Book Excerpt: JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS Genocide in Rwanda Chapter 5.  Operation Support Hope Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Odom, USA (Ret.) Republished with the generous permission of the author.  Read a review and purchase through the Texas A&M University Press.

Brigadier General Nix's brief signaled the true beginning of Operation Support Hope. Stan arrived just in time to get the main body of JTF-A on the ground. To this day I am grateful I had a sergeant like Stan Reber working for me. No one knew Zaire and Zairians better. Stan just seemed to sense what they might try. Stan did not like Zairians, and he was rapidly burning out on the country. Ten years in the same place is just too long, but the knowledge he had at his fingertips worked miracles. One of his gifts was that he could still get along with Zairians and build a sense of camaraderie. He understood how they felt toward the West in general and in particular the French. That understanding served us well. French-Zairian relations around the airfield were tense. The imminent arrival of U.S. forces meant Stan had his work cut out for him.

The French assumption of air traffic control had certainly made the Goma airport a safer place. The French, after all, had the only functioning radar that would allow night operations. Yet the manner in which they simply took control angered the Zairian officials nominally in charge of the field. It also reduced their access to the bribes that kept them afloat. They were rarely paid, and when they were it was in Zairian currency, hardly worth the ink it took to print it. The tension had become so bad the Zairians had threatened to go on strike—not that the tower officials did any work. But a stoppage would affect aircraft handling, and there was an unstated threat of sabotage of fuel and critically short cargo-handling equipment.

The other bit of international friction was between the United States and the French. When I had first arrived the French provided us a small area within their compound. Davis brought in nearly twenty-five planners on his assessment team, all of whom needed a place to spread their sleeping bags. Their numbers began to creep upward, and so did French impatience. After several days we noticed a trend. Each morning the French headquarters commandant would come over and get a head count. Every time it increased, he complained we were encroaching on his limited operational space. Each time we had one of these visits, one of the Pumas would spool up on the flight line one hundred yards away. The pilot would put it in a low hover and drift over to bury us in a sandstorm of red dirt. Five to ten minutes of this and back the bird would go to the flight line to shut down. The U.S. troops learned quickly to have their breakfast eaten and their gear secured each morning before the commandant came to call.

Cleared Hot to Land: JTF-A Comes to Goma

We knew the JTF was coming, and Nix had given us a good idea of what it was bringing. A water transport and reverse osmosis water purification unit (ROWPU) were deploying from Europe. A battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry was coming from Italy as security, although we would only get a platoon in Goma. The USAF was deploying a full airfield command element, and there would be additional intelligence, medical, and support as well. I put Stan on getting us a place to set up. He arranged a four-way conference with the UNHCR air boss, the French, the Zairians, and our USAF representative. Stan’s first breakthrough was getting all parties to agree to a pool approach in handling aircraft. As the planes arrived, all would work under the coordination of the UNHCR air boss. That eliminated the friction between the French and the Zairians. The latter were so pleased with Stan's mediation they offered a one- to two-acre plot immediately in front of the airport terminal for the Americans' use. The offer snubbed the French; they had wanted the area for some time. The price was a couple of hundred thousand, and the site would have to be bulldozed to clear feces and bodies off it, but space was at a premium. JTF-A now had a home courtesy of a U.S. Army sergeant first class. We could escape our daily dirt bath from the French helicopter.

Units began to flow into the airfield. TF51, the water transport company, came in via C5s, which were necessary for the five-ton tractors and five-thousand-gallon tankers. Forklifts and auxiliary power units, pumps, and tow trucks arrived as part of the USAF element. For the surge of JTF-A, I focused on helping them deal with the reality of Goma. Again Stan shone as the "can-do" sergeant. Although the SOCEUR assessment team and the JTF-A staff had excellent satellite communications equipment, it did not mesh with the local cellular system nor was it as quick. Davis asked for one shortly after his arrival, and I put Stan on it. As I noted previously, normal startup for a phone in Zaire was seven thousand dollars. That paid for the phone and acted as an initial deposit for airtime at six dollars per minute long distance. By this time we had quite a relationship with Saleem's Express Cargo, one of the larger cellular users in Goma. Stan worked through them and got the phones at five thousand dollars each. One went to the JTF public affairs officer, another to Davis transferred to Nix, and an third to the JTF signal officer. The J6 ordered two more to support the visit of Tipper Gore, Vice Pres. Al Gore’s wife. We got those as well, but they were never activated. We also provided two other cellulars already paid for by the embassy. Those two went to the airfield control and the water point down at Lake Kivu.

Some of our support was a bit more mundane. I was at the U.S. base camp when the flight surgeon approached me.

"I understand you know this area well. Is there an Ace Hardware–type store downtown?"

I couldn't help but laugh as I said, "You're looking at the hardware store."

He needed spotlights, and we got them. The troops also needed latrines. Through Stan and Saleem's Express Air, we brought in plastic buckets, lime, plywood sheeting, and toilet seats. More plywood from Kinshasa came in for tent floors, and rakes and brooms made the living areas more comfortable.

Four Hundred Cases of Beer on the Wall . . .

Most of our efforts were directed at operational issues, but we did try to better the troops' existence. They had been on the ground for a couple of weeks when I suggested we bring in soft drinks to break up the monotony of Goma. Bottled water and MREs get old very quickly. Nix liked the idea. Stan had gone back on mission to Kinshasa, so I rang him. Nix had agreed to several drinks per soldier so I gave Stan the numbers. The order came to some sixty-five cases of soft drinks. Stan rang off only to call back minutes later with the word the flight would be in the next day. I thought that was remarkably quick even for Stan, but he said he would call the next day once the 707 was on the way. As promised, Stan called me the next day around noon and said the soft drink bird would land around 1500 hours my time.

He warned, "Listen, Saleem said he was ‘putting something extra’ on the aircraft. I think it might be beer."

"I'll be planeside and see what it is when it gets here Stan," I replied before ringing off.

Three hour later the Express Air 707 cargo landed and taxied on to the main apron. I had alerted the J4, and we stood waiting for the bird. Down came the ladder and out came Saleem's main loadmaster. "Colonel Odom, all is yours!" he pronounced, waving at the aircraft, "All is yours from Saleem!" The task force logistics officer looked at me and I looked at him. We were expecting sixty-five cases of soft drinks and a "little something" from Saleem. Five hundred cases later, including at least four hundred cases of South African lager beer, I was standing just outside Brigadier General Nix's command tent.

"General, I have good news and I have bad news," I offered before delivering the good news first. "We got some extra soft drinks so we should be able to double the ration per soldier."

"What's the bad news, Tom?" he asked, looking out the tent at me.

Even as I replied, "General, we got lots of beer," one of the air force fork loaders trundled by proudly displaying a full pallet of Castle lager.

"There are two more pallets like that one, General," I said, pointing at the grinning air force sergeant. Nix did not share the sergeant's joy: the task force was under a "No Drink, Zero Tolerance Policy," set by European Command. Let me just say the general's reaction was understandably colorful before he ordered me to give the beer away to the French. An "Airborne, Sir!" gave the tactical escape I needed. I took it. Walking away, I speed dialed the phone. I heard Major Nash's voice.

"Jean Luc, I am gonna make you a loved man. Get two trucks and some strong backs. I have some beer for you." Nash arrived with the French in less than thirty minutes. They were soon gleefully loading beer cases. I figured I had at least made Jean Luc's job a little easier.

I was wrong. The next morning the U.S. sentry at the gate sent word there was someone there to see me. As I walked down the hill, I saw Saleem's loadmaster standing there with a local. Saleem's man looked worried, and the Zairian appeared angry. I soon discovered why. Saleem's soon-to-be ex-loadmaster showed me an air bill for the previous day's flight. Apparently, he had misunderstood his boss's intentions. Saleem had told him to set aside a couple of cases of beer for Stan and me, not four hundred cases for the JTF. What made it worse was the Zairian, a local bar owner enjoying a beer sales bonanza with the explosion of expatriates in Goma, had prepaid for the shipment. Now he wanted his beer. All I could tell them was we no longer had the beer, and I would look into getting it back.

Figure four hundred cases of beer at a minimum price of twenty dollars each and you get eight thousand dollars, not something I wanted to pay. I called Stan in Kinshasa and told him what had happened. I explained that Brigadier General Nix had ordered me to get rid of the beer. In keeping with his orders, I had given it all to the French. Getting it back was not going to be easy or perhaps even desirable. I told Stan I would discuss the matter with Nix and get back to him. Meanwhile he said he would call Saleem and let him know what was happening.

As I saw it, Nix had two choices: we could get the beer back from the French and go from there. That was at once the best legal solution and the worst political choice. I had given the beer "dans le nom du General Nix." Asking for it back—regardless of reasons—was not going to endear us to our French comrades. Relations were not exactly smooth. Giving them eight thousand dollars worth of beer and then taking it back was two steps forward, two miles backward. The other choice was to fess up to the JTF commander that we had acquired the beer through no fault of our own. And in keeping with CINCEUR instructions, we had given the beer away as a representational gift to the French. I decided the best solution for the overall operation was to keep the French happy. The operation was costing millions in landing fees, fuel, and flight time to make sure Rwandan killers did not die from lack of clean water. What was eight thousand dollars worth of beer for the French in comparison? That was the pitch I would make to Nix.

Remember the song lyrics, “Send lawyers, guns, and money” from Warren Zevon? Well as I soon found out, someone had sent a lawyer to Goma with the JTF to advise Brigadier General Nix. I went in to see Nix and was in briefing him when a legal beagle lieutenant colonel walked in, announcing he needed to assess the legal aspects of the situation. I ignored him and kept talking to the general. I finished with my recommendation that we leave the beer with the French and eat the costs. Immediately, the lawyer, fresh from the rarified air at U.S. European Command, started in with questions about who had "contracted" for the beer, had the French "signed" for the beer, and on whose authority had I acted in giving the French the beer. I answered the last question, first.

"I gave the beer to the French because the general ordered me to. There was no `contract' for four hundred cases. There was only a verbal order through a company for soft drinks. A local employee of that company made a mistake. As for the French signing for the beer, you must be kidding!"

I guess he had figured out I was not exactly awed by his presence. He began lecturing me on the task force directive prohibiting alcohol. Nix saw I was getting steamed and dismissed me, telling me he would soon make a decision.

The next day Nix directed me to recover what beer I could from the French. Jean Luc and I took a truck over to the French mess, where several glum-faced Frenchmen loaded some 250 cases on our vehicles. That left us short about three thousand dollars worth of lager, and given the JAG colonel's earlier position it was unlikely the JTF would pay for the shortage. Once again I turned to Stan. He resolved the situation with Saleem, who, since his man had made the mistake, agreed to absorb the loss, a drop in the proverbial bucket to what his company was making in support to the JTF anyway. As for the French, things remained correct but never cordial. Jean Luc took a lot of ribbing about "cheap Americans" over the next few weeks. He was up to it. The French soon asked for U.S. airlift to get home. Nash just pointed out he was the guy making those arrangements.

Un Espion Americain

Although Jean Luc Nash was able to handle the fallout from the French beer bust, our other counterpart from Brazzaville enjoyed less success in dealing with his Gallic counterparts. I sent him to join the French operation in Bukavu. With our office Cherokee, he flew down there on a French C160. His mission was exactly the same as Jean Luc's in Goma: fit in with the French. He was to monitor what they were doing and anticipate U.S. operational needs if the refugee situation there exploded. That was one of the most important questions facing the U.S. operation. The other part of the question was how long the French would stay. The new government in Rwanda was anything but friendly toward them. The Rwandan rebels had fought French troops in 1991. Operation Turquoise had established a protective zone across southwest Rwanda that challenged the new government's sovereignty. Getting blue berets in that area to replace the French without stampeding more refugees out of the country was UNAMIR II's first priority. That handover was, however, sometime in the not too distant future when the Brazza defense attaché headed south.

His mission was therefore very important. It lasted less than a week. Stan and I had already closed on our lake house at dusk when my cellular rang. It was Jean Luc. He told me the French had accused our liaison officer of spying and demanded his withdrawal. I was more than a little upset at the news. "Okay, I will head out to the airport to see Nix. Meet me there," I said as I hung up. I grabbed Stan, and Bill tagged along as we drove the five miles through Goma to the airfield.

I wondered what had happened. I had emphasized maintaining a low profile to the Brazza defense attaché as the best approach to his mission. For one thing, he was still the U.S. defense attaché to Congo-Brazzaville, an often-troublesome neighbor to Zaire. So when I put him on the French transport, the Zairian authorities believed he was still in Kinshasa for consultations—with me. He was unable to call out from Bukavu as we did in Goma. We set it up with the French so he could pass information through them to Jean Luc in Goma. The French would therefore know everything being said, hence the need for a circumspect approach. We had gotten some good information already.

But we had also gotten some disturbing requests. He had passed word he wanted Stan to get Brazzaville to send out his Israeli load-bearing equipment (LBE), normally worn on field operations to carry ammo, water, and limited supplies. I nixed that request straight away and passed word if he thought he needed LBE, he was doing something wrong. Next we got a request for him to shift from Bukavu on the Zairian side of Lake Kivu to Cyangugu on the Rwandan side. That was fine with me, and I said, "Do it." But he tagged a request for an American flag he could tape or fly from his Cherokee to the request to move. I nixed that idea too as not in keeping with a low-profile approach.

All of this floated through my thoughts as I headed to see Brigadier General Nix. I met Jean Luc at the airport, and he could only repeat what I already knew. My meeting with Nix was equally short. He asked who the guy was and wanted to know if he was a spy. But mainly he wanted him gone faster than I had gotten rid of the beer. I explained—he had been told all this already but under the circumstances, I was not about to point that out—that the guy in question was our liaison to the French in the south. I said that was my understanding at present. I assured Nix we would do whatever was necessary to reduce the fallout from the situation.

I went over to the command post to use a secure satellite phone and called Washington. I briefed the desk officer, and he called the division senior intelligence officer (SIO) to the phone. SIOs are the civilian counterparts to the uniformed regional division chiefs in the attaché system. They provide a source of long-term resident experience for the divisions where uniforms come and go every two to four years. I explained the situation to him. I said we would know more soon, but I did not expect any more changes. He asked if there was any way to replace him to keep someone down there. I responded that the French had already made this an issue, and they were unlikely to accept another American. Even if they did, they would stonewall whomever we sent.

"So he comes out?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, he comes out," I answered.

Back I went to Nix. I told him what Washington had said. Somewhat mollified, he looked up and said, "Just get him outta here, Tom. I don't want to see him. I want him gone."

Two days later a C160 landed and dumped the Brazza defense attaché and our office Cherokee on the tarmac. He handed me a one-page report concerning the activities of the U.S. defense attaché in Bukavu as proof of his innocence. My choices were limited to one.

"It doesn't matter. I have to send you out. Just let the dust settle on this because you are finished here," I said. Clearly it was not what he wanted to hear, and it was not something I enjoyed saying. But for whatever reasons, he had to go. I pointed out the Express Air jet.

"Stan has you on that bird. He has everything you brought there waiting." I shook his hand, and he walked away.

I still did not know what had happened, so I read the French report he had given me.  It was a remarkable left-handed defense against sending the American out. The author went into great detail about how intrusive and arrogant their American guest had been around French headquarters. He stated that it was his inept social skills that had led several French officers to conclude he was there to spy. He was, according to the report, the epitome of the ugly American. So when he had proclaimed the report proved he had not been spying, he was more or less correct. He did not grasp, however, that he had failed miserably at building any kind of rapport with his hosts.

In his defense, there is another possibility for the Brazza defense attaché's expulsion. Once the French pulled out and U.N. soldiers entered the area, it became clear the French had allowed the former military and the Interahamwe to continue the genocide in the zone. He may have been exposed to evidence of French complicity whether he knew it or not. I know when I first met with the French, one colonel who was the equivalent of the French civil affairs and PSYOPs officer dismissed me in French as "an ignorant American who cannot possibly understand the real situation." He said it in French, assuming I did not understand. I looked at him, smiled, and kept saying, "Wee wee, Kernel," in Texan French, all the while hoping he might amplify his dismissal. He did not, and even if the defense attaché from Brazza had come too close to the truth, that did not change the situation in Goma. He had gotten crosswise with the French. He had to go.

The incident also affected our relations with Nix. He had accepted my presence around the compound and listened to what I had to say. That was especially important when it came to security. The JTF had a small element stationed down at Lake Kivu with the water purification equipment. Our old friends from the 31st Paras resented the U.S. troops. The Americans were giving away the water the 31st Paras had been selling. Occasional shots and constant threats were the norm. Stan and I got involved in easing the tensions. Nix appreciated the assistance. He also learned from it. One evening, a Rwandan bus loaded with 31st troops passed the airport, and the Zairians popped off a few rounds. Nix told me about it the next day and said he had moved his defenses around to give the potential troublemakers a new look, something he did every couple of days. I was glad I had a commander on the ground that listened and learned.

Still, Nix looked on me as an apple in his orange basket. My team was not part of the JTF and not under his command. Stan and I wore civilian clothes and did our own thing. Nix had a ten-man counterintelligence and HUMINT team with the JTF to gather intelligence, especially threat-related intelligence. But to avoid any risk to them, he had restricted their activities. They could go to the water point, and they could ride the water trucks on their runs up to the camps. Otherwise they were restricted to the base camp at the airport. The captain in charge was frustrated and asked me if his team could work with us. I told him they would be welcome, but they would have to wear civilian clothes like Stan and me. Being an enterprising young intelligence officer, he went to Nix and told the general I had asked for help.

Nix refused on the basis that soldiers in civilian clothes were spies. The irony came later when Nix first complained that intelligence support for the operation had been lacking and then told me we had been the only real help to him.

What Crisis?

There was some truth in what Nix had to say. The embassy in Kinshasa showed little interest in the crisis beyond committing the Defense Attaché Office and Kate Crawford to dealing with it. Perhaps the embassy saw it as a distraction to the main goal of delivering Zaire from the hands of Mobutu. Certainly Mobutu saw in it an opportunity to bargain with his former Western backers. The embassy in Kinshasa was, with the departure of the last U.S. ambassador, in a holding pattern, waiting to see when Mobutu would go and what might happen. Even in my ten months in country, I had exhausted the ways to say, "The troops are restless" in describing the Zairian military. The same held true for the other sections in the embassy. The political section—prompted by the piercing wit of Peter Whaley—had started to admit the political "process" in Kinshasa was irrelevant. The econ section had tracked the crash of the New Zaire, but the econ officer had come to see western economic models were useless in understanding an economy built on theft. The CIA station seemed adrift in the 60s and 70s when the Agency was the main player in the country.

Then the refugee crisis exploded. More than a million refugees, including a sizeable defeated army, flooded into eastern Zaire. So did international workers, international monies, and international coverage of Zaire. But despite its magnitude, the rest of the embassy acted like the Goma crisis did not exist. Their focus remained unchanged: getting rid of Mobutu by encouraging democracy in Kinshasa, the focus of all things in the country. The embassy never seemed to understand the reverse was true. When the refugee flood started in July, 1994, Kinshasa became the sideshow. The ultimate fate of Zaire would be decided in the east, not in the capital city.

As a result, Kate Crawford, Stan Reber, and I remained the core of embassy operations in eastern Zaire. We could have used help. Whaley unfortunately was leaving and was unavailable. But the embassy owed the U.S. government a political analysis of what the total disruption of eastern Zaire meant to the country's future. Economically the region was being severed from the rest of the country. The amount of hard currency being pumped into Goma was enormous. Refugees are big business. As for the CIA, they consistently ignored my calls for support. As far as the embassy in Kinshasa was concerned, Goma was just too far away to be relevant.

Scouts Out!

So with the embassy unconcerned, the JTF on the ground with limited intelligence capabilities, and Washington ever thirsty for information, we remained busy keeping everyone happy or at least as happy as we could make them. Just as I had done in southern Lebanon and earlier that year in Kinshasa, I established a routine that had us out looking at the camps whenever possible. We monitored them to see how they were developing and more importantly how the Rwandans were settling in. Kibumba and Katale remained the focus of the relief effort, and as those camps improved my interest declined. That was not the case for the military encampments south of Goma. We made a run through the area at least three times a week. Our observations were consistent. The former military remained encamped as an army in being. Uniforms were the norm, and we saw heavy weapons and some light arms. We also saw a lot of hostile eyes as we made the trips.

Interestingly enough, we often had dinner with the officers from these camps. Our favorite hotel restaurant was also the favored watering hole for the former military leaders. It was a sore point with me, because as an attaché there were limits on what I could do to develop information. I had already had requests from headquarters I had turned down due to risk. I could not just pop out to the former military's camp and ask to interview the bosses. The CIA folks back in Kinshasa were the ones to work this area. But I could not get them interested. Consequently, we—the intelligence community—missed an opportunity to find out what these guys had in mind.

Nevertheless, much can be gained from just watching an area. One of the first intelligence requirements came from an unexpected source. Bill and I were at the airport one morning when Brigadier General Nix walked up to us and said he was convinced there were no more than 100,000 to 150,000 refugees in the entire area. Bill and I did a double-take, and Nix repeated his statement. When Bill and I again eyed each other, Nix announced he was putting us on a visual reconnaissance with the French the next day at 0900.

So the next morning Bill and I strapped into the rumble seats on a Gazelle and took off. True to Nix's warning the French pilots did their best to make us sick. That made the flight fun, and Bill and I only grinned. I talked to the pilots, and we headed north to Katale. Bill and I had agreed we would keep our estimates separate, though we did agree a single refugee tarp could be counted as a family. We worked Katale and then Kibumba. I asked the pilot to skirt the border to look for crossers into Rwanda. Then we went south and repeated the process over the ex-military areas. All in all we were in the air for well over an hour. The Gazelle is a lot more fun than a Puma, and I enjoyed that flight.

Once on the ground, we tallied our estimates and compared numbers. Bottom line was we came out with numbers in the realm of 800,000. Armed with a consensus, we went in to see Nix. He listened, and I could tell he did not like it one bit. I went over our methodology and our flight path. I added that we had flown the border and seen no sign of movement back into Rwanda.

"Sir, I was here for the last three days of the mass movement. They walked right down this road," I said, pointing at the airport road just a stone's throw from us. "I had the pilot fly the border. We saw no one either crossing into Rwanda or already there."

To a degree, Nix was correct in his contention: the numbers were probably overstated, but that was a question of method not intent. The difference from a miscount and the difference he had somehow arrived at amounted to nearly 700,000. In any case he did send a message into the JTF Main saying he believed his number of 150,000 was right. No one seems to have taken that message too seriously, suggesting it did not really matter. This little vignette was the opening act of the U.S. withdrawal. The next theme would be that reduced water consumption equaled a return of the refugees to Rwanda.

In the meantime, we were still worried about another exodus down south. The French were still in southwest Rwanda, but the new government wanted them out. UNAMIR II was arriving, but full deployment was weeks away. Things were more or less under control in Goma. The JTF was operating smoothly; there were occasional problems with the Zairian military and other locals but nothing that could not be handled. I resolved to take our little show on the road.

Stan and I had already crossed into Rwanda once. It was more of a lark to keep the chargé happy. He asked us to take his wife and him across after the secretary of defense visit. We did the formalities at the Zairian side of the border but almost nothing on the Rwandan side. All we really did was drive the mile to the Hotel Meridien and turn around. The next week Stan and I headed for Kigali. We had reasons for the trip. First, I wanted a look see inside Rwanda. I needed to get a feel for how many refugees might have gone back. Second, I figured it was a good idea to take a look at the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). We had taken fire from them in the waning days of their campaign to take Gisenyi. But the area had been quiet for sometime. Finally, there was talk of consolidating the JTF in Kigali, possibly for use in the southwestern part of Rwanda. I wanted a good look at the main road from the border to the capital. On the map, it looked to be a four-hour drive. But maps in Africa are deceiving.

I let Brigadier General Nix and Washington know we were going, and the next morning we set out. The border crossing was not without the usual Zairian demands for bribes. But on the Rwandan side it was a bit different. The officials were all soldiers, and they acted like it. The language was notably English. A captain examined our passports and asked us where we were going. I told him we had a meeting in Kigali, and he sent us on our way. We made it through most of Gisenyi before the other shoe dropped.

We came up on a roadblock manned by four or five RPA troops. Stan stopped and I leaned out the window to talk to whomever came forward. All the troops were armed with AK47s and wore East German fatigues with black berets. There were no sunglasses, no fancy badges, and no rappel seats around these troops’ waists. There was no overt threat, but all were alert. A lieutenant appeared and asked in English who we were. I explained we were American soldiers. Immediate grins appeared on their faces.

"You’re not French?" the lieutenant asked in confirmation.

"No, I am an American colonel and this is my sergeant," I responded.

At that he saluted and began talking on a handheld radio. "Follow me," he said shortly afterward and headed to a Toyota pickup. We followed him back into town and arrived at what I learned later was the local brigade commander's headquarters.

I groaned inwardly at the delay. In Zaire or elsewhere in Africa, this diversion could turn into an all-day affair. Nevertheless, we were soon inside talking to a major who asked about our business. I went through the same questions and answers with him: Who are you? American soldiers. Where are you going? Kigali. Are you French? No. All of this drew the same grins and smiles. Then I got a real surprise: the major made a decision without bucking it up the chain as I feared. He told us we could go, and he ordered the lieutenant to escort us out of town toward Kigali. Thirty minutes after being stopped at the roadblock, our RPA escort pulled over, and the lieutenant flashed a salute to wave us on.

There were three salient observations on the next three hours to Kigali. First, we were in a no-man's-land. The next major town along the way was Ruhengeri. All the villages we passed getting there were deserted. Even Ruhengeri was a ghost town. The only beings we saw as we drove southeast toward Kigali were RPA soldiers. We passed through at least ten checkpoints and at each went through the same question and answer routine. The magic words were “American soldiers.” They consistently drew grins from the troops, who all were uniformly well disciplined. Not once were we asked for anything. In Zaire, running ten roadblocks would have left us broke.

The second observation was that Rwanda is incredibly beautiful. It was like driving through a Hollywood set that just kept changing. In the northwest, we saw volcanoes and triple canopy jungle and could look back at the deep blue waters of Lake Kivu. As we drew closer to Ruhengeri, we were surrounded by carefully terraced hills lush with tea. From Ruhengeri, we began a series of climbs and descents across high ridgelines and down river valleys. Saying the beauty of the tiny country was stunning might sound trite. But Stan and I were just that: stunned by its deceptive beauty.

The final major observation was that the roads, the towns, and the villages were seemingly untouched by war. The French referred to the machete as the African "neutron bomb," very effective in killing without destroying the surrounding areas. The roads were all tarmac and wide by African standards. Grades were steep, but the builders did use switchbacks to lessen their effects. We saw some small arms and mortar damage in Ruhengeri. But as I mentally compared it to what I had seen in Lebanon, it seemed minor. As we closed into Kigali, we saw more and more signs of war. Some building fronts had collapsed, and there were quite a number of burned-out vehicles. Still, I thought at the time, it looked like a minor war. I was so wrong.

We played Dorothy and "followed the yellow brick road" to the U.S. embassy. Stan had been there years before when the office in Kinshasa covered Rwanda. We stopped at each roadblock along the way and flashed our military ID cards at the troops, many who appeared less than fifteen years old. These "munchkins" all grinned and pointed us in the right direction. Our stop at the embassy was anti-climatic. Ambassador David Rawson and his acting defense attaché, Lt. Col. Tony Marley, were out. Tony was an African FAO who had been working in the Political-Military section of the State Department. He had helped Ambassador Rawson reopen the embassy. Stan and I checked in with the military guys assisting the embassy to let the JTF know we had arrived. We had MREs for lunch outside on the truck hood and after a quick look at the airport, headed back to Goma.

The ride back was the same stunning vista as the trip into Kigali. I can honestly say I fell in love with the country that day. I just did not know how much pain it would cause me. All told the day was idyllic, a truly welcome break from the stench and dirt of Goma. I guess that is a statement in itself: go to Rwanda for a day vacation from Goma. We made it back that evening just before they closed the border. Stan and I were both tired, but we chattered about the drive like two schoolgirls discussing a cute teacher. Amazing how beautiful a country can be when it does not have any people—at least living people.

Our next sojourn took us north through the camps at Kibumba and Katale. Tony Marley had joined us from Kigali for a couple of days, so Stan and I took him along. We were playing refugee tourist again to see if we could find evidence of any large-scale return to Rwanda. Our route this time ran from Katale to the border crossing with Uganda and then on to Rwanda. We would intersect with the main highway to Kigali just outside Ruhengeri. The camps passed without incident. By this time they were remarkably organized and almost docile. The one thing that had not changed was the open hostility of the refugees. Nevertheless there was a dramatic absence of bodies compared to my trip through the area after the airdrop. But while it might get better, it would never be paradise.

One potential solution glowered and spit over our left shoulders as we drove north. Mount Nyiragongo was the most active volcano in an area infamous for volcanoes. As fate would have it, a casual remark by me in a morning telephonic update had focused scientific attention on the smoking mountain. Just after Stan had come out July 25 or so, I remember my bed marching across the room during an earthquake that lasted several minutes. I had been in California, Turkey, and Lebanon during earthquakes, so the vibrating bed was not a novelty to me. This one happened in the early morning around 0300 hours. The next morning we discovered we were suddenly out of water, a bit strange since our "well" was Lake Kivu less than one hundred yards due east of the house. The house used a lower pump and an upper pump to draw the water to the house. The upper was working, so Stan went down to the lake to check the other. He came back and told us Lake Kivu had apparently dropped, leaving the access pipe a full four feet out of the water.

I mentioned the quake and the drop in the lake level that morning when calling the Pentagon. Apparently that got someone's attention in D.C. because the next day, Rick Moore called me. "You know the report you made about the lake out there dropping? Well the lake did not drop; Goma rose." Apparently, the pressure had pushed up the rock crust Goma sits on from volcanic activity. That was the source of my earthquake.

The problem was this volcano was especially dangerous. It had last erupted in the late 1970s. It is what geologists refer to as a high-speed volcano. Erupting through vents in its side and base, the lava flows at speeds greater than thirty miles per hour. In the 1970s event, lava had caught moving cars. The specter of such an eruption into the very areas where the refugees were encamped was haunting. On the other hand, it seemed entirely appropriate. A combined U.S.-French geology team did come out and examine the volcano. Some of us were disappointed to hear there was little chance of a 1970s-type eruption. For months, we kept hoping they would be proven wrong. God missed a chance to make a statement on genocide.

So we tooled along that morning until we reached the Ugandan border. The crossing went fairly well. The Ugandans were used to the traffic, and the Zairians knew they had little hope of getting bribes from diplomats. From the extreme western tip of Uganda we arced to the southeast and reentered Rwanda. Intersecting with the main road to Gisenyi, our trip back was uneventful but enjoyable. We had just driven a circle around the area made famous in the film Gorillas in the Mist. We saw no gorillas, found no guerrillas, and spotted damn few potential "returned" refugees. But the scenery, as before, was stunning. If only Sigourney Weaver had been there . . .

We remained concerned about a southern refugee exodus until the Ethiopians in UNAMIR II took over from the French Operation Turquoise. Stan and I had already been to Kigali; we knew that road was fine as far as the capital city. We did not know how good it was from Kigali to the border at Cyangugu. If it matched the Gisenyi-Kigali highway, it was an autobahn by African standards. I had already talked to Nix about a possible move south. I recommended going through Rwanda rather than trying the western side of Lake Kivu inside Zaire. He seemed to favor that route because it was outside the "war" zone, and he had been told it was less than five hours to Bukavu. My route through Rwanda was at least ten hours.

A glance at the Michelin map said Bukavu was 120 kilometers or so from Goma. And as is often the case, the Michelin map said the roads were good. They probably were good in the 1970s when the map and the roads were last updated. The western shore of Lake Kivu is a series of ridges and valleys that collapse into the lake as part of the Great Rift Valley. The ridges are all fifteen hundred to two thousand feet high and the valleys all have streams that become rivers overnight. Stan was not exactly overjoyed when I told him we were headed south.

"We going back through Kigali?" he asked.

"Nope, we are going down the western side of the lake," I responded. Mild discomfort on Stan's face turned to incredulity.

"I know, Stan, but Nix seems to think he can make that run in five hours with five-thousand-gallon tankers. We are going to drive that road and see for ourselves before the JTF gets buried out there."

The next day we set out early from the lake house at around 0600. Our path took us through the former Rwandan army to the main north-south route along the western side of Lake Kivu, which we reached at 0700. The first twenty kilometers were all on tarmac and went fairly quickly, but that speed ended when the asphalt stopped. Almost immediately the Isuzu began to struggle with the red Zairian clay, her little diesel screaming with the effort to pull us through. By this time it was approaching 0800. We had been on the road along the lake for an hour and had covered twenty kilometers, what would be our best record for the day.

We had only gone another ten kilometers or so when we ran into the nemesis of all travelers in the Zairian bush—a Zairian military checkpoint. It was nothing spectacular, just a log laid across two fifty-five-gallon drums to block the road and a small building set back from the road, with a couple of half-dressed soldiers watching us like buzzards. Nevertheless, Stan and I both shifted into the red zone, alert to possible trouble. It took a couple of minutes for one of the Zairian military troops to break contact with the ground and stand up. As he walked toward us, his partner also stood and leveled an FN (a Belgian rifle, Fabrique Nationale) toward us. The game started as the first walked up to Stan's window.

"Who are you? And where are you going?" he began. He had been drinking; at 0830 under the muzzle of his weapon that was not a comforting thought.

Stan pointed toward the front of the vehicle. "We are diplomats from the U.S. embassy. We are headed to Bukavu to work on the refugee problem there."

The soldier attempted to open the passenger door, but Stan stopped him with, "This is a diplomatic vehicle. See the plates on the front?" The soldier stepped back and examined our CD plates and then returned.

"Come with me," he waved to Stan, who got out and followed.

"I'll be back," Stan said to me.

"I'll wait here for ten minutes and then come in if you are not back," I responded.

As those two walked off, the other Zairian military troop sauntered over and tried to open the rear door. I again used the diplomatic vehicle route, and he seemed to accept it. He too had been into the banana beer. But soon he started with the counterargument that we might be diplomats, but the vehicle was not diplomatic property. We batted this ball back and forth for the next few minutes until Stan returned, followed by his escort.

"Any problems?" I asked.

"Nope. Just a drunk lieutenant who said we could go on," Stan answered.

"But that guy doesn't like it," he added, pointing at the first soldier, who was now deep into discussion with his partner.

Rather than raise the barrier, they turned in unison and headed back toward us. Again they tried to open the doors to the truck, claiming the vehicle was subject to search. We kept the doors closed and refused. Stan reminded them their officer had already released us, but that had little effect. I was not going to consent to the search, because it would only lead to more problems. These troops knew they were crossing a line by stopping diplomats. If we allowed ourselves to be robbed, we became severe liabilities. More than one westerner had disappeared in the bush courtesy of the Zairian military.

"Do we go back?" Stan asked.

"Yeah, we will have to if they insist on a search," I answered.

Even as I said that, the first soldier moved to our rear, preventing any attempt to reverse our course. Stan and I looked at each other.

"No search, Stan," I muttered softly. We started shifting to reach our weapons.

"Idiots! Laissez les passez!" a drunken voice called from the side of the road.

The inebriated lieutenant waved at the barricade, and his soldiers scurried to shift the log barrier. Stan and I were both breathing deeply as we moved off, still riding a jolt of adrenalin. That little drama had cost us nearly an hour by the time we started rolling again, and we hoped it was the last checkpoint.

For the next several hours, Stan and I battled the road with our reluctant charger. The little diesel chugged through hub-deep mud fairly well. She was light enough that the spinning tires pushed along the surface of the mud when heavier vehicles with bigger engines would have just sunk. Outlined by triple-canopy jungle on both sides, the road itself was fairly well marked. In the dry season it might be fairly fast. But this was the wet season, and the road was more like a mud canal between the trees. Nevertheless we pressed on and passed some Bedford lorries buried up to their frames. I could just see one of those five-ton tractors with a five-thousand-gallon trailer trying to get through this stuff.

The little diesel handled the mud flats fairly well, but the ridgelines proved more difficult. As I said before, Lake Kivu marks the passage of the Great Rift Valley through this area of central Africa. The central plateau falls off into the lake with fingerlike ridges spread eastward to the lakes shore. The net effect is an extreme roller coaster of ridges and valleys. What makes the ride extreme is the "engineers" who laid out the system did not use switchbacks to climb or descend the ridges. On a fifteen-hundred-foot climb, the typical road had three five-hundred-foot legs at more than a 15 percent grade. Even in dry weather, such a climb is nerve-wracking. On wet clay-based dirt roads, it got very hairy. Our diesel needed a running start to get up to a momentum to sustain the climbs. We got pretty good at it: the trick was never shifting out of first gear even when she sounded like she was going to blow. Still we had a couple of incidents when we met a descending truck, and we literally had to run backward down the mountain to get out of their way.

About 1500 hours we had some forty kilometers left when we stopped in a small village for a break. That was a mistake. Two Zairian military wives from Bukavu were apparently visiting their families, and they asked for a ride. Their two armed escorts made it difficult to say no. So we loaded the two women, each at least 250 pounds of Zairian delight, and their two escort thugs complete with automatic rifles and grenades and set off for the final leg to Bukavu. There was a positive side to having guests along. We passed through several more Zairian military roadblocks without hassle. Bukavu, and especially the junction of the tarmac road north of Bukavu, was a welcome sight. We closed with the town after spending fourteen hours on a 120-kilometer obstacle course.

Bukavu is one of the classic sad-story towns of Zaire. Built as a colonial resort when the Belgian Congo was a going concern, the little town hugged the Lake Kivu shoreline as it stretched out along a narrow peninsula. During the troubles of the 1960s, Bukavu survived relatively unscathed because of its geography. Easily cut off from land traffic, it was easier to defend, especially with Lake Kivu as a backdoor supply route.

The little town was pretty beaten up by the time I saw it in 1994. Goma was not designed to take a large refugee influx, and Bukavu was even less capable. The refugees could not go around Bukavu or even use multiple side streets to get through it. All essentially had to pass through the center, and then once off the peninsula they could turn north or south. Only several hundred thousand had done so when Stan and I arrived; the town looked like termites had gone through it. Any source of firewood had been chopped down. The avenue of trees along the lakefront was now an avenue of freshly chopped stumps.

As Stan and I arrived, the rains greeted us. We set out to find a place to stay for the evening. Easier said than done, and we soon began to look at the Isuzu as a probable bed. I do not remember the name of the hotel we finally found, but it was really a bar. Stan struck up a conversation with the bartender, a longtime Belgian resident, as we enjoyed two very welcome Simba Lagers. He allowed he had a room not normally rented to white men he would let us have for the night. We were not choosey. He took us back past the restroom—the wall where everyone urinated—and the exterior charcoal kitchen to a small room with a single bed. We fired up some heat tabs and warmed our French combat rations. Stan got the bed. I took the floor. By 2200 hours we were sound asleep, lulled by a drumming rain on the metal roof.

The next day we ate MREs for breakfast and started toward the border crossing, the Rusizi bridge between the sister towns of Cyangugu and Bukavu. Refugees were evident in town but not in the numbers we had seen up north. At the border, we did the usual with the Zairians. That went fairly smoothly, and we eased onto the narrow bridge. At the far side, French soldiers directed us into a holding lot so we could process through the Rwandan authorities. That in itself was rather bizarre. These officials were Rwandan but who they represented was not clear. I could only assume they were holdovers from the previous regime brought back by the French to assist in running the area. Their long-term job security was doubtful.

Once outside the border port we ran into a concentration of several thousand refugees, stacked up along the border but unable to cross. The Zairians had closed the border to refugees. It was raining as we drove slowly through the crowd. Although wet and obviously displaced from their normal lives, these Rwandans looked remarkably better than their Goma counterparts. The reason was obvious enough: the French had provided them a security zone and an escape hatch into Zaire and Burundi. The Tutsis inside that zone were not so lucky.

Stan and I could not linger in Cyangugu. We had a long day ahead of us, at least a ten-hour drive to get back to Goma via Kigali. Our first leg was the longest and by far the prettiest. Once outside Cyangugu, we were back in the tea plantations and their terraced hills. The intense green of the plants and their lush growth made the area look like something out of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It was just too green to be real. We soon left that area and entered what felt like an enchanted forest.

For the next forty miles or so, Stan and I went back in time. The Nyungwe National Forest spread out on both sides of the road as we climbed into the highest area in Rwanda. Dense forest and underlying growth both beckoned and warned that this area was not man's domain. The mountains and the weather added to the feeling. At times our little truck would labor up the side of a mountain, hemmed in by low clouds and dense forest. Then we would break out into bright sunshine as we reached the peak. Though it cost us time, we stopped and marveled at the sight.

Buoyed by the beauty we had just seen, Stan and I ran into the reality of Rwanda on the far side of the forest. We turned a corner and ran into a temporary checkpoint manned by French troops. The unit was what only the French could call a CRAP and get away with it. Like our Long-Range Surveillance Detachments, CRAPs are primarily a reconnaissance element. They also have, however, a direct action role more along the line of our Ranger units. This one's position marked the edge of the French protected zone. We chatted with them about the area, and they were curious about our role. The patrol leader recommended we not go any farther. Stan stuck with the "meetings in Kigali" line we had used before. They accepted it at face value. After all, we were the ones headed into what was for them hostile territory.

Out of the forest, we were back in the heavily cultivated areas of Rwanda. Every inch of ground was either terraced for tea production or laid out for subsistence farming. Small houses and huts were scattered through the hills with a smattering of larger communes and villages spread between them on the main collines or hills. But this intense evidence of human occupation was like an empty sound set. There were no actors and no signs of life. No cattle or goats moved on the hillsides or in the valleys. No smoke wafted from the huts. We stopped for a break along the main road for about fifteen minutes. There were no sounds or any other indications of humanity. It was remarkable. I had never been anywhere in the Third World where I could be alone for more than five minutes before a local showed up. Here Stan and I were in the middle of one of the most densely populated countries in the world—and no one was home.

Almost with a sense of relief, we soon ran into our first RPA checkpoint of the day. This time the body language was dramatically tenser as we approached the checkpoint. We did not wait for the question.

"We are American soldiers. Nous sommes Americains. We are not French. Pas de Francais," we chorused and waved out green military IDs. It worked like a champ. As soon as the RPA soldiers heard the word “American,” they relaxed. We chatted with them as we had the French. Stan lit a cigarette and smoked without offering to share. No one asked for a smoke. As we departed, Stan handed a half pack to the senior man.

"I just wanted to see if they would try and get something from us. Can you imagine smoking in front of a bunch Zairian troops like that?" Stan commented.

We saw a lot more of the RPA as we approached Kigali from the south. The no-man's-land feeling continued all the way into the city. There were more civilians in the city and even an occasional vehicle, but it too seemed deserted. We cleared Kigali and headed north to Gisenyi around 1500 hours. Three hours later we squeezed through the border into Goma just as the Zairians were closing for the day.

It was nearing dark when we arrived at the JTF compound to check in. I went to see Brigadier General Nix. I spent about twenty minutes relating the trip and emphasized that any attempt to use the road west of Lake Kivu would be disastrous. A week later, the French proved my point. Their withdrawal was slipping behind schedule, and they decided to push a column of vehicles up that road to Goma. They had no large vehicles. Most of their wheeled transports were Mini-Mog-type 6x6s. When they finally closed into Goma after nearly eighteen hours, every windshield was broken, winch cables were too distorted to rewind, and mud spread all the way across the tops of the trucks. They had made it, but they had paid hard for the trip.

I told Nix what we had seen along the route and the conditions in Bukavu. I showed him where the French zone ended in southwestern Rwanda and talked about the absence of life. He took it all in and thanked me. Then he told me the CIA had apparently decided we needed help. The agency had sent a two-man team to provide assistance on force protection. Nix was less than thrilled and made it clear the spooks were now my problem.

I left and went to see the task force intelligence officer. He told me the same thing, but when I asked where the CIA guys were, he said, "They're in the quarantine tent."

"What quarantine?" I asked.

"Oh, the loggies bought some local beef and all the troops who ate it got sick," he answered, adding, "The last tent on the line, you can't miss it."

I headed for the sick tent thinking. Back when we were discussing the ill-fated beer mission, I had suggested the task force bring in fresh meat and food for the troops from Europe. That is what we did in Kinshasa. One thing we never did was buy local beef or any other meat in Zaire. We had been taking somewhat of a risk eating at the hotel, but they got their meats from Uganda.

True to the description, there was a medical ward established in a large tent. The flight surgeon and medics attached to the JTF had ten to twenty troops all in cots, many with IV’s hanging beside them. The story was that all who had the local beef had gotten sick. All who ate T-ration lasagna instead had remained healthy. Nevertheless, the medicos had decided to quarantine the ill just in case some mystery bug was involved. It also avoided concluding they had eaten tainted meat cleared by the same medicos. At the far end of the tent, I spotted an obviously nonmilitary civilian setting up some commo gear.

I went up to him and introduced myself. As it turned out, he and his communicator had been specially dispatched to advise the JTF commander on force protection. That is to say, he was there to tell a general how to make sure his troops did not get killed. I told the guy I had been doing that since the arrival of the JTF lead elements. But this individual had not been sent until nearly thirty days into the operation. Nix understandably had not been impressed with the Agency's sense of urgency. Neither had I for that matter. Here we were, as it turned out. almost at the end of the JTF's stay and Langley had decided we needed force protection advice. Meanwhile the station chief in Kinshasa had ignored the entire crisis. Still, this guy took his fate with a sense of humor. His residence in the quarantine tent spoke volumes about his status with Nix. He left to return to the States less than forty-eight hours after his arrival.

Winding Down

Our return from circling Lake Kivu marked the transition of the JTF into its withdrawal stage. Brigadier General Nix and his soldiers had done well in the first part of their stated mission, really the only achievable objective at the time. Still the drawdown of the JTF was not well received in the NGOs and international agencies working in Goma. Working to offset the perception that the job was not finished, Nix and his staff pushed the issue of water consumption as an indicator the refugees were going home. That had been partially true when the cholera epidemic and a subsequent dysentery outbreak occurred. The number of refugees heading back to Rwanda did increase, although in relation to the numbers still in Zaire, the returnee population was minor. Yet even that small increase in returning Rwandans soon declined and for all practical purposes ceased. I listened as Nix and his civil affairs officer gave a briefing on the operation. The thesis of the briefing was that decreased water consumption equaled a decreasing refugee population. Not true, but it was a sellable point if you were inclined to buy. The rainy season and changes in refugee behavior accounted for much of the decline. Coupled with the fact the Rwandans did not consume as much water as suggested under international health standards, the decline did not add up to the conclusions the JTF wanted. Still it offered an out, one happily taken by a JTF looking to leave gracefully.

The JTF had accomplished its main mission in Goma: "stop the dying." I often heard from various NGO and disaster workers that the United States did not produce as much water as the teams from the United Kingdom and elsewhere. That was true but did not go far enough. The reverse osmosis units we brought in were intended for steady production of potable water for units much smaller than the refugee population around Goma. Our water units had taken their lead from the ODA (British equivalent to USAID) and disinfected lake water rather than go through purification. It was faster. The result was that the U.S. water production effort added enough to the other water production teams to beat the cholera epidemic.

We also added dramatically to the water transport. Those ten five-ton tractors and their five-thousand-gallon trailers moved a lot of water. Taken from war reserve stocks in Germany, they were outdated but fully functional. There was criticism the United States was being cheap in handing them over; they were outdated and would soon breakdown. Therefore, the United States should have brought in state-of-the-art trucks to leave behind. I will offer two points on that idea. First, I saw those same five-ton trucks running the roads in Rwanda eighteen months later. Second, the United States did bring in some commercially bought brand-new tractors to Rwanda. They were broken down inside three months, and they stayed broken.

The JTF briefers and its critics missed the real Goma story. Operation Support Hope achieved what it did through airlift. It is true that in Goma the United States did not produce as much water as the other donors. But for the most part, the United States flew in their equipment along with the bulk of the emergency supplies needed to stop the dying. We funneled a massive airlift through one of the most cramped airfields in Africa. We did it in concert with the French, the United Nations using largely dilapidated Russian aircraft, and a large commercial fleet. There was not a single airframe lost in that effort—though one Russian An124 almost ground looped. What had happened with the Russian copy of the C5 was a pure case of bad maintenance. Inbound to Goma, the Russians lost an outboard engine about fifty miles out. They came on, because there was no alternative. As the jumbo settled toward the runway the inboard engine on the same side flamed out. The Antonov slammed into the runway and blew most of the tires along the same side. She fishtailed down the runway, but they got her to stop without ground looping. The crew went straight to the bar, and when the French had the bird repaired, the semi-drunk Russians flew her out. Later in Kigali, I became close friends with a British couple who had survived that flight.

Managing such a polyglot air operation required some sort of agreement. The framework for the working agreement that made it all happen was worked out by one skinny, bald-headed U.S. Army sergeant first class who had ten years in the country. Stan Reber did more than any other to untie the transport knot at Goma. He is not mentioned in the JTF After Action Report.

As for the rest of the JTF in Entebbe and Kigali, they would continue their efforts. Yet they had also already achieved a very real success. The deployment of UNAMIR II was a separate but parallel operation. The focal point for the U.N. peacekeepers in August, 1994, was southwest Rwanda and the former French protected zone. Ethiopia had agreed to send a veteran group of Ethiopian soldiers, all former fighters against Menguistu, to Rwanda. They were to replace the French, who had been ordered out by the new Rwandan government. That handoff took place in the last week of August without the feared second refugee exodus. Ultimately the scruffy Ethiopians proved themselves to be the best of the UNAMIR troops. All of this happened due to U.S. assistance in getting the Kigali airport operating and the U.S. airlift. Operation Support Hope did a lot of other things during its existence. It would do more before the final teams pulled out in late September. But the Operation had already achieved its main tasks: it had stopped the dying in Goma, and it had deployed UNAMIR II.

So as I listened to the briefing, I was not offended, outraged, or even disappointed in the premise of the message. I thought it curious we were not keying on what we had done to stop the dying. The rest of it—return refugees to Rwanda and do something about the security situation—was not on the JTF's mission list. It was on mine, however.

En route to the United States for consultations, Ambassador David Rawson had elected to stop in Goma to get a firsthand look at the refugee situation. I had heard much about David. Ambassador to Rwanda when the war broke out, David had managed to get all his staff and their families out of the explosive situation without loss. That alone made him something special. Prior to assuming the ambassadorial posting, he had been instrumental in setting up the failed Arusha Accords. At the beginning of his career, he had been the embassy consular officer who carried Dianne Fossey's mail up to Karisimbe. In his youth, David had been the son of missionaries working among the Hutu in Burundi. No U.S. official had more of a personal stake in achieving a negotiated peace at Arusha. When the accords failed and the genocide began, no U.S. official suffered more than David Rawson.

It was the measure of the man that he had gone back in to reopen the embassy. Now he was headed back to the States to update Washington on the situation. Tony Marley, as his acting defense attaché, had suggested to David I come over when finished in Zaire. I had agreed on what was supposed to be a ninety-day temporary duty. At the time I still expected my next official posting would be to Haiti. So as I met David for the first time I never expected we would serve together over the next sixteen months. We drove north into the camps, and I could see he was disturbed. Refugee camps are hardly news in Africa. David had seen them before. But as he looked out at Kibumba he said, "This is not going to go away. This is long term. The war is not over."

That simple assessment marked the beginning of our partnership. I told him I would join him in Rwanda by mid-September. We shook hands, and he boarded the plane and left.

If there is one thing U.S. troops do faster than anything else, it is redeploy. Called "smelling the barn," U.S. soldiers lose all pretense of GI grumbling when told they are going home, especially when they are going home from a place like Goma. Once it was apparent that was happening, Stan and I shifted to the same mode. We had already put Nash on a flight to Chad. The Jeep was back in Kinshasa, and we were down to just Stan and I along with Kate. She was staying as the DART representative. DIA had approved State and Rawson's request for me to go to Rwanda as a temporary military representative. They had stepped up my replacement's arrival, the defense attaché in Liberia. We had been in correspondence for several months.

After forty days I was ready for a change, even if it meant Kinshasa. The JTF was all but gone. The focus of U.S. operations was on Kigali. The quicker I got back, the quicker I would be in Rwanda. We had loaded the Isuzu with supplies and, with Saleem's approval, parked her in the garage at the lake house until Stan and I returned to drive her to Kigali. Stan and I made a 5 p.m. flight to Kinshasa. Finally we could say, "Goodbye, Goma!"

Transitions and Goodbyes

Our deluxe flight to Kinshasa was on one of Saleem's 707s. We had seats, but two Zairian military officers had shown up with female companions, so we surrendered our seats. We did not care. We went into the 707's cargo hold and stretched out on a pallet of beans. Soon asleep, we woke briefly at the interim stop at Kisangani. Neither of us got up. We lay there like two cats, each with an open eye watching our kit bags until we resumed flight. When we sensed we were descending into Kinshasa, we roused ourselves and got ready to debark.

Not a passenger flight, the 707 halted on the apron far from the main terminal. It was night, and there were no lights around us. We saw our Cherokee approach and headed toward it. A self-declared customs inspector stepped in our way and stated we had to go through customs and immigration. Stan and I looked at each other and then at this guy. He now had several assistants, all eager to get in on the action. They were all baggage handlers looking to score. We pulled our diplomatic passports, and Stan, in Lingala, told them to get lost. They knew they had been made and stepped aside. Life in Kinshasa had not changed.

The next two weeks were a period of transitions and good byes. Some things bear telling as they relate to the rest of my story. First I got to finally meet the rest of my Goma team. The air force sergeant who met us at the airport had done great work handling the Kinshasa end of our airlift. He soon returned to Cameroon. I also got to meet Commander Grant and her husband. She and I had talked on the cellular many times. Grant had done an equally fine job getting the details right in messages back to Washington. She told me the stay at my house had been a sort of honeymoon for her and her husband. They too were soon headed back to their post in South Africa.

I also had the opportunity to meet a new team member. Lt. Col. Jim Cobb flew in from Youandé. He had just arrived in Cameroon when the Goma refugee crisis had exploded. His predecessor had been Lt. Col. Charles Vukovic. Chuck Vukovic and I had as FAO trainees in 1984 made a six-thousand-mile road trip through most of southern Africa. Since USDAO Youandé had responsibility for Rwanda, Chuck had been in Kigali when the war resumed. He had since gone on to a new assignment, and Jim Cobb was his replacement. Cobb and I agreed he should go on to Rwanda until I could get there. We were both under the assumption I would only be there ninety days. Then as the regional defense attaché responsible for the country, Jim would continue to cover Rwanda with periodic visits from Cameroon.

Part of the period was taken up by folding back into the embassy. The second day after I got back was the day for the embassy staff meeting. These were held in the large conference room rather than in the plastic bubble reserved for the inner policy makers. The chargé looked at me and said, "Tell us about Goma, Tom."

I led with, "The Rwandan Civil War is not over. It has merely shifted to the refugee camps outside the country." The chargé made faces for the rest of my talk. I clearly did not convince him. Then as we were leaving, the station chief turned to me and whispered that he knew there were no Dragons in Goma. Stan and I had seen the Dragons in Goma. Based on those two comments, I realized the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa remained unchanged.

Meanwhile the replacements for Stan and me arrived. The new defense attaché moved into my house, and Stan's took over the sergeant's quarters. Stan and I shifted to an empty apartment. My final comment on Zaire deals with one of the hardest things I had to do: say goodbye to Stan. Family health problems forced him to withdraw from the mission to Rwanda. I was not happy to be leaving him behind. He had another couple of months to go on his tour. I sensed my replacement would never allow him to operate as I had done. The new defense attaché felt operations coordinators were best used behind a desk. That was not Stan's style. An officer had never had a better sergeant than Stan Reber nor a more trusted friend and comrade. I boarded another Saleem special to Goma wondering what I would do without him.

THOMAS P. ODOM is a graduate of Texas A&M University. He served as an army strategic scout for over fifteen years, with five tours in the Middle East and Africa, and as the U.S. Army’s intelligence officer on the Middle East during the first Gulf War. Among his previous publications are two books on hostage rescues in the Congo. He is a coauthor of the U.S. Army’s history of the Gulf War.

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