ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IN LATE SEPTEMBER of 2001, I was stranded in Kabala, in northern Sierra Leone, one of those inevitabilities that come with the territory when the UN is your chauffeur. To this day, I don’t know what the delay was, but for several hours I dozed fitfully in the ovenlike cargo bay of an Mi-8 helicopter, Flight 096, with three Ukrainian pilots and a Nepalese UN administrator. The Ukrainians stripped to their plaid boxers to battle the heat, which came in through the open passenger door and the open cargo doors under the tail boom with each hot breath of wind. The spectacle of three very pale, very flabby men wandering around a helicopter nearly naked was apparently the social and entertainment event of the year in Kabala, for there was soon a perimeter of gawkers ringing the sports field where we were parked. SLA soldiers kept them far from the chopper, though, and we killed time by giving one another vocabulary lessons in our native tongues.

One of the copilots, a man named Sergei, only knew one set of English phrases, a memorized mantra that he recited haltingly and painfully before each flight: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard flight UN zero-nine-six flying from the Mammy Yoko to Mile 91, Magburaka and Kabala. Flight time to Mile 91, approximately 40 minutes. This Mi-8 aircraft is equipped with emergency exits here, here, and here and this is a nonsmoking flight. We hope you enjoy your flight.”

We mostly taught one another crude terms and profanity and boasted about our home countries’ military might and the comparative beauty of each country’s female citizens, but it was an effective way to kill time. By coincidence, these men had flown me around Sierra Leone more often than any others and it’s not a stretch to say that we finally became friends while sitting there in Kabala that day, sweating nonstop and waiting for passengers who were apparently important enough to delay the flight. I wrote down their names when I left the chopper back at the Mammy Yoko Hotel and promised to send a postcard from Colorado.

On November 7, 2001, an Mi-8, Flight 103, crashed within a minute of takeoff from the Mammy Yoko. It was bound for nearby Lungi Airport, but plunged into the Atlantic Ocean near the lighthouse marking the western edge of Man of War Bay. All seven people on board died, including all three of my Ukrainian friends. The other victims included another Ukrainian copilot, two Zambian soldiers, and a civilian from Bulgaria working with UNAMSIL.

Therefore, I’d like to thank Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Savchuk, Captain Sergei Filippovich, and Captain Sergei Ayushev for their companionship, optimistic demeanor, low flybys, and rudimentary lessons in Russian. I’m sorry I never sent that postcard.

Otherwise topping my list of people to thank are my editor, Jill Rothenberg, not only for her hard work, organizational acumen, and excellent suggestions but also for the range of her vision and the depth of her passion about this work; Holly Hodder of Westview Press for her encouragement and confidence; John Thomas, without whose unsurpassed editing skill and critical eye this would have been a much lesser work; and Doug Farah of the Washington Post for paving the way. I would like to thank Meg Campbell and my parents, Howard and Mary Campbell, for their support and help while I traveled and researched this book.

In no particular order, a potpourri of thanks go out to the following: Christine Hambrouck, Jonathan Andrews, Maya Ameratunga, Veton Orana, Margaret Atieno, and Saleh Tembo of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for their insight and companionship in Kailahun; Walter Pinn, Major (Nigeria) Mohammed Yerima, and Margaret Novicki of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone; Aya Schneerson of the World Food Program; Chris Robertson of Save the Children; Lieutenant Colonel T-Ray and Major Gabril Kallon of the Revolutionary United Front; Jango Kamara for more reasons than I can list; the staff of the Solar Hotel for the constant use of their telephone and the staff of Jay’s Guest House for their taste in music and tolerance of reporters with a taste for Johnny Walker at 2 A.M.; journalist Sophie Barrie for the companionship and the reading material; Tamara Connor, formerly of Boulder Travel, for the grace and flair with which she was able to get me into places like Sierra Leone, according to a jangled schedule and on budget, no less; Teresa Castle of the San Francisco Chronicle; Margaret Henry of the Christian Science Monitor; photographers Tyler Hicks and Patrick Robert, for their inspiration; Tim Weekes and Andy Bone of the Diamond Trading Company; Tom Shane of The Shane Company; Betsy Cullen, R.N., of Boulder Community Hospital, for on-the-road medical advice; Hassan Saad of the Sierra Leone Police; Fawaz S. Fawaz in Kenema; Saffa Moriba of the BBC; David Lemon and Jonathan Vandy of the Sierra Leone Government Information Service’s Eastern Region office; Mamei Jaya and Elizabeth Gbomoba of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service; Ralph Swanson of Freetown’s KISS-FM; Major (Ghana) M’Bawine Atintande and Major (Ghana) Moses Aryee of GhanBatt-3; Iggy Pop and David Bowie for “Lust for Life,” the soundtrack to my African travels; Eric Frankowski and Greg Avery for listening to me gripe from faraway lands; Holly and Gary Nelson for use of the writer’s hideaway deep in the Rocky Mountains; and to those in Kailahun who fed us when the United Nations wouldn’t.

Special thanks are extended to photographer Chris Hondros for his enduring friendship, without which most of my journeys would have been intolerable; and my good friend Joel Dyer, who was always willing to help me decompress with far too few rounds of golf.

To Rebecca Marks I owe more than just thanks: you are the love of my life, my inspiration and my destiny. My heart and soul are yours forever.

Finally, this book could not have been written without the help of countless people in Sierra Leone—taxi drivers, fixers, smugglers, and hotel clerks—who provided intuitive leads and invaluable logistical assistance. Standing out among these people is Robert, whose last name I never thought to ask, for being a perfect combination of chauffeur, editorial assistant, and bodyguard.

But those most deserving of thanks are the victims of the RUF’s diamond war. Without their willingness to recount, often in excruciating detail, the worst chapters of their lives, this book would not exist. I hope that it offers a small amount of justice to the horrors that they’ve suffered.

 

Steamboat Springs, Colorado,
December 13, 2001