kosovo, it could not quickly call upon specialists for Timor.Yet not long before a deal was to be signed divvying up one portion of the oil proceeds, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast sent Vieira de Mello a long cable, telling him that he had consulted with an expert on the law of the sea who had said that he was giving too much away.“It will be for East Timor, as an independent nation, to define its national interest,” Prendergast wrote. Vieira de Mello was livid. “Sergio decided rightly that the way to be a success was to become more Timorese than the Timorese,” recalls Prentice.“So anything that suggested that he hadn’t placed their best interests at heart was always going to draw a rather strident response.” Vieira de Mello whipped off one of the most blistering cables of his long career, writing:
Although I read Prendergast’s memo on 1 April, I note that it was dated 22 March and was thus, despite appearances, not an April Fool’s joke . . . Headquarters was kept fully informed at each and every stage. I would have welcomed any timely advice . . . Why did I not hear previously, either in person, by telephone, or in writing? . . .
I am (I had hoped that this was presumed) fully aware that East Timor will have to live with any decision made much longer and more profoundly than will we ... in short, contrary to the impression given, the East Timorese leadership do have minds of their own and do not simply wait, mutely, for us to provide poor advice. More frequent contact with the realities of the field— as I learnt in my career—provide a vital antidote to such misconceptions.
He defended Galbraith’s approach to the negotiations and fired back that New York was being unduly influenced by an adviser to the subsidiary of an American company called Oceanic, which had a vested interest in the negotiations. “I have yet to read of an alternative, feasible route that could have been taken that would have led to a more beneficial outcome,” he wrote. “These gains should not be jeopardized by an eleventh-hour lack of unity on the part of East Timor and the United Nations, particularly if this were to become public, which, as we all know, is regrettably a risk within the United Nations.” In a second draft of the cable, Vieira de Mello noted that while the Timorese had been made aware of his response, “The pique is mine.” And for the final draft he altered the sentence to: “The disappointment, irritation, and pique are mine.”27
In the end Galbraith secured a deal by which the Timorese and Australians would create a Joint Petroleum Development Area, from which the Timorese would receive 90 percent of the revenues and the Australians 10 percent, a dramatic improvement over the unfair 50-50 split that predated the UN negotiations. The Bayu-Undan development within this area was thought to contain gas and oil reserves worth $6 billion to $7 billion, which would henceforth bring $5 billion in revenue to tiny East Timor.28 The Galbraith-led negotiations would quadruple the oil available to East Timor for sale.
On April 24, 2002, East Timor’s presidential elections were held. Xanana Gusmão’s opponent said that, even though he expected to lose in a landslide, he thought it important to show the Timorese that they would have alternatives in elections. The two candidates walked together arm in arm into the polling station where they cast their votes. In a marked contrast to the August 1999 referendum, only one slight irregularity was reported in the 282 polling stations throughout the country.29 Gusmão was elected president of East Timor with 83 percent of the vote. Vieira de Mello told Carlos Valenzuela, the Colombian who ran the elections for the UN, “Thank you for the most boring elections of my life.” East Timor was less than one month away from being a fully independent nation.
GETTING A LIFE
Part of the reason Vieira de Mello had time to work nineteen-hour days was that he had no serious romantic attachments tying him down. The job’s challenges distracted him from his loneliness. Indeed in February 2000, just two months into the new millennium, he complained memorably to his close friend in Geneva, Fabienne Morisset: “February already and still a bonkless century.”
In his isolation Vieira de Mello had settled into a routine in East Timor. He ate a sandwich in the office for lunch, used the Internet and reading packages from friends to keep up with events in the rest of the world, brought work home, dined ascetically on rice and chocolate bars, made his phone calls to New York late at night, and avoided the cocktail circuit. Kosovo had given Vieira de Mello his first taste of being a local celebrity. But as the ruler of East Timor, he was almost as well known as Gusmão. He rarely went out because his unfailing politeness toward the Timorese and toward his UN employees demanded energy and because he cherished the few hours he had to himself. When he served as the best man in the Dili wedding of his special assistant, Fabrizio Hochschild, he ducked out of the after-party early. “I’m so sorry, Fabrizio,” he told his close friend. “I just can’t take being ‘on’ anymore. I’m exhausted.” He told his friend Morisset of the hollowness he felt despite having finally reached great heights at the UN. “Everything is all swimming along professionally,” he said. “But what am I doing with my life? What is all of this for?”
In late 2000 he had met Carolina Larriera, a twenty-seven-year-old willowy, elegant Argentinian who had gone to university in New York and in 1997 had volunteered her way to a Headquarters staff job as a public information officer. In East Timor, her first field posting, she helped dispense World Bank microcredit grants to Timorese businesses. Larriera was drawn to Vieira de Mello’s familiar South American charisma, but she had heard about his exploits with women and steered clear. In October 2000, nearly a year into her posting, she briefed him on the microcredit program in a
dvance of a donors’ conference he was attending. The pair discussed the problem of finding and retaining qualified Timorese managers. A month later, when she attended a small dinner party at Ramos-Horta’s home, Vieira de Mello approached her, and the two drifted into easy conversation. Playing up the traditional rivalry between Brazil and Argentina, he described how his mother had fled Buenos Aires and returned to Rio when she was seven months’ pregnant so as to make sure he was born in Brazil.
The pair became romantically involved in January 2001 and conducted their relationship privately. Larriera was concerned that her colleagues would judge her for her involvement with the head of the UN mission. He was not fully invested: He saw other women and concentrated mainly on work, spending many evenings at his home alone, listening to Beethoven or another somber composer and poring over paperwork, while drinking a glass of Black Label. “You can work and be involved in a meaningful relationship.The two are not incompatible,” Larriera insisted. “No, I can’t,” he said.
Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World Page 42
