The Foreign Service Journal, February 2003

organization for rapid response and decision-making. Unfortunately, given the Peace Corps’ unique position of having staff scattered throughout a country in remote and difficult-to-reach areas, decision-making must take place sooner rather than later to be effective. Each day, each hour that goes by in a potential evacuation situation reduces the flexibility and options that the organization has in evacuating volunteers safely and cost-effectively. At the earliest stages this need to “Know the Truth” runs smack up against the slower-moving gathering and ana- lyzing of key information to determine what that Truth is. I noticed it took about six hours for the first signs of ten- sion to appear in Peace Corps staff who were anxious to be acting and not monitoring. Under such constraints, Peace Corps welcomed the State Department’s convening of a meeting on the day of the outbreak of violence, which gathered all relevant internal units and organizations, including the Peace Corps and USAID. Similar meetings were being held at the country level. The meetings served three basic pur- poses: 1) exchanging the latest reporting on events; 2) gathering information on various organizational demo- graphics (e.g., the number of American citizens in-coun- try, their locations and communication links), and 3) set- ting the stage to handle a possible escalation of instability. The first meetings were largely focused on the last of those three objectives as information was difficult to obtain: Cote d’ Ivoire, which is a former French colony, does not have a large U.S. diplomatic, military, develop- ment, or trade presence. These meetings helped set the important stage of psy- chological preparedness, though I was left a bit nervous, personally, because I couldn’t identify a single acronym utilized during the exchanges. But the meetings got the adrenaline pumping faster and infused everyone with the gravity of keeping a close watch. Sitting around the table I sensed we all, as professionals, wanted to bal- ance a heightened proactiveness with a rational, non- emotional approach. After two days of such meetings I was trying, like everyone, to keep a level-headed per- spective on the conflicting signals normal in such situ- ations: for example, rebel positions were being strengthened in the north, while in Abidjan normal life was resuming and the international school was re- opened. The Ops Center in Action Then the State Department took the important deci- sion to establish a “monitoring group” that would operate out of the Operations Center and run for 12 hours. The monitoring group was hardly under way when it was extended to a full-time 24 x 7 watch with round-the-clock Peace Corps participation. Peace Corps Headquarters thought it made good sense and would be a valuable “learning experience” if I, as the about-to-be Cote d’Ivoire country director, were to anchor the bulk of the monitor- ing group watches, with support from staff in our Safety and Security and Africa region units. I spent the next 12 days in the Ops Center working with State Department staff from all over the Africa region. On Sept. 20, Peace Corps began to implement an “informal” consolidation of volunteers in the high-risk areas where fighting had occurred. Attempts were made to, first, ascertain the exact number and location of the PCVs (some were on holiday, medical leave, or work- related travel, and thus not at their sites), and, second, alert all personnel to be on stand-by for further instruc- tions. A comprehensive emergency action plan had been developed and tested in Cote d’Ivoire, so there was a framework to operate from. However, unexpected vio- lence in a developing country has a way of sewing seeds of chaos amongst even the best-laid plans. Contact tele- phone numbers for volunteers were mainly workplace telephones — not at all useful given that the first three days following the violence stretched over a weekend, and that government offices were closed and remained closed over the following weeks because they were prime targets for rebel attacks. Communication difficulties were fur- ther compounded by the fact that fighting had cut off the main north-south road, precluding the use of public or private transport to carry written messages to PCVs. Alongside this breakdown in communications was the opposite extreme: some volunteers with personal cell phones immediately contacted friends and families back in the States, creating a situation where a few parents had information in advance of the Peace Corps itself, and dis- seminated it among highly efficient parent networks in the states and even to a few legislators on the Hill just to ensure that all actions were being taken. True, personal cell phones proved a blessing for maintaining contact with F O C U S 40 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 Kristi Ragan is Peace Corps Country Director for Cote d’Ivoire. She has worked in developing countries for 15 years, mostly in Africa.