Editing Médecins Sans Frontières (section)

===1999 Nobel Peace Prize===
[[File:2015JamesOrbinski.jpg|thumb|[[James Orbinski]] speaking about MSF in 2015]]
The then president of MSF, [[James Orbinski]], gave the Nobel Peace Prize speech on behalf of the organisation. In the opening, he discusses the conditions of the victims of the [[Rwandan genocide]] and focuses on one of his woman patients:<ref>{{cite book |last=Abrams |first=Irwin |title=The Nobel Peace Prize and the laureates: An illustrated biographical history, 1901–2001 |year=2001 |publisher=Science History Publications |location=Nantucket, Massachusetts |pages=351–352}}</ref>
{{blockquote | There were hundreds of women, children and men brought to the hospital that day, so many that we had to lay them out on the street and even operate on some of them there. The gutters around the hospital ran red with blood. The woman had not just been attacked with a machete, but her entire body rationally and systematically mutilated. Her ears had been cut off. And her face had been so carefully disfigured that a pattern was obvious in the slashes. She was one among many—living an inhuman and simply indescribable suffering. We could do little more for her at the moment than stop the bleeding with a few necessary sutures. We were completely overwhelmed, and she knew that there were so many others. She said to me in the clearest voice I have ever heard, 'Allez, allez...ummera, ummerasha'—'Go, go...my friend, find and let live your courage.' | James Orbinski | Nobel acceptance speech for MSF}}

Orbinski affirmed the organisation's commitment to publicising the issues MSF encountered, stating<ref>{{cite web |date=1999 |title=The Nobel Peace Prize speech |url=http://www.msf.org/article/nobel-peace-prize-speech |publisher=MSF |access-date=7 October 2013}}</ref>
{{blockquote | Silence has long been confused with neutrality, and has been presented as a necessary condition for humanitarian action. From its beginning, MSF was created in opposition to this assumption. We are not sure that words can always save lives, but we know that silence can certainly kill. | James Orbinski}}