On Wednesday March 12th 2008, Mr. Jan Egeland, former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, visited Houston, Texas, where he gave a lecture as part of a tour in the U.S. on the occasion of the release of his new book A Billion Lives: An Eyewitness Report from the Frontlines of Humanity.
3/14/2008 :: In the lecture Mr. Egeland gave his audience an interesting insight into some of his vast experience from working with some of the largest conflicts and catastrophes around the world.
Mr Egeland took us on a fascinating journey from his first experience with humanitarian work as a 19-year old in Colombia. Mr. Egeland gained further international experience working with the Middle East peace process and the Oslo Peace Accord in the 1990s. He helped deal with international crises such as the tsunami in East Asia, and the wars in Darfur and Uganda. Mr. Egeland later also returned to Colombia as a Special Advisor for the Secretary General of the UN, negotiating with, amongst others, the FARC.
Working for organizations such as the UN, the Red Cross and Amnesty International in addition to the Norwegian Government, Mr. Egeland has met with many of the worst dictators and guerilla leaders of the world, who “don’t only have blood on their hands, but who have blood up their elbows.” Expressing that it was not always easy to meet with these people, he stated that in order “to help people living in hell, it is necessary to strike deals with the devil.”
For a man who has seen so much of the world’s atrocities and cruelties, Mr. Egeland still holds a lot of hope for a better world. Emphasizing that for many people the world has indeed become a better place in course of the the past few decades, Mr Egeland remains an optimist and believes the future to be promising.
The event was sponsored by the United Nations Association in Houston, St. Thomas University, StatoilHydro and the Norwegian Consulate General in Houston. The lecture was followed by a reception and booksigning.