CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The international community has lamented last month's death of a brave and honest man dedicated to the service of his fellow human beings to a degree matched by few others.
Sergio Vieira de Mello won acclaim in his lifetime for his great work. His horrifying death, which took place while he was focusing on an exclusively humanitarian mission as head of the U.N. mission in Iraq -- one of the hottest spots on our planet -- did not add to his already well-established credentials; it only caused dismay among the millions of people who had admired his activities, his integrity and his dynamism.
I do not feel the slightest compunction to try to justify yet one more obituary on his behalf -- just a tiny, symbolic need to participate in expressing admiration for a fallen hero, whom I did not know personally, and perhaps add another dimension that might have been ignored: