The Foreign Service Journal, February 2003

Deborah woke up at 3:30 a.m. to radio reports from the embassy of explosions and machine-gun fire in various parts of the city. The area near her apartment was rela- tively quiet, except for about 15 minutes of gunfire, which was enough to cause her to gather up her sheets and radio and try to sleep in the hall, away from the windows. But she heard report after report of gunfire in the resi- dential areas where many of the American employees lived. At 4:30 a.m. the Regional Security Officer came over the internal radio with his announcement/warning; the first thing that flashed through her head was the words “No Double Standard.” The U.S. government’s “no double standard” policy gov- erns the dissemination of threat information on any mat- ter concerning the safety and security of Americans trav- eling or residing abroad to all Americans, not just U.S. government employees and their families. Deborah requested permission to leave the apartment so she could begin carrying out one of the most vital responsibilities of any consular officer: the protection of American citizens overseas — in this case the 3,000 private American resi- dents and visitors in Cote d’Ivoire. Having spent barely two weeks on the ground, Abidjan’s sole consular officer was not familiar with the embassy’s American citizen warden system, a system that varies from post to post but is designed to disseminate messages to the American community as quickly and as broadly as possible. The consular associate who normal- ly managed the warden system was on Rest & Recuperation travel. Fortunately, American Consular Assistant Sharon Belding had an old list of wardens with her at home. With active fire in the background, Sharon offered to contact American wardens in Abidjan. Deborah placed a quick call through the State Department Operations Center to a reassuring consular duty officer in Washington, then attempted to reach all the American wardens outside the city —many of whom she would come to know well during the arduous days ahead. The first warden she tried to reach had left the country, and the next one had resigned in July; despite these setbacks they persisted and contacted as many people as they could. Through these conversations, it became apparent that the two greatest areas of concern were the rebel-held towns of Bouake and Korohogo, where 300 Americans were trapped, many of them chil- dren at the International Christian Academy. Richard Buangan had just recently left his first Foreign Service assignment in Cote d’Ivoire, and was barely two weeks into his consular assignment in Paris when he was recalled to Abidjan. I was detoured to Abidjan from a short person- al visit in Paris. We arrived in Abidjan to assist the con- sular rescue efforts, accompanied on our Air France flight by American Special Forces of the European Command, along with their French military counter- parts, who were all pouring in to deal with the emerging crisis. Our lives would become inextricably interwoven over the next 10 days as we shared MREs, cold crusts of pizza, and a common mission: to get Americans, French, and other foreign nationals out of harm’s way. Activating the Warden System Upon arrival, Richard left for the central part of the country with a military contingent. Deb threw a few things into a borrowed duffel bag to head out with a receiving team to Yamoussoukro, and I began to set up a command center in the embassy consular section. Because others had to get to safety by curfew, I spent the first few nights alone in the empty consular section continuing the daunting task of locating more Americans, reaching wardens, briefing Washington, getting reports from colleagues on the ground, writing new warden messages, and providing policy guidance to my new friends in the field. One night Sharon, the consular assistant, and her husband Dean, a Seabee assigned to Embassy Abidjan, stayed all night to help me get out an urgent warden message, catching a couple hours of rest in sleeping bags on the floor of the consul’s office. Like most nights since my arrival, I slipped through curfew, accompanied by two embassy guards, to my hotel across the street from the embassy to shower, change and catch an hour’s nap. The stories that we heard from frantic Americans, clinging to the phone lines in the middle of the night, F O C U S 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 3 Deborah woke up at 3:30 a.m. to radio reports from the embassy of explosions and machine gunfire in various parts of the city.