Читать книгу The Education of an Idealist - Samantha Power, Samantha Power - Страница 14

Ben Cohen, a British journalist and activist, was the person who gave me the idea of traveling to the Balkans. “You should see the war up close,” he told me. “And you should write something.”

After I met Ben at a Carnegie event, we struck up a fast friendship. A Sephardic Jew whose ancestors escaped to Bosnia during the Spanish Inquisition, he was more knowledgeable about the country’s politics, history, and literature than anybody I knew in Washington. Though he was devastated by all that had happened, he brought a dark humor to our discussions.

Ben arranged an invitation for me—the “author” of Breakdown in the Balkans—to attend a conference being held in peaceful Slovenia, the newly independent former Yugoslav republic. After the conference, he insisted, we should drive to Bosnia.

Given my chronic expectation that something terrible was bound to happen whenever life was going well, I feared heading into what appeared to be a blazing inferno of a war zone. I also didn’t see what I could add to the existing coverage of the war, as the experienced reporters in the region were doing phenomenal work. But Ben kept pushing. And with my internship nearing its end, I had begun considering what jobs would enable me to keep working on issues related to the conflict.

Thanks to Ben, I already had one published article. Not long after we first met, he had proposed collaborating on an op-ed critiquing the direction of international diplomacy on Bosnia. Joined by George Stamkoski, a Macedonian friend of Ben’s who became our third co-author, we produced what in retrospect seems a rather pedestrian essay and began “shopping” it to various newspapers.

We tried every mainstream publication in the United States, and when each one turned us down, we sent it to outlets in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada for which we could find fax numbers. Eventually, Ben called me with “good news and less good news.” Our piece had finally been accepted, he said. “But it might be hard to find.” The essay would be appearing in Pakistan’s Daily Jang, but he wasn’t yet sure if it would be in the Urdu or English edition.

I didn’t care: I faxed an illegible copy of the op-ed (in English!) to Mum’s office, and stuffed it into Mort’s mailbox.

When I called Fred Cuny in Sarajevo to get his advice about traveling to Bosnia, he agreed with Ben: I should experience what was happening myself. He also invited me to watch his team in Croatia preparing for the water restoration mission he was planning to undertake in Sarajevo.

“I will explain more when I see you,” he said cryptically, not wanting to reveal on the phone how he intended to sneak the necessary machinery past trigger-happy Bosnian Serb soldiers.

Fred’s encouragement was all the motivation I needed. I worked at a think tank. I was published in a widely read newspaper. Well, okay: I interned at a think tank, and the paper was read widely in Karachi. But I was already going to be in the region, so I decided to add two stops after the conference in Slovenia: Bosnia, where Ben promised we would visit someplace safe, and neighboring Croatia, to see Fred in action.

As it happened, Carnegie’s offices were located in the same building as U.S. News & World Report, a weekly magazine with a circulation of more than two million readers. I asked a journalist friend to introduce me to Carey English, the magazine’s chief of correspondents. Three days later, I found myself entering his small cockpit of an office with a copy of my Balkans chronology in hand. As he thumbed through it, revealing little, I asked whether U.S. News would consider running an article from me once I got to the region.

Carey was tough but patient—far more patient than I would have been in his shoes. He asked me about my past journalistic experience, and I pulled out the Daily Jang op-ed and several sports clips from the Yale Daily News. He shook his head. “You are going to a war zone, you know.” I assured him I understood and would not take dumb risks.

“Define a smart risk,” he said.

I blanched, but he continued. “Look, I’m skeptical,” he said as he handed me his business card. “But see what you come up with when you’re over there, and call me collect on this number if you have a story.”

I thanked him and soberly shook his hand. When I left the U.S. News office and the doors to the elevator closed behind me, however, I let out a joyful scream.

“Whoo-hooo, I’m going to be a foreign correspondent!”

Ben was elated at the news and immediately began filling me in on the practicalities, including that I would need a UN press badge in order to pass through checkpoints and enter Bosnia. This meant that a news organization had to sponsor me. He suggested I head back downstairs to U.S. News to procure a letter vouching that I would be reporting for them.

But this was an impossible ask. Carey had said he would take my call if I had a story to propose; that was a far cry from U.S. News sponsoring me as its correspondent. The magazine had a regular freelance contributor in the region already, and Carey was not about to undermine him by adding an untested second.

Crestfallen by the realization that our fledgling plan might already be falling apart, I sat at my desk staring at the ceiling, unsure what to do next. But when two of my fellow interns who worked at Foreign Policy walked by, an idea popped into my head. Back then, the Foreign Policy journal mostly published work for academics and policy scholars.[fn1] Its content was nothing like that of newsmagazines like Time, U.S. News, or Newsweek—and it certainly did not employ foreign correspondents. But I doubted the UN knew that.

I waited until the Foreign Policy editorial staff had headed home and the cleaners had completed their nighttime rounds on the floor. Once the suite was completely deserted, I walked into the office of Charles William Maynes, the journal’s editor, picked up several sheets of his stationery, and then hurried back to my desk.

Hands shaking, I began typing a letter impersonating the unwitting Maynes. I was committing a fireable offense, but to me it felt like a felony. All these years later, I still feel terrible for having violated the trust of a program that was giving me so much. But determined to get to Bosnia, I went ahead and wrote to the head of the UN Press Office, asking that the UN provide Samantha Power, Foreign Policy’s “Balkan Correspondent,” with “all necessary access.”

I had a guilty conscience, but I also had what I needed to obtain my press pass.

IN AUGUST OF 1993, Ben, his friend George, and I met up in peaceful Slovenia. After participating in the conference, we made our way to the Avis car rental agency. Knowing that Avis would prohibit us from taking one of its vehicles into a combat zone, Ben told the salesclerk that he and I were planning a romantic getaway to nearby Venice, Italy. He threw himself into the part, describing our courtship and love of the coast.

Our route to Bosnia took us through Croatia, and when we arrived in Zagreb, the capital, we headed to the Bosnian embassy to collect our visas. We found a grim scene. Dozens of Bosnian refugee families huddled in a long line around the block. Several of the men and women waiting had shaved heads and crosses etched into their faces. One of them told us that they were Muslims whom the Serbs had tortured and marked.

None of my graphic late-night reading at Carnegie had prepared me to see scars cut into human flesh. I asked a man whose right leg had been amputated above the knee what he thought of the current UN peace plan, and he put his thumb down to signal his disapproval. For good measure, he directed the only English words he seemed to know at the Western negotiators: “FUCK OFF.”

A proper journalist would have asked him and the other Bosnians to recount what they had gone through, but I could not bring myself to probe for details. Forcing them to rehash what had happened seemed cruelly voyeuristic. Instead, after George (who spoke Serbo-Croatian) translated some small talk, we shuffled inside to get the visas we would need in order to cross into Bosnia.

Our next stop was the local UN headquarters, where the press official told us that he did not have the passes for which we had applied. My imagination began running wild. I visualized a vast team of forensic specialists conducting an exhaustive verification process—including a call to Foreign Policy asking Maynes to confirm the contents of “his” letter. In reality, the UN official responsible for laminating the badges had simply taken an extra-long lunch break.

With our visas and paperwork finally in hand, we drove our rental car several hours in the direction of Bihać, a small Muslim enclave in the northwest corner of Bosnia that was surrounded on all sides by Serb militants. Ben had sold me on this destination by reminding me that Bihać was the only one of six UN-declared “safe areas” actually living up to its name. But while Bihać was not experiencing the brutal fighting going on elsewhere, the risks of visiting were real. The UN press officer had explicitly warned us not to travel there and had cautioned that many of the roads along the way were mined.

We placed a handwritten “PRESS” placard in our car window as a precaution, but it offered uncertain protection. Many Serb rebels believed they were being unfairly villainized by Western journalists—all it would take for our trip to turn deadly was one renegade soldier deciding to seek revenge. I was scared for my physical safety and knew that the trip was placing great stress on Mum and Eddie.

After passing through Croatian army and Croatian Serb rebel checkpoints, we saw the royal blue, white, and gold flag of Bosnia. A minute later, a group of very thin Bosnian soldiers welcomed us with smiles and high fives. Most of them looked no older than twenty. We drove further, into a landscape of bucolic green hills. So far, Bosnia looked nothing like the bombed-out ruins for which I had prepared myself. Around every bend I half expected the summer cheer to be shattered by gunfire, but the only sounds of war we heard were a comfortable distance away.

Over the course of our three-day stay in the Bihać area, we learned that the relative calm had a great deal to do with a wealthy Bosnian Muslim businessman named Fikret Abdić. Abdić ran a food-processing company that was the region’s chief employer, which gave him bargaining power with the Serbs encircling Bihać. If they let supplies in and didn’t attack, Abdić agreed to provide continued access to the food his company produced.

Because Abdić’s main focus was his own profits, and because Bosnian Serb forces were killing Muslims and Croats elsewhere in the country, the Bosnian government denounced him as a traitor. He was also wanted in Austria for allegedly pilfering money intended for refugees. But the civilians we met, who had been able to keep working and sending their children to school, described Abdić as a hero. I interviewed a young pharmacology student named Nedzara Midzic who had lost twenty-two pounds when she had lived in besieged Sarajevo earlier in the war. In Bihać, she was no longer scrounging for food. “He may profit,” she said of Abdić, “but at least we profit too.”

Listening to Bosnians express their gratitude to Abdić was a reminder of how little I actually knew about the country’s complex dynamics. I wasn’t sure how I would get to the bottom of what was really happening. But at a minimum, I knew I would need to spend much more time in the region and take greater risks.

When we left Bosnia and crossed back into Croatian territory, I was immensely relieved. We had not been attacked and I had managed to interview civilians, soldiers, and government officials as if I were an actual reporter. Back at our hotel in Zagreb, I telephoned Mum at her Brooklyn hospital to let her know that everything had turned out all right.

Ben and George then took me to the Zagreb home of Richard Carruthers, a BBC correspondent with whom they were acquainted. Richard’s smoke-filled flat was everything I had ever associated with the romantic life of a foreign correspondent. Several rugged-looking reporters in cargo pants were drinking whiskey and playing poker at a coffee table. Carruthers himself was thumbing through a vast collection of LPs in search of just the right jazz record for the steamy afternoon. And Richard’s girlfriend, Laura Pitter—an American from Laguna Beach, California, whose byline I knew from Time magazine and the Christian Science Monitor—was on the porch in a red bikini, cooling off in a paddle pool and drinking a margarita.

Sitting among these journalists, I was mesmerized by their lively back-and-forth on Balkan politics. After inquiring about the Serbs’ territorial ambitions, I asked them which news outlets they worked for. They told me that they all filed stories for multiple publications and networks. Because most American and British outlets did not have full-time correspondents permanently based in the region, they often relied on “stringers,” regular contributors who were not on salary but were paid for each article or broadcast piece that was accepted.

When I asked whether a newcomer like me would be able to find work, though, they quickly shot me down. “The strings are all taken,” one said definitively.

Laura, the only woman in the group, did not contradict her colleagues in the moment, but she pulled me aside before I left. “I don’t know what these guys are talking about,” she said. “There is plenty of work to go around. You should move here and give it a try.” Looking around, she grabbed a cardboard coaster out from under a beer and wrote down her email and phone number.

“You can totally do this,” she said as she handed me the coaster. “Write me if you’re coming back. I’ll show you around.”

MY LAST STOP BEFORE RETURNING to the United States was to see Fred. I took a cab out to Zagreb Airport, where he and his engineering team were staging dry runs to prepare for their upcoming mission in Sarajevo. The plan called for landing C-130 transport planes in the besieged city, quickly unloading mammoth water purification modules from the cargo bays, and then whisking the modules into the city before the Serbs realized what was transpiring.

The lives of those on Fred’s team—and the survival of the equipment—depended on being able to maneuver the freight onto trucks with lightning speed at Sarajevo Airport. Since the Serb soldiers manning artillery around the airport were using the siege—and the cut-off of water—to try to force the Bosnian government to surrender, they were expected to try to prevent the water equipment from being delivered, including by barraging Fred and his team with shellfire.

Watching Fred in action, I was struck not by the grandness of the enterprise, but by the tedium and the minutiae necessary to coordinate the pilots, the crewmen, the forklift operators, the engineers, and the drivers. The orchestration of every movement consumed him—any lapse in the assembly line could spell disaster.

“If we don’t get the details right,” he observed to me when a mix-up brought the exercise to a halt, “people are going to die.”

The offloading did not go well in the trial runs I watched. Fred had calculated that the contractors would need to land the plane and unload in ten minutes or less, but the first attempt I watched took a whopping thirty-five minutes. The temperature on the Zagreb tarmac was scorching; tempers seemed to be flaring. I was worried. Fred insisted he was not.

He planned to travel to Sarajevo the next day. “You should come with me,” he said offhandedly. My heart leaped. Now that I had made it to Bihać and back, I had crossed the Rubicon and visited a war zone. Though it was irrational, I was now less afraid. If I were to accompany Fred, I thought, I could give readers back home the inside story of America’s humanitarian “MacGyver.” I would have full access, and in showing what just one person could do, I could show how much more the United States could be doing.

I telephoned Mort with excitement, but he was having none of it. “You’re coming home,” he said. “You work for me.” I was twenty-three years old and hardly indispensable at Carnegie, so his adamancy surprised me. Only when I got back did Mort’s devoted secretary share why he had been so firm. “He was worried sick about you,” she said. While my boss had introduced me to a humanitarian cowboy, he did not want me to become one.

I PITCHED U.S. News a story on Bihać—the moral complexity of Fikret Abdić and “why one Bosnian safe area is actually safe.” Carey told me the foreign editor was intrigued. “Give it a try,” he said, asking for six hundred words.

Back in Washington, I read through my notebooks dozens of times, circling and recircling the most vivid quotes from my reporting. For days, I stared at my desktop screen at work, unable to settle on the right beginning. I joked with Eddie that I felt like the character Grand in Albert Camus’s The Plague, who, for the duration of the novel, obsessively tries to craft the “perfect” sentence, as the plague kills off his neighbors.

After trying hundreds of alternatives, I finally settled upon, “The most jarring sound in Bihać, a Muslim enclave of 300,000 in the northwest corner of Bosnia, is not the reverberation of machine-gun fire, but the splashing and chatter of children playing in the Una River.”

Two weeks later, attending the US Open tennis tournament with Mum, I called U.S. News from a pay phone at a prearranged time. The foreign editor told me that he planned to run the piece. I pumped my fist and gave Mum a thumbs-up. During the call, her expression had been as tense as it was when she was watching her favorite tennis players during their final set tiebreakers, but at my signal, her whole bearing relaxed.

When U.S. News faxed me the edited draft, however, I was horrified by their changes, which I felt misled readers. “They oversimplified my oversimplification!” I complained to Mum and Eddie that night. The next day, I delivered a long exposition contesting what the editor had “done” to my prose. I was surprised to discover that he was not wedded to his edits.

“I just didn’t have space for what you gave me,” he said curtly. “Make it right. But I need it quickly.” In the end, U.S. News ran my 478-word article in a box alongside a much longer piece by their regular stringer.

Seeing my name in print in a mainstream newsmagazine felt like the greatest triumph of my life. The experience also gave me a burst of confidence. I had proven to myself that I could learn about a foreign crisis and get paid to write about it. I sent my clips—the Daily Jang op-ed and the newly published U.S. News article—to Bam Bam, then ninety-eight years old and still a prolific pen pal. “My future is very uncertain. I love working at Carnegie, and I love my boss, Morton Abramowitz. But I feel I’ve expired here,” I wrote in an accompanying letter.

Although I didn’t say so to Bam Bam, I also realized that I had picked up some unappealing habits. I had never been without opinions, but my certitude previously had to do with seemingly trivial issues like an umpire’s bad call in a baseball game. Now, as I researched and reflected on real-world events, I seemed unable to contain my emotions or modulate my judgments. If the subject of Bosnia came up and someone innocently described the conflict as a civil war, I would erupt: “It is genocide!”

While I made an effort to divest myself of sanctimony—among my least favorite qualities in others—I tried to look at the upside: in the span of less than a year, I had gone from hardly thinking about serving others to constantly thinking about what I could do to be “useful”—the quality Mort, Fred, and my mother valued most.

Since the summer, I had also begun marking my place in whatever I was reading with a new bookmark: the coaster on which Laura Pitter, the war correspondent, had written her phone number.