"The bravest of the brave," "The greatest man I have ever known." These are the words of those who knew Capt. Mbaye Diagne, a young Senegalese army officer who served in Rwanda as an unarmed U.N. military observer. He was a hero, in the spirit of Oskar Schindler in the 1940's. From literally the first hours of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Capt. Mbaye simply ignored the U.N.'s standing orders not to intervene, and single-handedly began saving lives. In the days and weeks that followed, Capt. Mbaye became a legend among U.N. forces in Kigali, by continuing his solo rescue missions with an uncanny ability to charm his way past dangerous checkpoints.
