Kofi Annan died this morning August 18, 2018
US Human Right Lawyer, Reed Brody says the late former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan “was a man of peace and law, and a moral beacon for human rights”
“I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan….. His voice will be missed” Reed Brody mourns the late Kofi Annan in a facebook post.
Recounting on some of the interventions Kofi Annan made in bring peace and justice to humanity, this is what the Human Rights Violation Investigator said:
In 1997, I was the Deputy Chief of the UN Secretary-General’s Investigative Team in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SGIT) looking in to massacres in the war there. When Laurent-Desiré Kabila tried to block our probe, Annan had our back. When our report called on the UN to seek justice for the crimes we documented, Annan told the Security Council that “those guilty of violations must be brought to book.” (Thanks to the US and Rwanda, the Council of course buried our report).
According to him, the late Kofi Annan in 2001, “helped save the Hissène Habré case by telling Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade that he needed to respect a UN decision not to allow Habré to flee to safe haven in a country where he could not be prosecuted”
“And of course Annan stood up to the US, calling the invasion of Iraq what it was – illegal.” – he said in the post.
Reed Brody is Counsel for Human Rights Watch, where he assists atrocity victims who are fighting for justice. His work as counsel for the victims in the case of the exiled former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré – who was convicted of crimes against humanity in Senegal – and in the cases of Augusto Pinochet and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier has been featured in five films, including “The Dictator Hunter”.
