UN staff recall sacrifice and service of slain colleague Alec Collett
United Nations staff have paid tribute to Alec Collett, a former staff member whose remains were found last year, 24 years after he was abducted in Lebanon while working with the world body to highlight the plight of Palestinian refugees.
At a memorial service near UN Headquarters in New York, dozens of staff gathered yesterday to remember Mr. Collett, a former British journalist who had been on assignment with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) when the then 64-year-old was abducted by armed men in Beirut on 25 March 1985.
Mr. Collett’s remains were found in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in November last year by a joint team from the UN Department of Safety and Security (DSS) and British police, and they have since been returned to his family.
“There is now reason to believe that he was senselessly and cold-bloodedly killed sometime after his abduction,” Nicholas Haysom, the Director of Political, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, told the memorial service.
Speaking on behalf of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Mr. Haysom lauded Mr. Collett’s journalistic record, saying he was “a journalist who respected the highest ideals of truth telling and was universally regarded as a committed colleague and true international civil servant.”
The date of the abduction, 25 March, is now recognized as the International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members.
“On this day, we express our concern for those still missing, our hope that the detained will be released, and our determination that even if only after a quarter of a century, questions will be answered and closure obtained,” Mr. Haysom said.
He stressed that “we do not regard Alec’s sacrifice as a case of his being ‘at the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Rather, it was a case of Alec being exactly where he was needed by the United Nations, where he wanted to be, in service of his ideals and those of the United Nations, in working for the larger goal of peace and justice.”
In the quarter century since Mr. Collett’s abduction, UN staff have faced a deteriorating security environment in many parts of the world.
“As we, in New York, work to address this increasing threat to staff safety, we have heard from our field staff the response that they do not expect to work in a risk-free environment. They do, however, demand that their service and sacrifice be meaningful, and makes a real contribution to lasting solutions,” Mr. Haysom noted.
He also paid tribute to Mr. Collett’s widow, Elaine, for her “own courage and strength. For all these years, you have continued working tirelessly for the United Nations, upholding the same values your husband died serving.”