Alain
Bieri
Alain Bieri profile's picture
Zimbabwe

We remember Alain Bieri

Alain Bieri was born in Courrendlin, a small village in Switzerland’s Jura Canton, on 29 November 1945. He spent his formative years in Lausanne, where he completed high school in 1965. He then went to the University of Lausanne, studying economics, political science and geography, and earned his final degree in 1975.

 

As his university studies suggest, Alain was driven by an innate sense of curiosity. He valued education and, after finishing his own in 1975, decided to become a teacher. At around the same time, Alain applied to the ICRC. He was hired less than two years later and took a leave of absence from his teaching position at a local high school.

 

In January 1977, the ICRC sent Alain to Damascus for a year-long assignment. His colleagues quickly came to appreciate the new delegate – trustworthy, courteous and respectful, and diligent. Alain was given the role of assistant, and in addition to administrative matters, he had a hand in both relief and tracing activities. He meticulously applied himself to all the tasks to which he was entrusted, even the most thankless. The head of mission was sorry to see Alain’s mission end.

 

But Alain had his eyes set on the future. At the end of his first mission, he expressed a desire to work as a protection delegate. And so, several months after returning to Geneva from Damascus, Alain

was asked to go to Salisbury, Rhodesia (Harare, Zimbabwe), where a civil conflict was raging. His assignment started on 9 May 1978, and Alain began carrying out field visits almost immediately. Nine days into his mission, Alain was travelling to the small village of Nyamaropa with two colleagues – André Tièche and Charles Chatora – in order to provide support and provisions to people who had been isolated by the fighting. Their clearly marked ICRC vehicle was ambushed, and the three men were killed by gunfire. Alain was 32 years old.

 

This self-effacing individual, whose began his career in the classroom, slowly blossomed. Instilled with a solid work ethic and possessing valuable soft skills and quiet confidence, Alain did not shy away from the challenges presented to him. Indeed, the more experience he gained, the greater his willingness to challenge himself further – for the good of others.

The ICRC in
Zimbabwe, 1978

When Alain Biéri went to Rhodesia in May 1978, he found a country torn apart by a civil conflict. It had begun in the mid-1960s after the country’s minority government declared Rhodesia an independent state. The government was opposed by two nationalist groups – each representing one of the country’s two main tribes – that sought majority rule. It was a cruel conflict, in which humanitarian principles were largely ignored. Peace efforts were halting, but a ceasefire was ultimately reached at the end of 1979; the country achieved independence the following year, and Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. Until that ceasefire, however, there was little reprieve in the fighting. The ICRC had already been active in southern Africa for a number of years, but in 1978 the conflict in Rhodesia dominated its attention. The organization engaged in intense protection and assistance activities while at every opportunity encouraging the belligerents to apply international humanitarian law. Much of its delegates’ energy went to helping displaced civilians and those grouped in so-called protected areas – they had extensive material and medical needs, and many families and loved ones were separated. Rural villages, such as the one that Alain Biéri and his colleagues were headed to, relied on the ICRC for their survival.

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