The Foreign Service Journal, February 2003

or employees of Embassy Caracas, the Christmas holidays were a jumble of suitcases, hotel rooms and uncertainty, as post upgraded from authorized to ordered departure on Dec. 20, 2002. The list of posts that have been evacuated or drawn down since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is a long one, encompassing posts as diverse as Islamabad, Abidjan, Sanaa and Jakarta, to name but a few. In just the last six months of 2002, there have been three monitoring groups set up in the Ops Center for post drawdowns. At this writing, there are five posts under ordered departure. Some of these facilities were closed or downsized for just a few days or weeks, while others have been operating for F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 21 F O C U S O N D A N G E R Z O N E S F Russell Charpentier E VACUATIONS 101 N O MATTER THE LOCATION , THE NUMBER OF A MERICANS , OR THE TYPE OF CRISIS , THE GROUND RULES FOR EVACUATING EMBASSY PERSONNEL ARE BASICALLY THE SAME . B Y M IKKELA T HOMPSON