Ozonnia Ojielo, UN Resident Coordinator on Commemorating Captain Mbaye Diagne

• Madam Veneranda Ingabire, representing the Honourable Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, 
• Ambassador Doudou Sow, Ambassador of Senegal to Rwanda, 
• His Excellency Eduardo Filomeno Octavio, Acting Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, 
• I acknowledge the presence of all the Ambassadors, Excellencies, High Commissioners, Representatives of Diplomatic Missions present, 
• The Representatives of the Chief of General Staff of the Defence Forces of Senegal, 
• I take particular note of the presence of the Director for the Military Museum in Senegal, because in memory, it's important to document, but memory, the stories should be told as well, 
• The spokesperson of the Rwanda Defense Force, Brig General Ronald Rwivanga, 
• I want to acknowledge your presence, Madam Yasin Mar Diop, and all the members of Captain Mbaye Diagne's family who are present here today. You are a permanent part of our United Nations family by the singular act of the sacrifice of your husband. 
• Representatives with Ibuka, all the other government officials that are present, my dear colleagues, heads of agencies, and UN agencies present. Also my dear colleagues of the United Nations family, distinguished ladies, and gentlemen, 

Good morning, 

On behalf of the United Nations system in Rwanda, we are here to join you in commemorating the life of our colleague Captain Mbaye Diang, former Senegalese military officer who was a UN military observer here in Rwanda during the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. The event we commemorate today is not just about Captain Mbaye Diang, but about the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. These memorializations should serve as a reminder to all of us gathered here in terms of the roles we play in the diplomatic community, in the peacekeeping community, in the development community. 

We have lost enough lives. We've lost them in Rwanda. We've lost them in Srebrenica. We've lost them in many parts of the world. We are losing lives as we speak. 

So what is the value of the commemoration if we cannot act as an international community to prevent further deaths, further lives. If it were possible for us to have a telephone conversation with Captain Mbaye Diagne and with all the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, we would ask them, now you are dead, what would you wish would happen so that perhaps you can feel that your death was not in vain. They would have been saying to us:

Are there people still dying for the reasons we died? Or have the deaths stopped? It is not enough that we celebrate and commemorate Captain Mbaye Diagne. We will, and we are here, and we are celebrating him. And we are commemorating all the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. 

Yesterday, together with my colleagues in the UN family, but also with colleagues from the diplomatic community, we were at the Ntarama Genocide Memorial to commemorate the victims who died. We were at the Mpinganzima Village with all the old women and men widowed by the genocide. So you add all of that, and the thought that kept persisting in my head was, when will it be enough? When will we say as an international community that people have died enough? What we discuss here, what we commemorate here, is also being commemorated in other theaters of mass violence. 

So perhaps in our own small ways, in our diplomatic messages to our headquarters, in the decisions we make, We might begin to pass the message. It's time for the member states to come together. It's time for the UN Security Council to become more active, more functional. It's time for us to respond much more actively as a global community so that victims like those in Rwanda and peacekeepers like Captain Mbaye Daigne will not have to be lost. 

And look at this picture. It was at the prime of his youth. And I can imagine the moments that you would have been celebrating with him now, talking about what you would do in your old age and your children and how you celebrate. 

But he's not here with us. So we should ponder about the humanity of those who've lost and perhaps make a commitment in our own small spaces, defending the ground on which each one of us stands is perhaps the step where we should start. So that's why his role and the role of his other colleague military advisors driving around Kigali finding people in hiding, afraid for their lives because if they were discovered because of their identity, as Tutsis, they will be slaughtered. Taking food, water, provisions to them and sometimes taking them from where they were, taking them to other places where perhaps they thought they would be safe. 

Did he have to do that? He didn't. He could have stayed in his military post and said it was too risky. So the avoidance of responsibility must stop. By us actors, whether you are in the peacekeeping mission, in the political mission, in the development context, the avoidance of responsibility needs to stop. We need to stand up for humanity and for compassion because we say it's a global community. So why should it surprise us that he's being decorated and acknowledged? These are the highest ideals of courage, of recognition, of human kindness, of duty beyond self. So those of us who work in the United Nations system, that's the responsibility we have assumed, and it doesn't mean that the United Nations system is perfect. But we don't have an alternative. That's a challenge. If we had an alternative, we could say, well, this system isn't working well, let's go for the alternative. There's no alternative.

It's the only one. 

As imperfect as it may be. So what's our challenge as a global community? Our challenge is to strengthen it, to reform it, to make sure it works better so that people don't die. And it's not just about UN peacekeeping. It's also about UN political missions. 

The deployment of good offices, the use of preventive diplomacy to help actors in conflict to look beyond the issues that animate them and aggravate them, and to look at the bigger picture of interdependency, of the logic of working together as a community. And then for those of us in the development communities to take away the structural foundations, those pillars that create the basis for conflict and violence, that's the role of those of us in the development community because if we take away those pillars, then people might see a basis for shared prosperity for peace. That when we work together for common prosperity, we might have peace in our neighborhoods. 

Is this an aspiration? Yes. 

Is it a dream? No, because it's realistic. It's all about leadership. Captain Mbaye Diagne showed leadership. 

Can we? Will we? 

And I'm not just talking to all of us here. I'm also talking beyond here because you are common megaphones for the messages we send to our leaders in all parts of the world, wherever they may be. 

So perhaps next year, when myself and my friend Ambassador Doudou come together to celebrate Captain Mbaye Diagne, we may actually say, who knows, in some theaters of conflict somewhere in Africa, political actors saw a reason to stop the fighting, or that political leadership was deployed from different parts of our wonderful continent to find a solution. And we can say that the victims of the genocide in Rwanda, Captain Mbaye Diagne, did not die in vain, and that the war they envisaged might begin to happen one step at a time. in vain, that the war they envisaged might begin to happen one step at a time. 

Thank you for your attention