Fridtjof Nansen

ention of genocide. These references to the Armenian genocide lead me to recall another important celebration marked this year: the 150th birthday of Fridtjof Nansen, the first High Commissioner for Refugees. In the most difficult period for my nation, that great humanist rendered priceless support to the survival

ent, and rehabilitation of refugees and returnees. 113. The refugee example is noteworthy because it is unprecedented. For over half a century, since Fridtjof Nansen embarked on the first international refugee program, problems of refugees were solved through either their assimilation in host countries or their re

Firm in that faith, we find it inconceivable that the fate meted out by the League of Nations in 1921 to a humane suggestion made by Fridtjof Nansen regarding five million pounds sterling intended to relieve several million starving people can recur in the United Nations in 1968 with regard to a s

This reminds me that when, at the first Paris Conference, the delegate of Brazil, speaking at a moment when things looked black, saw Nansen enter the hall, he exclaimed “Here comes light; here is the Aurora Borealis”. The clear light of civilization and justice comes to us from the countr