THE $200K PHONE CALL
War a Chance . But, with the diffidence oddly common to people with physical bravery, he didn’t want to bug me. The beautiful woman said, “I’ll do it.” She and I danced that night. We went out to dinner a couple of days later. Then President George H.W. Bush ordered 25,000 American troops to bring humanitarian aid and a semblance of peace to Somalia in “Operation Restore Hope.” I flew to Nairobi and chartered a small plane to Mogadishu. (Those were the days when magazines had budgets !) Thanks to a side job I had as a sometimes radio reporter for ABC News, I had a billet in the Somali capital. The network – with the help of the U.S. military – had found a walled mansion, more or less intact, and supplied it with a generator and a water purification system for the well. Some 30 of us – reporters, camera crews, video editors, producers, and tech guys – were housed in this compound, bedded down in shifts while our 40-man army of Somali mercenaries camped in the courtyard. Somalia was true anarchy. A vicious dictator, Siad Barre, had been overthrown, and the Somalis celebrated their independence by shooting each other. Fighting had broken out everywhere. It wasn’t traditional Africa tribal warfare. The Somalis all belong to the same tribe. But the tribe has six clans, the six clans have hundreds of sub-clans, and each sub-clan is divided into infinite murderous feuds. The Somalis fought each other with rifles,
machine guns, mortars, cannons and – to judge by the look of Mogadishu – wads of filth. In the old town not one stone stood upon another. In the new part of the city everything was built out of concrete, and the concrete had been blasted back into piles of aggregate, rebar, and Portland cement. There was no public supply of water or electricity. At night the only illumination was from artillery blasts and tracer bullets. Every tree and bush had been snatched for firewood. Sewage welled up through what pavement was left. Mounds of sand blew through the streets. Rubbish was dumped atop wreckage and goats grazed on the offal. Somalia was true anarchy. A vicious dictator, Siad Barre, had been overthrown, and the Somalis celebrated their independence by shooting each other. Everything that guns can accomplish had been achieved in Mogadishu. It was impossible for us to go outside our walls without a truck full of “security” (as the Somali mercenaries liked to be called). Even with our gunmen along there were always people massing up to beg, gape, and thieve. Hands tugged at wallet pockets. Fingers nipped at wristwatch bands. No foreigner could make a move without attracting a hornet’s nest of attention – demanding, grasping, pushing mobs of cursing, whining, sneering people.
60 March 2018
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