Chasing the Flame

December 24, 2007
The death of the charismatic Brazilian chief of the U.N. Mission to Iraq in a 2003 terrorist bombing symbolized both the U.N.'s haplessness—he died because rescuers lacked the training and equipment to free him from the rubble—and its idealism. In this sprawling biography, Vieira de Mello's life symbolizes the tragic contradictions of coping with humanitarian crises. Journalist Power, author of the Pulitzer-winning The Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
, follows Vieira de Mello through a U.N. career spent in hot spots like Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. His tasks were many: implementing peace accords, settling refugees, overseeing elections, running the government of East Timor. In each posting, he confronts a hydra-headed monster of communal violence and poverty, plus difficulties compounded by U.N. red tape, miserly budgets and uncaring Western governments. Agonizing dilemmas abound. Should refugees be fed or sent home? Should U.N. peacekeepers observe or intervene? Should past atrocities be prosecuted or overlooked? Playing by ear, Vieira de Mello charts an erratic course through these conundrums. Sometimes he's a human rights zealot, sometimes he cozies up to the Khmer Rouge; sometimes he negotiates with the Serbs, sometimes he wants to bomb them.
Vieira de Mello comes off as a charming diplomat, a canny politician and an inspiring leader, and the author celebrates his flexibility and pragmatism (while criticizing his failures). Power wants to extract lasting lessons for the international community's efforts to head off humanitarian catastrophes and mend failed states from his experience. Unfortunately, it's hard to discern through his improvisations any systematic approach to nation building or to such vexed issues as humanitarian military intervention and regime change. The lack of perspective isn't helped by the biographical format, as the peripatetic Vieira de Mello jets from one conflagration to the next, then on to a romantic getaway with a mistress or to give a murky speech on Kant. We get the impression that U.N. missions are inevitably a hopeless muddle unless Sergio, with his unique talents, parachutes in to fix things; the book may thus inadvertently encourage critics of the U.N.-style interventionism that Power supports. Readers will gain an appreciation of Vieira de Mello's gifts, but not the method to his magic. B&w photos.

Starred review from January 15, 2008
Sergio Vieira de Mello (19482003) was a career UN employee who died in Baghdad doing what he had long done: trying to bring relief to those in situations of international conflict. He had worked in most of the hotspots of the last quarter century, including Cambodia, the Balkans, East Timor, and Rwanda, and his success led to his increasing responsibility within the UN. A practical man of action, happiest doing fieldwork yet also a thinker (he had a doctorate in philosophy), he was keenly aware of the moral ambiguities in refugee situations, where bringing relief to the innocent requires working "with" the malefactors rather than pursuing immediate justice "against" them. Power (global leadership & public policy, Kennedy Sch. of Government, Harvard) emphasizes these paradoxes and complexities and the varying adaptations that Vieira de Mello was forced to make to resolve the issues at hand. Her approach is similar to her earlier, award-winning "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide". Most of her text covers the last six years of her subject's career, in great day-to-day detail, with his earlier years covered only briefly. Powers has brought to life, for both general and specialist readers, a complex figure who dared to take on the greatest challenges, always seeking to reach even higher. Highly recommended for all collections.Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2008
Power was new to journalism when she first metVieira de Mello, then head of civilian affairs for the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia, in 1994. Power went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (2002), while Vieira de Melloknown for hisgood looks, philosophical intellect, and absolute devotion to humanitarianismbecame the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Sent to Baghdad in June 2003, he was killed on August 19, when a suicide bomber drove a truck into UN headquarters. Recognizing that Vieira de Mellos three-decade commitment to the UN is a portal onto war, religious extremism, genocide, and terrorism, Power presents a fiercely precise, extraordinarily dramatic biography detailing Vieira de Mellos courageous and innovative efforts to bring peaceto Lebanon, Cambodia, Angola, Rwanda, Bosnia, East Timor, and, finally, Iraq. Power not only tells the stories of his complicated successes and failures butalso chronicles the missteps and crimes behind todays geopolitical nightmares. Strongly argued, lacerating, and utterly human, this invaluable history will be a catalyst for soul searching and debate.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)