Mr. Leslie Gumbi
Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü has extended his heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Ambassador Leslie Mbangambi Gumbi, the OPCW’s Director of International Cooperation and Assistance, who passed away in South Africa on 11 July 2012.
“Death has taken away a genuinely warm individual, more importantly a loving husband and father, and deprived so many others, including us all, of a good friend,” the Director-General said to a commemorative ceremony [PDF – 9 KB] for Ambassador Gumbi at the OPCW on Friday. “While we mourn the loss of a colleague, we pay tribute and celebrate a life that was well lived – a life committed to the cause of freedom in his own country; and when liberty came, to building harmony and peace around the world. Not many leave behind a legacy of such dedication and accomplishment.”
Ambassador Peter Goosen, South Africa’s Permanent Representative to the OPCW and a long-time friend and colleague of Ambassador Gumbi, also addressed the gathering [PDF – 46 KB]. “In a time when they were mourning the loss of a husband and a father, the OPCW stepped in to assist the family and to lift the burden of additional worries,” he said. “It is at such moments when the true character of an organization, and of the people that work within it, come to the fore.”
Prior to joining the OPCW in February of this year, Ambassador Gumbi served democratic South Africa in a variety of roles. He was a diplomat in its UN Mission in New York, and later his country’s Deputy Permanent Representative in the UN Mission in Geneva. At the Department of Foreign Affairs he held important positions dealing with arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, representing South Africa in numerous international meetings and conferences on a wide range of related issues.
With his rich experience and expertise in disarmament, he went on to become South Africa’s Ambassador to Austria and Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. While there, the Austrian President awarded him the Flame of Peace (2007) and Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold with a Sash for his outstanding service.
OPCW’s Director of Internal Oversight, Mr Babacar Carlos Mbaye of Senegal, also spoke at Friday’s ceremony on behalf of African staff members, as did Mark Albon, acting Director of International Cooperation and Assistance and a fellow South African to Ambassador Gumbi.