Word: timorously
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...keen intellect and considerable charm to rebuilding war-torn states, from Bangladesh to Mozambique. The Brazilian diplomat won accolades for helping restore a measure of civilian order to Kosovo in 1999. His greatest acclaim resulted from his work from 1999 to 2002, when he oversaw the transformation of East Timor into an independent democracy after centuries of foreign occupation and a bloody civil war. He pursued his duties in Iraq with a savvy that won him friends throughout the country's competing political factions. A devastated Annan noted, "I can think of no one we could less afford to spare...
DIED. Sergio Vieira de Mello, 55, fearless and elegant U.N. representative in Iraq, who promoted peace and nation building in such war-torn countries as East Timor, Kosovo and Cambodia; in the suicide bombing that struck U.N. headquarters, killing 23 and injuring 100; in Baghdad. After a 34-year diplomatic career, the Brazilian diplomat was seen as a possible candidate for the U.N.'s top job. "I can think of no one we could less afford to spare," eulogized U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. De Mello survived the initial blast and was heard calling from the building's debris...
...world learned anything in the 1990s, it was surely that the U.N. doesn't work miracles. You don't bring peace to a violent land just by sending in a multinational force wearing blue helmets. True, some missions have been successful, like the Australian-led stabilization of East Timor. But from Somalia, where a humanitarian effort turned into a doomed attempt at nation building; to Rwanda, where U.N. forces failed to prevent a genocide, despite ample warnings that it was coming; to Bosnia, where the Dutch component of a peacekeeping contingent stood by while thousands of Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered...
...story the satellite news networks transmitted to the world in apocalyptic images, as they would the calamities that followed. Then, one after another, Asian currencies collapsed. In 1998, Indonesia was in chaos as the Suharto regime was brought down by street mobs; a year later, Ambon and East Timor were riven by appalling sectarian violence. Sri Lanka was rocked by waves of suicide bombers; in July 2001, Colombo's airport was hit. Then came 9/11, with anti-American demonstrations in its aftermath. Last October, bombs in Bali killed 202 people and wiped out much of what was left of tourism...
...Sentenced. Benjamin Sarmento and Romeiro Tilman, militia leaders who opposed independence for East Timor; to jail terms of 12 and eight years, respectively, for murdering independence activists and forcibly moving civilians in 1999; by a local court in Dili...