We remember Walter Berweger
Walter Berweger was born on 5 March 1953 in the city of St Gallen, Switzerland, where he completed his primary and secondary schooling. He began an apprenticeship in 1969 soon after finishing school. He worked for Natural AG, an international shipping firm, for around four years, first as a commercial employee and, for the final year, as a forwarding agent. Keen to advance his career, Walter enrolled in a business school in St Gallen in 1973 and emerged three years later with a diploma in marketing and sales. During his studies, he held two short-term positions, one with the company Schreiber Suco-Werk, and the other with a local language school where he taught French and English to adults. Walter’s penchant for languages – his native tongue was Swiss German, and he was also proficient in Spanish – was complemented by a love of literature.
In 1976, Walter joined DEXPA Sàrl, a French farm-product exporter based just south of Paris. He worked as a management assistant in marketing and commercial relations for around three years. He then went to TUSA SA, an aluminium packaging company in French-speaking Switzerland, where he headed the sales team for three years, until 1981. Walter received top marks from all his employers – he got on well with colleagues and customers, never lost his cool, and met all his professional goals. The only person not fully satisfied was Walter himself. During this period, he began developing an expertise in the field of international development. In 1975, he travelled to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, in part to gain a fuller understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And in 1981, after resigning from TUSA, Walter embarked on a sprawling journey during which he visited much of Latin America and several countries in West Africa. He returned to Switzerland in 1983 with broad, first-hand knowledge of the types of economic and social problems faced by developing countries.
Following his travels, Walter was intent on finding a position where he could put his know-how to work for the benefit of people in need. He was level-headed and single-minded; a rational thinker and attentive observer; and possessed by a strong desire to engage in humanitarian work. All these traits came through in his July 1983 job interview with the ICRC, which then hired him for field work.
After his initial training in October 1983, Walter was sent to the ICRC’s Sidon delegation in Lebanon to serve as an administrator. That nine-month assignment (November 1983 to August 1984) was followed immediately by a year-long one in Quetta, Pakistan (August 1984 to August 1985), where he held the same position. By the end of that posting, Walter had shown that, with his methodical approach and positive, constructive attitude, he was ready for a more hands-on, operational role and greater responsibilities. He was given that chance in El Salvador, where he worked as a delegate for just over a year (December 1985 to January 1987). He helped provide assistance to people affected by the civil war in the western and central parts of the country and served as a liaison with local military officials. He also had a hand in other tasks, such as visiting POWs and political detainees, negotiating with the authorities, and tracing people who had gone missing as a result of the conflict. Drawing on his past experience in the region, Walter made the most of a situation in which success often depended on outside factors. He was subsequently recommended for a position as a detention delegate in order to round out his training.
Instead of another field mission, however, Walter was then brought back to ICRC headquarters in Geneva. He worked first as a finance assistant (February 1987 to August 1988) and then as head of sector in external resources (September 1988 to May 1989).
That period at headquarters was followed immediately by an assignment in the Philippines to serve as head of the ICRC’s subdelegation on Mindanao Island. On 19 January 1990, some eight months into that mission, Walter and two Red Cross colleagues were ambushed by unidentified armed men dressed in civilian clothes. Walter was killed on the spot, as was Juanito Patong a member of the Philippine Red Cross, while the third person – a local ICRC employee – was lightly wounded. Walter was 36 years old.
Walter achieved the goal he had set for himself – to work in the field, shoulder to shoulder with those in need. By combining his humanitarian convictions and his formidable administrative and managerial skills, he was able to make a difference to people exposed to the devastating consequences of conflict.
The ICRC in
Philippines, 1990
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Philippines was caught up in both a Communist insurgency and a Muslim separatist struggle. This period was also punctuated by attempts by various parts of the military to overthrow the government. That surge in unrest came on the heels of the country’s emergence, in 1986, from two decades of rule under President Ferdinand Marcos. His government had quashed many of the democratic institutions put in place when the Philippines finally gained its independence in 1946. The country had previously been occupied by Japan (during the Second World War), controlled by the US (from the late 19th century to the 1930s) and colonized by the Spanish (for several hundred years, starting in the 16th century). So Corazon Aquino had her work cut out for her when she was elected president in 1986. At that point, the ICRC had already been working with victims of armed conflicts in the Philippines for over four decades. We were providing a wide range of services from our delegation in Manila, our subdelegation in Davao (on Mindanao Island) and our office in Zamboanga City (also on Mindanao Island). In 1989, our delegates visited 983 people held in 155 civilian and military places of detention. Most of them were being held in connection with the insurgency, although they were joined by military personnel arrested in the wake of various coup attempts. Our overall task was to assess their detention conditions, as well as their health and nutritional status; we also started programmes to improve the water supply and sanitary facilities in a number of prisons. Some of our employees were involved in tracing missing people, their main goal being to keep loved ones informed when people were arrested or released by the security forces. We also worked closely with the Philippine Red Cross to assess the needs of people displaced by the insurgency; to provide assistance such as food, soap and blankets; and to run medical and nutritional surveys in order to better target our support. And because much of this work took place in areas in which the insurgency was active, our staff members took advantage of these opportunities to raise awareness of the ICRC’s activities among communities and to make the case for sparing the civilian population from the effects of the fighting. Some 70% of the people we helped in 1989 were on island of Mindanao, where Walter was based.