View all notes
Over and over I replay in my head the implications of what we've just done. We told the Haitians that we couldn't physically stop their government from torturing and killing, but that if they told us in detail who was doing it and how, we'd bear witness and seek justice. Eventually the world would be outraged enough to send soldiers and reinstall democracy. We took notes, wrote reports, created summaries and a database of victims. I treated their wounds to give them comfort, an inducement to come forward.
They believed us, risked their lives to turn up at our offices all over the country, in full view of their attackers, to tell their stories. They exposed themselves, crawled in and spilled their guts, sometimes literally. They took off their clothes, told me exactly who stabbed them and how, and trusted me to treat them. I handed out aspirin and Band-Aids while the killers watched and waited. New that they're at then most vulnerable, we're abandoning them, frozen in the head-lights, roadkill for the macoutes' machine. And we're flying out, clutching our precious blue UN passports and bags full of Haitian art.
We just showed Haitians that our lives are more valuable than theirs. The logic of the mission was ours, not theirs, and so is the act of our retreat. 'Tell us the truth and we will seek justice' was our idea. 'It's too dangerous and we must evacuate' is our privilege. Neither applies to the Haitians. A ship with soldiers arrives at the dock and exits the dock. Haitians have no exit.
The most basic principle they teach you at medical school, years before you even get to touch your first patient, is 'First, do no harm.' But harm is exactly what we've done, identifying the next victims for the assassins running Haiti. It was a vicious setup from the beginning.
Oct 14, Port au Prince, 1993
Across the crowd I catch the eye of one of our drivers. We both know that the moment the plane takes off, he's a target: I'm amazed he's come to the airport. We're fighting about money and banana trees and crying for ourselves and our rag dolls while he serves our mission to its sordid end.
Oct 15 1993, Port au Prince
One day someone at UNHQ will commission an official report about this disaster, replete with mea culpas and lessons learned. But for me there's only one lesson and it's staring right at me every day as I eat lunch: If blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs. I learned that the day we were evacuated from Haiti.
Srebrenica, July 1996
I set out to save lives and have ended up collecting the dead. Somewhere along the line, I lost sight of treating people and became obsessed with my own grandiose ideals of service. But there is no redemption in this. I've worked myself into the ground only to end up doing the very thing my parents begged me to avoid. I've ended up serving myself.
All that is left now is to hold on for that day, sometime after the first snowfall, when my deputy will radio me from the grave with the news that our backhoe has finally hit undisturbed earth at the bottom and the last of the dead are back above ground. When I receive that message, I'll drive out into the stubble of the cornfields, stand alone on the edge, and stare down into that gaping hole one last time. Then I'll get go of this millstone of belief and ideals that's breaking my neck, watch it tumble down and sink slowly into the mud at the bottom. I've had it with our humanitarian hubris. Let the dead bury the dead.
Afterward I'll give the final order of my brief but eventful forensic career, this time to the engineer. Bulldoze in this hole and bury my youthful illusions. Then I'll crack open a beer and drink a toast. Farewell death, you son of a bitch. Here's to the rest of my life.
Srebrenica, July 1996