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Chapter 1
P. 17 One witness told of an old man . . . Yusuf Hersi, NGO coordinator, Marerey Base.
P. 19 “Unusually heavy . . . rains . . .” FEWS Watch, November 3, 1997. Famine Early Warning System Network is a USAID-funded activity that collaborates with international, national, and regional organizations and governments to provide early warning and vulnerability information on emerging or evolving food-security issues.
P. 20 Then suddenly there . . . The official definition of a complex emergency, the term that defines the amount of security required, is “a humanitarian crisis in a country, region or society where there is total or considerable breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict and which requires an international response that goes beyond the mandate or capacity of any single agency and/or the ongoing United Nations country program.” Such complex emergencies are typically characterized by “extensive violence and loss of life; massive displacements of people; widespread damage to societies and economies; the need for large-scale, multi-faceted humanitarian assistance; . . . hindrance or prevention of humanitarian assistance by political and military constraints; significant security risks for humanitarian relief workers.” Orientation Handbook on Complex Emergencies, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations.
P. 25 Problem: How was he . . . Shifta is a name for wandering tribesmen without property. The Tree Where Man Was Born, Peter Matthiessen, Dutton, New York, 1972.
P. 28 Security measures were . . . The UN’s security phases describe those security measures to be implemented based on the current conditions in a country or part of the country:
Chapter 3
P. 48 The contract . . . The contract with the WFP is a standard Special Service Agreement with the UN Development Program.
P. 48 The U.S. had not paid . . . The more than one billion dollars that Washington owed the United Nations in back dues had become hostage to anti-abortion forces in the House of Representatives, which had attached an amendment to a bill containing funding for both the UN and the International Monetary Fund.
Chapter 4
P. 57 The mobile gun . . . These guns on wheels, used during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, got their name during the UNOSOM days in Somalia when relief workers had to call on clan leaders for protection from other clans. These armed gunmobiles of the militia were often provided as security for the relief workers and payment to them was filed under “technical assistance.”
P. 58 According to a UN report, miraa . . . Report of Panel of Experts, UN Security Council, March 25, 2003, Stefan Tafrov, Chairman. Doc. S/2003.223.
P. 60 It is apparent . . . The qat leaf, looking a little like basil, is a natural stimulant from a flowering evergreen plant grown in East Africa and southern Arabia. On our way down from Europe, the harbormaster in Aden offered Jackie and me a chew; we found it bitter and only mildly stimulating. In Yemen and elsewhere, it has been used for religious and social purposes, even preferred to coffee. Some reports indicate that eighty percent of the population in Yemen chews qat. From what I saw, nearly all males in Kismayo chewed it. Because it contains cathinone and cathine, the U.S. government put it in the same category as LSD and Ecstasy and classified it as a controlled substance in 1988. Qat is legal in most places in Europe including the UK, which in 2000 imported about ten tons per month. Qat has long been a replacement for alcohol; during Ramadan, it is used to alleviate hunger. Report of Drug Enforcement Agency Intelligence Division, April 1, 2002, Washington, D.C.; Psychological Medicine V19, Christos Pantelis, Charles G. Hindler, John C. Taylor, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Chapter 5
P. 73 “Blood money . . .” In many parts of Somalia, women are considered no better than slaves. There are even some who believe that women have no souls. It is not unusual for a Somali girl to be beaten upon marriage by her new husband to ensure “proper respect” in the future. Infibulation (sewing of the vulva—an extreme form of female circumcision) is still practiced.
Chapter 6
P. 87 “Subah wanaqsan . . .” I have spelled Somali words phonetically as they are spoken. Subah wanaqsan, good morning, is actually spelled subax wanaaqsan. Somalis have had a written language only since 1972.
Chapter 7
P. 103 The BBC Somali Service . . . Focus on Africa, BBC World Service, by Somali journalist Ali Musa Yusuf, 1998.
P. 110 Mohamed Sahnoun . . . Somalia: The Missed Opportunities, Mohamed Sahnoun, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 1994.
P. 120 It is written . . . In Africa, 3,000 people, mostly children, die from malaria every day, and each year between 300 and 500 million get the disease and a million die. The infant mortality rate in Somalia is one of the highest in the world. An average of 120 out of 1,000 children die before they reach their fifth year. Report on Malaria, World Health Organization and UN Children’s Fund.
P. 125 The air-fleet . . . Humanitarian Update, UN Coordination Unit, December 12, 1997.
P. 127 Last thing. There is no . . . Author’s message, hand-delivered and repeated by telex, written December 1, 1997.
Chapter 9
P. 139 There are three hundred thousand . . . Human Rights Watch.
P. 140 “My boys, they are afraid . . .” Innocence Lost: The Child Soldiers of Sierra Leone Tell Their Story, Radio Netherlands, January 21, 2000, producer and writer Eric Beauchemin.
P. 140 There is not much . . . Daily Telegraph, London, March 29, 2002.
P. 141 The United States, which has . . . In other cases, notably the Mine Ban Treaty, the international Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, and other human-rights treaties, the U.S. has either refused to ratify or has entered reservations to exempt the U.S. from any requirements that exceed U.S. law.
The UK was one of the last countries in Europe to sign the protocol, and it did so with strong reservations, using language strikingly similar to that of the United States:
“The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will take all feasible measures to ensure that members of its armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years do not take a direct part in hostilities. The United Kingdom understands that article 1 of the Optional Protocol would not exclude the deployment of members of its armed forces under the age of 18 to take a direct part in hostilities where:
a) there is a genuine military need to deploy their unit or ship to an area in which hostilities are taking place; and
b) by reason of the nature and urgency of the situation:
i) it is not practicable to withdraw such persons before deployment; or
ii) to do so would undermine the operational effectiveness of their ship or unit, and thereby put at risk the successful completion of the military mission and/or the safety of other personnel.” World Report 2000, Human Rights Watch.
Chapter 10
P. 145 A coastal tanker . . . Ships are often hijacked by modern-day pirates for the cargo they carry. After the cargo has been off-loaded and sold, the vessel is turned into what is known in the maritime industry as a Phantom Ship, with a new name, new country of registration, new flag, new crew, and new paint job. The ship is then used in cargo scams, running drugs, arms, or illegal immigrants. In 2003, an average of two ships a month were hijacked somewhere on the world’s oceans; often their million-dollar cargoes and their crews simply vanished. Hijacking, piracy, and maritime fraud cost world commerce $35 billion a year. Dangerous Waters, Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas, J. Burnett, Dutton, New York, 2002.
P. 147 The second dhow . . . Shortly after the Somali flood-relief mission, terrorists blew up the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The material used in the bombing was transported to Mombasa, Kenya, aboard a container ship and aboard a dhow, which had made landfall in Kilifi, Kenya, just up the coast. Some intelligence sources also are convinced that much of the material used in the attacks was off-loaded from ships in Mogadishu and Kismayo and was carried overland through the porous, poorly defined Somalia–Kenya border. Op. cit.
On November 28, 2002, terrorists bombed the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, killing fifteen. That same day, terrorists fired surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli airliner taking off from Mombasa airport. A UN report released on November 4, 2003, provided evidence that an al Qaeda cell, responsible for the bombing and the missile attack, used Somalia as a base for training, supplies, and cover. Weapons smugglers, the report said, were able to violate the arms embargo using Arab dhows to ply the ancient trade route across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen with hundreds of tons of weaponry in “micro-shipments.” Financial Times, London, November 4, 2003.
P. 150 “Maybe you should see . . .” The WFP did finally initiate Re-Entry Syndrome training for their personnel. By the end of 2000, 5,522 staff members received trauma debriefing within seventy-two hours of an incident. When I worked for the WFP, no such debriefing was available.
Victims of RES are the sufferers as well as their families. Not only humanitarian workers are affected, but also soldiers returning to civilian life and prisoners released from jail. Sixty percent of returning British aid workers were reported to suffer from some form of RES.
Symptoms of RES:
One soldier returning from Iraq said he had become less tolerant of stupid people, and another who returned discovered he couldn’t stand crowds. A staff sergeant from Georgia said she found she had no patience with anybody.
One way to cope with RES is to find a form of words to describe the experience to help work it out emotionally. Not knowing this, I nevertheless felt compelled to put these experiences on paper; I locked myself in Mike Dunne’s Nairobi flat for a month, exiting for air and supplies only twice, and compiled these notes, converting them into the first effort of a narrative.
Chapter 11
P. 154 “Haven’t a clue.” A Russian Anotov cargo jet chartered by the World Food Program was discovered to have carried money and arms to troops of one of the warring factions north of Mogadishu. Mohamed Sahnoun, UN special representative to Somalia at the time, later wrote: “The Russian plane’s delivery rekindled the old perception of many Somalis that the UN and some countries were biased.” A second Russian flight, also carrying suspicious cargo, crashed north of Mogadishu a few weeks later. “Although the UN’s name and reputation were at stake, no serious investigation was undertaken,” said Sahnoun. Somalia: The Missed Opportunities, Mohamed Sahnoun, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 1994.
P. 163 “Wife in Kismayo . . .” Somalis believe that much of northeast Kenya is part of Somalia. Wajir, near the border, is a desert oasis where nomadic Somali camel herders water their animals. It was here, it is said, that the Queen of Sheba spent the night and watered her stock.
Chapter 12
P. 168 “I wouldn’t know . . .” Countries with the highest number of aid workers killed (1997–2003):
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Attacks_on_humanitarian_workers
“Almost half of the nonaccidental deaths of humanitarian aid workers (47 percent) were the result of ambushes on vehicles or convoys. These incidents occurred on the road in attacks by bandits or rebel groups.
“Among the nonaccidental, intentional violence incidents, 74 percent of the fatalities were local staff and 26 percent were expatriates. Also, 59 percent of these victims worked for or on behalf of nongovernmental organizations, while 41 percent were employed or under contract to UN agencies. The number of local and/or NGO fatalities is probably higher, since these incidents are less likely to be reported in public sources than the deaths of UN and/or expatriate personnel.” UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Dennis King, consultant.
Chapter 13
P. 184 Hunkered against . . . Canto XVI, The Divine Comedy, Hell, Dante, Penguin Books, London, 1949.
P. 222 Both David and Robbie . . . The Guardian, London, by Jeevan Vasagar, February 3, 2004.
Chapter 17
P. 234 My boat has been . . . Food and Nutrition Handbook, World Food Program, Rome.
P. 237 Ten Christian . . . Christianity Today, July 2004.
P. 238 While thousands of . . . Trafficking in Persons Report, U.S. DOS, June 5, 2002.
Chapter 18
P. 248 David and I . . . A Study on Minorities in Somalia, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, August 1, 2002.
P. 249 The global community . . . International Herald Tribune, by Thomas Crampton, October 13, 2003.
P. 250 “. . . just as surely . . .” November 26, 2001, speech, cited by Nicolas de Torrente. Harvard Human Rights Law Journal, 2003.
P. 251 Andrew S. Natsios . . . Speech to InterAction Forum, May 2003.
P. 251 Such occurred in June . . . Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi. The five MSF workers—a Norwegian, a Belgian, and a Dutch, all three doctors, along with two Afghani staff members—had been attacked in their vehicle in the province of Badghis, about 500 kilometers west of the capital, Kabul.
The victims were: Helene de Beir, Belgian coordinator of MSF projects in Badghis, Willem Kwint, Dutch logistics expert, Egil Tynaes, Norwegian medical coordinator, Fasil Ahmad, Afghan translator, and Besmillah, the driver. Missionary Service News Agency, July 28, 2004.
Chapter 21
P. 286 The Somalis have never . . . Background, Somalia, Unicef, SACB, 1997.
P. 317 Russ Ulrey, an expert . . . News Now, Voice of America, February 25, 2003.
P. 318 Saskia’s husband . . . Financial Times, October 7, 2000, by Mark Turner.
P. 321 Before my brief . . . Dr. Mark A. Schuster, Rand Corp.
Afterword
P. 332 “Probably not. Maybe . . .” Six British troops were killed and eight others wounded in an ambush in the southern town of Majar al-Kabir, near Amara. The killings, Iraqis said, were triggered by the anger over weapons searches in private homes. Beirut Daily Star, June 26, 2003.