'WE ARE ALL HUMBLED' BEFORE THOSE WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES FOR PEACE, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL, PRESENTING FIRST DAG HAMMARSKJ+LD MEDALS
Press Release
SG/SM/6733/Rev.1*
PKO/75/Rev.1*
'WE ARE ALL HUMBLED' BEFORE THOSE WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES FOR PEACE, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL, PRESENTING FIRST DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD MEDALS
19981006 Following is the text of remarks delivered by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the presentation of the first Dag Hammarskjöld Medals at a commemorative meeting of the General Assembly to mark the fiftieth anniversary of United Nations peacekeeping in New York on 6 October:It is a special honour for me to present the first Dag Hammarskjöld medals to the families of three United Nations peacekeepers who gave their lives in the cause of peace. This medal will honour all those, civilians and military alike, who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in that cause. Most of us will never know the names of more than a few of them. Many were seemingly unremarkable people who simply went about their work each day.
But they were remarkable, all of them. They travelled of their own free will to places far from their own countries, putting their safety at risk, to help people whose quarrels were no direct concern of theirs. And they all paid the highest price - some of them as recently as a few weeks ago.
Before long, those brave men and women will also have a fixed and visible memorial outside this building. I am glad to announce today that the decision to build such a memorial has at last been taken. Funded from the proceeds of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to United Nations peacekeeping forces in 1988, it will be dedicated to the memory of all those people, military and civilian, who have given their lives serving the United Nations in the cause of world peace. Before them, ladies and gentlemen, we are all humbled. I ask you now to stand and observe a minute of silence in their honour.
And now, I should like to welcome the families of the three outstanding servants of the United Nations whom we particularly honour today. It is fitting, I think, that we bestow this medal first on the very first United
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* Reissued to incorporate translation from French of three paragraphs on page 2.
Nations peacekeeper to die in the line of duty -- a Frenchman -- and on two outstanding diplomats and statesmen -- both, as it happens, Swedish -- whose names will for ever symbolize the United Nations work for peace.
Born in Carcassonne in 1899, Major René Labarrière served with distinction during the First World War and later in the Middle East. In the Second World War, leading an infantry company, he was wounded and later taken prisoner.
In June 1948, he returned to the Middle East to serve as a United Nations observer in the very first operation of the kind that would later be called a "peacekeeping operation": the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). Only a few weeks later, on 6 July 1948, he was killed in an explosion -- a grenade or a mine, it was never known -- as he was driving to investigate an alleged violation of the truce.
The French Government was simply informed, in a communiqué from the United Nations Mediator, that Major Labarrière had died in the service of peace. That Mediator was Count Folke de Bernadotte.
Count Bernadotte was born in 1895. During the Second World War, as president of the Swedish Red Cross, he worked tirelessly for the welfare of political prisoners and prisoners of war. In the last weeks of the war, he acted as intermediary in Germany's peace overtures to the Allies. And in 1948, as Mediator for Palestine, Bernadotte played a key role in United Nations efforts for peace in the Middle East. On 17 September of that year, he was murdered by terrorists in Jerusalem. Finally I come to Dag Hammarskjöld, after whom this medal is named. It can hardly be necessary, here of all places, to recall the career of the United Nations second Secretary-General -- the son of a Swedish Prime Minister, who himself served in government before being elected Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1953. During his years as Secretary-General, Hammarskjöld put in place the main elements of peacekeeping, which have served the international community through the cold war and up to the present day. He died on 18 September 1961, in what is now Zambia, when his plane crashed on his fourth trip to the region in connection with United Nations operations in the Congo. In the 37 years since Hammarskjöld's death, we have learned many lessons. Yet men and women are still dying in United Nations peacekeeping operations. And landmines, like the one which may have killed Commandant de Labarrière, still cause death and permanent injury. It would be comforting to think that in the new century such sacrifices will no longer be necessary and ceremonies like this a thing of the past. Let us dedicate ourselves to the effort to make that wish come true. Meanwhile, I am deeply honoured to award the Dag Hammarskjöld medal to the families of these three, who gave their lives in the service of the United Nations, and in pursuit of peace.
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